Guilt or Fear

Apparently against the use of bribery as motivation to clean, Mother would choose between guilt or fear. If she chose the fear route, she would tell us that we surely will be taken away and put in a foster home if child services got a look at that bathroom sink. If she decided to guilt us, we were told that our cluttered bedroom floors were endangering firemen’s lives. They would inevitably trip over my clothes and fall into the junk-fueled flames engulfing our home. Early on she figured out guilt was more effective, and so she now employs it regularly.