Covert Mom: Dust My Broom

By Mariah Mottley

We have a hand me down kitchen island. It helps to lessen traffic in our kitchen, which is often congested. Lunchlandia, I call it. The work area, where one might roll out dough, is where the children make their lunches for school. It is a minefield of sticky dried jelly spots and peanut butter smears. Before they dried, they sprouted dog hair.

The only real conversation my husband and I seem to have with the children on school nights is: “Did you make your lunch? Did you?” But my son wouldn’t. Couldn’t.
Couldn’t find the bread, his shoes. Couldn’t empty his lunchbox. I told him to get his backpack off the kitchen floor but he wandered away. Found him making blasting noises by the Legos.

He’s burnt out. School’s a grind. Long days inside, not enough time outside, too many rules. I asked him why he was ignoring me.
“It’s too boring,” he said. “Everything is boring.”
The sound effects began again.
“You need a play day,” I told him.

We try to give each kid a mental health day when they need it. He needed it. I checked my planner. Tomorrow would work.
But it didn’t. He wouldn’t play by himself. A whole day, and he wouldn’t play by himself. He opened and closed the refrigerator, nagged me about watching Ninjago. Bumped me in my desk chair.
“I need a tablet so I can be entertained,” he announced.

I sat him down on the sofa, told him that what he needed was an attitude readjustment.
“I don’t care if your friends have tablets. I’m not buying you one. It will shred what little ability you have to concentrate. My job is not to make sure you’re properly entertained. My job is to make sure you have a tolerance for life. And when life isn’t terrifying, it’s boring. Pay attention, and it won’t be. ”
He glowered.

I told him he could have a tablet when he could make his lunch and put away his laundry without being told. When he knew all his multiplication facts and had read a Stephen King novel. When he could bake a decent loaf of bread. When he could diagram a sentence. When he could name the first 20 digits of pi. For now, he could clean off Lunchlandia, those sticky spots were driving me nuts. I got him a sponge, green and yellow, one side for scouring.
He swiped vaguely, said they wouldn’t come off. I took the sponge and squeezed the water out over the fuzzy spots. Gestured to him to give the others the same treatment.

“We’re gonna let these soak,” I said. “So set the timer on my phone.”
I unlocked the screen and handed it to him.
“Five minutes. No, not YouTube. We all know Charley bit his brother. Five minutes. Do not film me. Is it set? While we’re waiting, let’s sweep. You do the linoleum, I’ll do the wood.”

I handed him a broom, began a brisk pile of bark by the wood stove.
“Be sure to get all the way into corners,” I turned my back to demonstrate.
But he was shooting the refrigerator magnets at one another. Now that we were doing chores he was ready to play by himself.
“Yo!” I yelled. “Get the dustpan!”

His eyes kept going other places. I swept most of his pile into it, told him to finish. Went back to the hearth. Now he was near the record player, lips moving, dustpan still on the floor, full. I ushered him back to the kitchen.
“That’s it?” I asked, picking it up. “You couldn’t even empty it?”
He eyed me, unwilling to incriminate himself with an answer.

I emptied the food and dust back onto the floor. His mouth fell open in shock, the rubber bands visible on his braces.
“Why did you do that?” His green eyes were round like marbles.
He was paying attention, at least. It had been an instinct, and possibly a masochistic one. I checked myself, the frustration flowing in my veins.
“Take pride in your work,” I handed him back the dustpan. “Sweep the floor again.”

I went back to my section, thinking of an office with a water cooler, and clean bathrooms, a paycheck with four digits.
He swept, slower this time. Emptied the dustpan in the trash. The timer went off. Five minutes. It had only been five minutes. I handed him the sponge and pointed back at the dried jam. Resigned, he moved the sponge back and forth on Lunchlandia’s counter, then started.
“Mom, it came off! Look! On the first try!” He wiped all the spots, quickly now.

When my husband got home later that evening, Winnie showed him the clean workspace.
“I did it myself,” he said, pointing. “With water.”
– – –
Originally from Manhattan, Mariah was educated in Massachusetts, Montana and Texas, often by failure. She lives with her husband and three children in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York. Mariah can be reached at mariah@mariahmottley.com.