The Unmade Bed and the Fall of Civilization

I didn’t make my bed, and as I drove away from home, I remembered it and felt a pang of guilt. It’s not the end of the world, I rationalized. How many people actually take the time to make their beds, anyway? I haven’t always been good about it, it’s just that I realized I like that small spot of order in an otherwise chaotic, uncontrollable world. I might not be able to predict the course of my morning commute, but at least my bedcovers are smooth and inviting when I finally return home.

My mind being what it is, the rest of the ride to work was occupied with wondering just how many people do bother to make their beds, and whether it could be considered an accurate indicator of the state of society. Are made beds, like men’s hats and women’s gloves, a sign of a more mannerly and refined time that has passed us by? I could conduct a poll, but the very tools I’d use to promote such a thing would bias the results. I know, for instance, that none of my children make their beds every day. It’s not something I’ve emphasized to them, unlike ‘brush your teeth! Use soap in the shower! and Drink more water!’ as I try to raise them from child barbarians into productive members of society. I’m a lax mother. I could have stood over them insisting they square their corners, and scrub the floors, and polish their shoes, but… I’m not even sure they know how to iron. I do – I learned in Civil Air Patrol so I could maintain my uniform. It was a point of pride. And like the bed-making, I slowly learned that it was a little thing I could do that would make me feel inordinately better.

Because in the scheme of things, the made bed is a tiny speck of insignificance. A matter of moments every day in a lifetime adds up to nothing much comparative to the moments that really matter: the birth of a child, a marriage ceremony, a death. So many moments in life are significant, the hinges in time that alter the course of our lives. Not making the bed. There’s no reason at all I should fret over it. I shouldn’t – and didn’t  – turn back and make it up on a work morning. But is it a symptom of something else?

When I was a very young mother, struggling to cope with managing babies, the house, and a running a business from home, I found the Flylady and her simple philosophy helped me come to grips with the seeming insurmountable task in front of me. Shine your sink, put on your shoes… you can do anything for fifteen minutes. And there were times I couldn’t even manage that much. But I can do anything for five minutes. I can make my bed with a baby in one arm and a single free hand. I can use the tiny successes of a sink full  – not all! Just one sink at a time, on a bad day – cleaned to move me forward and keep me from miring in the slough of despond. Making my bed, like getting properly dressed, made me feel like I wasn’t worthless and useless. Some days, that was all I had, and in the end, it was enough. Because it was a  baby step, until I learned to walk easy, then run, then…

Society seems to be slipping into the abyss of hopelessness. The First Reader rants at length about how when he was a boy, you couldn’t wait to get out of your parents’ house and be independent. Presumably, to no longer be required to make your bed every morning – no, you could choose to make it, or not. But now, he points out based on what we see around us, most of the kids want to stay safe with Mommy and never leave home to have to worry about supporting themselves. I see it a lot in the comments online in various places, the sense that our world is too hard, and why put effort into it? Young people feel like the best is behind us. Mentally, they are wallowing in the unmade bed and saying ‘why bother? I just get back in it tonight and sleep and mess it up again. What’s the point?’

The point isn’t that nothing stays clean for long. Housework is a constant in any life. Even if you never do it, you’ll just die crushed under a stack of refuse in your own home. The point is that you took control, just a little, and you made your world better, just a little. And with the cumulative effort of bed making, and showing up to work on time, neat, and ready to put forth more effort, you can improve your life. And when you improve your life, you’re strong enough to reach out a helping hand to a friend in need. Even if that’s just going to their house when they’re incapable and making sure the dishes got done today. And that web of friends helping friends is what strengthens society in general.

Civility. Formal politeness in behavior or speech. We focus a lot on the loss of manners, on incivility in speech. But how much do we look at the little behaviors that hold together what we consider to be civilization? Making our beds? Driving with caution and courtesy? Running a business ethically and legally? The small patterns of our life add beauty to the bigger tapestry of our total existence.


Comments

21 responses to “The Unmade Bed and the Fall of Civilization”

  1. I go for the unmade bed, at least for a while as I prefer to have any dampness (perspiration happens) dry out rather than be covered and provide a dark, moist, somewhat warm incubator for things I’d remain dormant or die off. Now, a couple hours later, if I am still about, that’s another matter. I do, certainly, understand the idea of having at least one bit of organization in the day as a “Well, at least THAT much was withing my control and I set it thus.”

