Without warning, a strange phenomenon is occurring in your home. Your personal items are turning up in the most bizarre places. You discover your keys in the clothes hamper. Your mobile phone finds its way into the trash can. Your baby’s bottles are vanishing. The video tapes you tucked neatly under the entertainment center are disappearing and magically reappearing in odd places all across the first floor of your home. If these things are happening to you, you may be the victim of magnet syndrome.
The American Heritage dictionary defines “syndrome” as “a complex of symptoms indicating the existence of an undesirable condition or quality.” If you’ve experienced any of the symptoms I’ve described above there is a great possibility that you may also have the undesirable condition of an untidy home. Blame it on the “Magnet.”
I currently have an 11 month-old magnet named Daniel. Yet I guess it’s unfair to single him out because each child of mine was a magnet between the stage of crawling and age two.
If I may refresh your memory, an ordinary magnet is an “object that is surrounded by a magnetic field and that has the property, either natural or induced, of attracting iron or steel.” Well, my child—and perhaps yours too—is actually a super magnet whose magnetic field attracts not only iron and steel, but plastic, cloth, aluminum, and just about anything his little hands can carry. Did I mention I found an ink pen in the VCR?
Now I am not a clean freak. However, I believe in being neat. And my mother raised me to live out the expression “everything has its place.” So since keeping my house squeaky clean isn’t a very attainable goal for me right now, it is sometimes frustrating that I can’t even keep things as neat as I’d like.
If you don’t have children you may not understand the complexity of the magnet syndrome. It requires constant picking up, putting away, reorganizing, and the ultimate—search and rescue mission. “Okay, everybody, let’s find the baby’s pacifier!” Magnet syndrome requires as much energy by the adults in the home as it does the Magnet perpetrator. The only difference is the Magnet doesn’t need energy for much else. I have to perform magnet patrol as well as cook, clean, wash, feed, bathe, clothe, change diapers, etc. Plan on stopping over for an unexpected visit? Please give me 20 minutes notice!
So what’s the solution? If you are certain that you are a victim of magnet syndrome, try this five-step program: 1) Repeat after me, “It’s not my fault.” It took me a while to admit that my short-comings as a person weren’t to blame for infant shoes in the diaper caddy; 2) Expect to perform—and build in time for—magnet patrol as part of your daily duties. Unless you’re able to put your entire home on lock-down and have no loose parts, your little Magnet will transfer items from one place to another in your home—the problem is you never know where the items may end up. So create “clean up breaks” every couple of hours or so to avoid the dreaded mass clean up before bed time; 3) Get the entire family involved in magnet patrol. I’ve trained my five and three year-olds to stay on the look out for misplaced items and put them back in their place. They know they are responsible for helping clean up their baby brother’s mess; 4) Make sure none of the loose items in your home are particularly harmful—or at least toxic. Granted, just about anything can be harmful if used the wrong way, but make sure the toxins are locked away or better yet, eliminated from your home all together; and 5) Learn to enjoy your little magnet. My Magnet just loves being able to grasp objects, study them and walk them to another, more desirable location. It’s one of the signs that he’s growing up and it makes him proud. He’ll snatch up your empty mug and smile all the way to the toy box. So, relax. Take it easy and get that camera ready. You’re bound to capture a “Kodak moment.”
Copyright ©2004 by Anita S. Lane
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