Make Your Bed! Or Not

What Facebook post of yours has garnered the most comments? Birth of a baby? Engagement announcement? Wedding pictures? Asking your friends to comment about their bed-making practices??

I wouldn’t even know how to do this.

Last week I asked my Facebook friends if they make their beds every day. Why or why not? The response was overwhelming. I had no idea that people were so opinionated and passionate about their daily bed-making habits. I won’t go into detail about why I asked the question. It has to do with a book our church will be studying together and of which I will be leading the discussion on the chapter entitled “Making the Bed.” Though some would say, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness” that is decidedly not the focus of the book. Rather, it’s about how to relate the ordinary events of our days to practices that can help us to draw closer to God. I can’t give away my thunder because I haven’t taught the lesson yet. And I don’t yet know what I’ll say. The book is The Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Warren and it’s excellent.

Back to the opinionated Bed-Makers and Non Bed-Makers—Most of the Bed-Makers feel more organized and put-together when they make the bed. For some of them, it’s a small housecleaning task that is actually accomplishable. Some use their bed for tasks like folding laundry which is more easily done on a made bed.

Non Bed-Makers only make their beds if company is coming over and might glimpse their unkempt bedding. Or they make their beds after their sheets are freshly laundered. Some refrain from making their beds so as not to disturb their pets that take up residence on the bed after the humans vacate it each morning.

Interestingly, many of the Bed-Makers claim a psychological grounding that results from making the bed. Yet at least one Non Bed-Maker said the same is true for herself; making the bed feels oppressive because it’s a task that would only get repeated over and over. This caused me to reflect on other household chores and what makes bed-making unique. After all, dishes need to be washed every day. Clothes need to be cleaned weekly. Floors need to be vacuumed. Yet all of these items get dirty again, sometimes even immediately. I guess the main difference with a bed is that no one else will see it. In my sample size of one (myself) I’m much less likely to do tasks that are less noticeable. Does this mean if I lived alone I’d be wallowing in filth?? We may never know!

I think an interesting follow-up question to the bed-making is to connect personality types to Bed-Makers and Non Bed-Makers. Is there a correlation? Introvert vs. Extrovert? Myers-Briggs? Enneagram? If you have enough time to make your bed every day maybe you have enough time for a sociological study on the side.

Relatable.

Some respondents were kind(?) enough to share some theories on dust mites and bedding. As the theory goes, dust mites are repelled by light and air and love dark and damp. So making your bed immediately after waking is making those little buggers ever so happy! Like tucking them in Night-Night every morning. I don’t know if it’s true or not but it was enough to wig me out so now Tom and I pull our covers to the end of the bed every morning. Which has had the unexpected result of turning us into daily Bed-Makers because now the bedding is trailing over the foot of the bed!

Whichever camp you align with, embrace it proudly! There is no right or wrong when it comes to bed-making habits. Unless you work in a hotel.