Can mothers let their children play with Legos on the formal dining room table?

My formal dining room table is covered with Lego bins, and there are Lego’s on the floor and ground into the carpet. Is there a rule for formal dining room use?

Clearly the builder of my house wanted this room used for formal dining and not as a playroom for Lego’s as there is a hanging light in the center of the room.

Usually the Lego’s are only up from the basement storage area for two days, or maybe three, and then I put all of the Lego’s back in the tubs, rake the carpet for Lego hands and heads and put the dining room back into a sterile oasis. Trying to make my house look like a home I saw in a magazine while I stood in the grocery store waiting to pay for my food.

Who made the rules for formal dining rooms?

Okay now, who made the rules for formal dining rooms? Was it an editor in Good Housekeeping? Or maybe Emily Post made the rules? I know it is not in the Bible. There is no commandment about how to use a dining room. “Thou shalt have a formal dining room because the builder designed your home that way.  And though shalt never allow your child to build with Lego’s on the dining room table.”

What is a dining room suppose to look like? What rules are mothers supposed to follow? Is there a rule I should follow? I am a mother. Please tell me.

I have spent years trying to follow the rules. Trying to fit in to what others expect. Yes, even to what I thought my dining room should be used for.

Today I was going to pack up the Lego’s again, rake the carpet for Lego arms and heads and put all the Lego’s back in the basement.

If you spent your life concentrating on what everyone else thought of you, would you forget who you really were? What if the face you showed the world turned out to be a mask… with nothing beneath it?
― Jodi Picoult, Nineteen Minutes

 Are you trying to wear the perfect mother mask?

And then I realized something. I forgot who I really was. What kind of mother do I want to be? What kind of mother am I? What mask had I willingly put on. The perfect mother mask. Perfect mothers don’t let their children play with Lego’s on the formal dining room table.

I don’t want this mask anymore.

I don’t have to put away the Lego’s.

And neither do you.

Do what ever you want to do with your formal dining room.

Please don’t let a builder or a magazine or your neighbor tell you how to use your formal dining room. Please feel free to be yourself.  You have the freedom to use your dining room however you want to.

If you only want to use your formal dining room as a place to eat, go for it. If you want to have Lego’s all over the table, on the floor and ground into the carpet, do it, have fun.

Because life is not a display, and your home is not a show-room.

There are no rules on how you use your house. There are no rules that say you can not turn your family room into an office or your dining room into a sewing station and Lego play area.

Are you living life with a mask on your face? You don’t have to. Be the mother you want to be.

My mask is coming off.

I wonder who I really am?

I think I am the mother with Lego tubs in her dining room. The mother who would rather build a city out of Lego bricks with her children than dust a dining room table that no one uses.

Who are you? What kind of mother are you?

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xo
Love Pamela

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