A Clean Room is a Sad Room

Why It’s a Bad Idea to Keep Your Room Clean


We’ve all heard it in one way or another: the seemingly constant nagging from your parents to get your room clean. Some parents may go so far as to punish a child for keeping a blowzy bedchamber. You’ve heard all the arguments for keeping your bedroom clean – mostly because your parents said so, and Mom is scary when she’s angry – but what about arguments against it? Unless your parents are foolish enough to let you have everything you want, “I don’t wanna!” just doesn’t cut it as a good rebuttal. Below are a few reasons why it really is a bad idea to tidy your bedroom once in a while. Whether you use them to refute your parents is your choice, but I won’t be held responsible for any punishment you get out of it.

Nearly everyone has experienced those Saturdays during the spring when your mother wants you to go outside to work in a garden or mow the lawn or do an errand, but you were up late the previous night either surfing the web or watching television, and you really do not want to get up with the sun? Well, if your room’s filthy enough, your mother will be too tired to wake your little butt up for a long day of physical exercise without the help of friends. Instead, your grande dame will content herself with shouting at you from your bedroom door, leaving you free to pretend to still be asleep. A couple groggily murmured monosyllables later, your mother will leave, and you’ll be free to catch a few extra Z’s before your father comes in and you have to get up for real. You can then spite your parents by dragging yourself through your morning routine, pretending to have misplaced your toothbrush and take a few extra minutes looking for your other sock. You should, however, do a good job on your yard work or errand; it’ll let your parents know that it’s okay to let you sleep in, and they’ll be more likely to give you that extra ten dollars to go skating with your friends later in the evening. But I digress.

Anyone who’s kept their personal living space unorganized knows how much easier it seems to find things in a messy place than in an organized one. They tend to freak out a bit if we don’t have that extra pair of underwear hanging out their shirt drawer, or that additional pair of socks on their headboard. Perhaps it’s their way of rebelling from the overly organized, monotonous plodding of everyday life, or they feel that it’s easier to relax in a room filled with their own familiar clutter and fragrance, that it’s hard to find repose in a room where everything is spotless and immaculate. Or maybe they’re just lazy. Someone who keeps their living space is obsessive compulsively organized and unsullied would never understand what it means to have a feeling of coming home when they go to their bedroom to study or read or simply relax after a long day at school, how refreshing it is to swipe empty soda cans and potato chip bags into an overflowing trashcan in order to have room to write that thousand word long essay for English class on why it’s a bad idea to keep their room clean.

It’s easy for a child to go without getting enough exercise. Since people seem to believe that no home is complete without a computer with Internet access, at least one television, either cable or satellite service, a DVD player, VCR, and about five different video game consoles, all a kid has to do to find entertainment is plop their butts onto an easy chair with a remote and video game controller. I feel the need to stress the importance of getting physical exercise at every opportunity. A clean, obstacle-free floor just does not provide a good opportunity for physical exertion. A dirty floor covered in clothing, toys, books, and who knows what else, however, is a wonderful chance to stretch those legs at least twice a day as you make your way to and from your bed and around your room to get dressed. You have to step over many things, around things, on things . . . it can be pretty physically taxing, going through your morning and evening routines.

A clean room would also be a bad idea for the manic depressive type of person. What if a teenager, who is already under enough emotional stress to kill a young horse, were to try and clean their pigsty of a room, only to find out what a dirtball he was and, in a fit of self pity and loathing, hung himself with a pair of old jeans?  As if parents didn’t have enough things eating holes in their pocket books! A decent funeral nowadays costs at least one thousand dollars. With the economy in the state it’s in, do you really think a parent can afford an extra thousand bucks out of the blue like that? I didn’t think so.

Do you want another reason? Children are our future. We all know how messed up and corrupted the American government is; they just hide it behind a clever set of lies so the common person doesn’t know just how badly our past presidents have messed up. If everything was laid out, nice and organized, for all to see, most of this country would die of shock. By not cleaning their rooms, children learn to lie, cheat, and steal, then to hide their mistakes under a layer of recently laundered clothing.

In conclusion, it is a bad idea to clean your room for many reasons. Be it spiting your parents or your own chaotic form of organization, physical exercise, emotional and economical stability, or politics, tidying your bed chamber is an activity to be avoided at all costs. So throw your clothes on the floor, let your waste paper basket overflow, miss the hamper with your dirty clothes and clutter your desk with papers. You now have no excuse to listen to your parents and actually get off your butt and clean something. Go outside and play, study, watch some television... anything but tidying up. I highly recommend it.