Mom took heat for cleaning her teen's bedroom. Her response was a lesson in grace.
She won the #CleanTok controversy.
"It costs you nothing, and it creates this ripple effect of kindness."
The corner of the internet devoted to grime and muck being scrubbed away to oh-so satisfying perfection, otherwise known as #CleanTok, is mostly wholesome, cathartic fun. But every once in a while, controversy comes in.
For a mom named Audrey (who clearly has a passion for cleaning hacks, given her TikTok handle of @organizedchaos4), that moment came after she filmed herself doing a deep clean on her 12-year-old daughter’s room. Several people chimed in to accuse her of spoiling her kid, essentially.
Granted, Audrey admitted that she had posted the video “hoping that the trolls would get those thumbs a-movin’.” So when they did indeed come after her, she was ready.
“I surprised my daughter by cleaning her room for her. She's been getting herself up for 6 a.m. practices, she gets herself to school, she's out of the house before the rest of us have even woken up,” Audrey says in the clip.
“Keep in mind she's 12. In return for all that she's been doing, I thought it would be a nice treat if I just did a quick speed clean of her room. It was no big deal.”
Audrey goes on to say that the point of her follow-up video was to reiterate the importance of “extending grace.”
@organizedchaos4 When we throw empathy out the window, we throw grace out the window. If you saw the video and your first reaction was to say, “why isn’t she doing it herself?” Ask yourself, “have I EVER left a room messy because I was overwhelmed, tired, busy?” If so, then you are in no position to judge a child for the same thing. #grace #kindness #help #parenting #cleaning #kids #mom ♬ original sound - Organized Chaos | Audrey
That's what I did for my daughter. She had fallen behind on her room and I helped her.,” she says. “It costs you nothing, and it creates this ripple effect of kindness. We all have setbacks, we all have failures, we all make mistakes and if you say you don't you're lying. By extending grace we are spreading kindness, we are spreading compassion. If you can't extend grace to your own children then there's no way you're going to extend it to anyone else in the world and that's a scary world to live in.”
Audrey then argues that being kind to others often makes it “easier” to be kind to ourselves, which is “vital for our mental health.”
She then concludes, “so if you watched the video yesterday or you're watching this one today and you're thinking negative thoughts, ask yourself, ‘Am I quick to judge, be resentful, be negative or am I quick to extend grace or ask yourself have I ever stumbled and wish grace had been extended to me?’”
Down in the comments, we see that Audreynis certainly not alone in her thinking.
“Kindness costs nothing and provides everything,” one person wrote.
“This will only inspire your daughter to keep working hard and give back when she has a chance to, and know she can rely on you when she struggles,” added another.
Several other moms even chimed in about doing something similar for their kids.
“Exactly I did the same thing for my 23-year-old daughter who works full-time and is a full-time college student. She’s 100% independent. I just want to take some off stress off her plate,” one mom shared
Another said, “I do this for my daughter still, and it's her house.”
As with all things in parenting, balance is key. Of course we don’t want to instill laziness, but at the same time, kids can’t be expected to overachieve in all areas, at all times. Adults can’t even manage this without a little help. Sounds like this is truly a case of a good kid acting as responsibly as humanly possible, and a mom just wanting to help out where she can, all why'll teaching her the world can be a safe place. Hard to see anything wrong with that.