One of the most astounding aspects in the adoption of older children, besides the mass destruction of anything and everything, has been the trash.

I walk around outside my house with a Wal-Mart bag, picking up trash that was dropped without any forethought about littering, someone’s possessions, or simply taking care of things.

Especially younger kids who forget it was in their hands anyway and they just drop it on the ground. I’d even implemented a rule about this. “No, you can’t eat that outside,” knowing they’d just throw the wrapper on the ground. But why are there stuffed animals up in the tree branches or coat hangers in the front yard? There are yogurt cartons in the chicken coop that the roosters did not carry outside since I know they can’t reach the spoons that are also lying in the nesting boxes.

It happens in the house also and it drives me bonkers. A kid, holding a piece of paper, gets distracted and the paper falls to the floor. Does that not bother anyone around here but me? Then they, and at least 60 other kids, seem to walk by it and not pick it up. Am I the only one who bends?

I noticed this phenomenon years ago when an eight year old moved in, the youngest of four siblings, and the paper parade began. That was nearly 20 years ago, my introduction in the wanton, unthinking response to stress that seemed to always involve trash. A very large bean bag chair, in his bedroom, allegedly exploded spontaneously, and the little white balls clung to everything in the house for years thereafter.

My van looks like I’m on the way to a paper recycling convention, the kid’s bedrooms produce more useless paper than any legislative session in Washington DC, and the kitchen seems to be in worse shape than any room in the house. What’s up with this?

I can only describe it, truly believing I’m not alone, that this is common to others as well? I know that my traumatized children aren’t as anal retentive as I used to be about clutter, paper and stuff. I realize that their own earlier priorities, such as survival, took precedence over organizational skills, and I truly understand the depths of their pain. Yet to be successful in life, on any level, one has to overcome some faults. Combatting constant littering would be a small place to start.