Oh, Messy House

Back in the day, women were housewives and a clean house was held to a higher standard. Women took time to wash everything, even down to the baseboards. Children were left more to their own devices with little ones being confined to play pens and older ones being shooed outside and told to come home for dinner.

Nowadays, many women are in the workplace and many women and men who do stay home with their children focus on being professional parents instead of housekeepers/homemakers. They focus on teaching their children and providing them with experiences, having fun and learning.

Women still do more housework than men even when they work outside the home, but men are starting to step up more and more. Less housework is getting done overall. People simply don't care as much.

My family is no exception to the modern trends. When do I wipe down my baseboards? Ha. They have to be visibly dirty from across the room to warrant such an activity. In my house, I am happy as long as there are enough clean dishes to cook and eat off of for the next meal and clean clothes to wear. A swept kitchen floor is essential too. Everything beyond that is bonus. Vacuuming carpets is often, at best, a monthly activity because picking up all the toys and / or laundry or other clutter is a big task in itself, and my kids hate the noise. Scrubbing toilets and bathroom sinks is done with the occasional free minute here or there, and often in succession with getting my own self showered which is also not a daily activity.

This past Saturday, after a month of being sick and therefore half-assing lots of duties, the mess finally got to a point where I couldn't take it anymore. Something had to be done. It took the better part of the day and required having my husband and children on clutter patrol (a huge task), but the house was swept and vacuumed, toys were picked up and put away, 2 loads of dishes were washed and unloaded, overflowing bowls of frozen compost on the back porch were finally hauled to the compost pile and then the bowls were sterilized, 5 loads of laundry were washed, folded, and put away, random dirty dishes and trash were picked up from the family tv room. Boots and shoes were gathered into the entryway instead of strewn all over the hallway. The result was beautiful and thrilling (in a lame grown up way). It was like a new house. Below is an example.

Only the kids' playroom continues to look like it exploded. But that's ok, it's a toy room. Gradually, but inevitably, the whole house will look like that again until I get totally fed up once again. That is ok too though. I would rather do fun and important things with my kids than have a clean house. No one ever said on their deathbed, "I wish I spent more time cleaning."

So if you come over don't mind the mess, and I know that if you have kids too you understand. If you do mind the mess, let's meet at your house or somewhere else entirely.