    1. I suspect that a little fluffing of blankets from the ‘nest’ is in order, though. Otherwise you have the same problem in more random patterns.

      1. A bit of further ‘unmaking’ is a Good Idea, imo, yes.

  2. Sub Spike Avatar
    Sub Spike
    1. I had not! He says it much more concisely and eloquently than I did. Thank you.

    2. E, ROBOT Avatar
      E, ROBOT

      I’ve never seen this video, but it knocked my socks off. Thanks, I needed that today.

  3. FlyLady! I still have my timer. And I’m still a horrible housekeeper but I can clean a sink. Sometimes that’s enough.

    1. Yes it is. I’m not a housekeeper. I’ve come to that conclusion slowly and somewhat painfully. But I’ve also learned the shortcuts to keep the house orderly so I have time to do the more interesting stuff rather than tedious boring cleaning stuff.

    2. Melissa Feagins Avatar
      Melissa Feagins

      Same. I use my timer when I feel overwhelmed and I still tell my kids that “a load a day keeps chaos away.” (Actually it’s two loads, one in the clothes washer and one in the dish washer.)

  4. Draven Avatar
    Draven

    most of the kids that think like that are that way because the schools and mass media have done nothing but tell them how horrible we are and how the best is behind us. Apparently, 1992 and 1993 were our best.

    1. yep. And it’s not true.

  5. Our broken-hearted culture spends a lot of time and effort on teaching young people fear and hopelessness. Home is a haven from that. The larger world is full of hate crimes, inequalities and impending catastrophes of various kinds, at least, according to what is being thrown at the poor little boogers whenever they stick their noses into the world. No wonder they want to stay at mom’s house!

    I’ve been spending a lot of time with my son trying to show him that the world is exactly what he can make of it, despite the rampant hatred and and how much of what he makes for himself will be based on his will alone. I hope it’s enough.

    The unmade bed is a funny thing. I hate making my bed. I grew up with fur blankets- Making your bed was a matter of folding the blanket at the foot of the bed and putting the pillow in place, and an earful at dinner if we forgot. As a married adult, it’s much more challenging. sheets, blankets, comforters… and why the hell do we have 9 pillows on the bed, 5 of which have to go on the floor every night? Still, in the morning, if we get out of bed at the same time, we make the bed together. Otherwise, last one out makes the bed. It just feels better.

    And I think that’s the point. Establishing order for people who like order, or otherwise can’t have it elsewhere in their life. Not craving the order of a made bed might be a sign of comfort and a feeling of security…or just laziness, I dunno. After moving out of my parents’ house, I don’t think I made my bed until I got married… and yet after every brutal day on my lobsterboat, I’d spend 30 minutes scrubbing the daylights out of everything. Couldn’t go home otherwise.

  6. Civilization – any civilization worthy of the name – is order out of chaos. Making the bed, cleaning one sink, straightening up the books on one shelf, tidying part of the closet, getting one folder of documents in order at work, they are all creating pockets of order and accomplishment. And you did something, accomplished one thing at least in the day that is concrete and that you can point to.

    The younger set are surrounded by chaos. They want order, but don’t know how to begin making it themselves. And so they fall prey to despond, and to those who thrive on chaos as a cover for their own warped sort of order.

  7. No child ever died of an unmade bed.

  8. Turtle and Trees Avatar
    Turtle and Trees

    Problem solved: the bed is always made. I sleep on top of the comforter with a light blanket. Morning: fold blanket(or not), stack pillows, done. Sometimes I sleep on the sofa.(I have a giant sofa).

    1. I just have a light blanket and sheet at this time of the year. It’s easy to just flip it up and over the pillows.

  9. I agree with all your sentiments, especially in the closing paragraph.
    …but I still don’t make my bed.
    I’ll do dishes and clean the bathroom, but that bed is staying the way I left it, waiting to welcome me back.
    A made bed is a stranger.

  10. I’m pretty sure the only reason to make a bed is to keep pets from tracking dirt between the sheets.

    I make my bed.
    When I don’t, the dogs leave me reminders that I should.

    1. Hah! I banned the dog from our bed the day I came home to distinct muddy paw-prints on my pillow. I still find her on the couch from time to time, but never again on the bed.

  11. Yes…a thousand times, yes…