“From the moment we arrived at our friends’ place, the children were off, gone, playing hard in various rooms around the house while us adults sat around a peaceful dinner table and talked. The children paused their games for dinner and then again briefly for dessert. At one point we learned that they’d been upstairs playing ‘Family’ and this involved removing stacks of folded clothes from closet shelves so that each child had a shelf to sleep on. I cringed, picturing my friend folding and stacking all those clothes, but also smiled because, well, of course you need ‘bunk beds’ to properly play ‘Family.’
As the evening drew to a close and I considered the carnage that six children 6 years old and under could do in six hours of mostly unsupervised play, I mentioned something about the mess. Our friend, David, shrugged, smiled, and said, “You know, I figure when you become a parent, cleaning up messes is sort of what you signed up for.”