Were you embarrassed or proud of your house growing up?

[Worriedaboutcovid19]

Pondering this thought after reading another thread which reminded me.

My mum and stepdads house was very cluttered growing up. Not hoarded, just cluttered. My mum smoked inside the house too so it stank. They weren't the type to spend any money on aesthetics if it wasn't broken. So they wouldn't buy new curtains if her old ones were undamaged or new carpets/sofas even if they were worn out/haggard unless it was broken. So the house was very mismatched as they would replace things when needed without thinking if it was matched.

To clarify we werent particularly hard up for money or anything, it just wasn't a priority to my parents I don't think.

Although the basics were done such as hoovering and wiping down the sides. We NEVER deep cleaned such as dusting, pulling out sofas/microwave/cleaning windows or cleaning skirting boards etc.

When going to friends houses there was always a stark difference. All their houses were cleaned well with soft furnishing and the decor matching. None of their houses stank of smoke. No matter what kind of style their parents had they obviously carried out home improvements. Im assuming if they ever came into any kind of money such as a work bonus or inheritance or something they would use it on home improvements such as decking in the garden or a new kitchen etc. Whereas I don't think it would even cross my parents mind and instead they'd spend it on a holiday or car or something.

The houses all felt like show homes!

Now I'm an adult I realise they weren't emmaculate show homes at all, just that most people enjoy living in a nice home free of clutter and smoke!

I would feel quite embarrassed having friends over after seeing their homes and wonder what they must have thought! The funniest thing is... my mother believes she's house proud!

I've always wondered if anyone ever felt proud of their homes?! Knowing they were lovely and cared for? Or did most kids just not ever think about it as they lived in nicely decorated houses similar to their friends so it wasn't an issue?

As an adult now I have to write a list of deep cleaning things to do every now and again and put it in my diary like cleaning behind the microwave or cleaning the fridge and cupboards. As I didnt grow up doing it, those things don't come second nature!

Can't say I took any notice of my mates houses or them mine. We just hung out where the better snacks were (dependant on shopping day)
When younger I used to like going to one friend because her parents had a fryer and squirty ketchup and my mum did 'posh food' like lasagne
In the teen years mine was the hangout as my single mum worked full time but that was as deep as it went.

My kids (teens) have never mentioned their friends houses apart from they like their farmer friends as can ride quads and stuff and get to sleep in a barn.

Maybe because we live in a smallish town and everyone is very similar in terms of housing it doesn't get noticed as much.

I don’t think I was consciously proud but it would have never occurred to me that I might get judged for my parents house so I guess I must have been somewhat proud. It was very clean, neat, and well-decorated but my friends were always welcome and treated like family.

It wasn’t until I was older, probably secondary school, that I realized that some other people lived in cluttered, smelly and dirty houses. I didn’t ever judge them but it made me feel lucky to have the house I did.

I was embarrassed. My DP's didn't "do" housework or decorating. They couldn't afford to replace ripped up carpets or paint stained walls but they could afford alcohol every day. I just hung out at my friend's houses, I didn't care if the decor was dated, at least their houses didn't have clutter everywhere and swatted flies all over the walls.

This has affected me massively
Although a happy home and loving family, I realise now that all spare money went on fangs and booze. As a primary kid I started to hate all the unwashed dishes in the sink, overflowing ashtrays, unhoovered carpets and loved going to my best friends. I started obsessively tidying my own room (like a hotel room) around the age of 9. I spoke to my parents who just minimised/normalised it.

As a teen things got worse, the kitchen became more shabby, and the sides full of greasy dusty ornaments and crap! dusting was never done, the hob would be filthy for weeks. I mentioned it again and was told to do it myself. So I did a weekly clean down from the age of 14. My Dad sort of did the bathroom each Sunday so it wasn't too bad. I had close friends only ( after I'd cleaned) if they were sleeping over I got up early to empty ashtrays, clean the kitchen sides, put rubbish away etc. Otherwise it was embarrassing.
All of this is ithing compared to the hovel it has become now though. They just will not spend time or money on it.

My childhood house was quite similar to yours, OP. Extremely cluttered and both my parents smoked like chimneys. Their approach to housework could charitably be called casual. It was also freezing cold every winter. As a young child, I didn't really think about the house one way or another. But as I approached my teens, I became quite embarrassed by it.

Perhaps not surprisingly, I have reacted against that kind of environment. My house now is far from a show home, but it is clean and tidy. Clutter makes me feel really anxious, so things are quite organised. Also the house is always warm in the winter.

did most kids just not ever think about it as they lived in nicely decorated houses similar to their friends so it wasn't an issue?

I never thought about it. My parents had a many-period-features 4 bed house (only us 3) in a high income area. We had a cleaner so I never learnt how to clean house. No one regularly cooked - we didn't have fixed meal times or regular hot meals at home together.

My best friend was an immigrant in a poor area, 6 people including 4 kids (both sexes) in a budget 2 bed house. Her house wasn't like mine at all. I had to share a layer on a triple bunkbed with BF when I stayed over (which was often). Loved going round there... I actually can't remember BF spending a single night at my house. Someone was always cooking and me & her parents only part-shared same language. I was probably a mooch & should have contributed some money towards the food. Camping with them was fun, too.

This is why I can't understand DC feeling embarrassed about our home (not very clean coz I don't care). I have zero interest in being house proud. We have different priorities.

Neither at the time but now I feel embarrassed. Both parents smoked, it stunk. Everything was second and crappy.

Yep embarrassed, my childhood home was cluttered, dusty and smokey. The decor was odd, some things were ok and other things were terrible. It seemed like all my friends had much tidier, cleaner homes and I felt awkward about mine. It does impact me as an adult and I still think about it. When I visit now I don't like spending too much time there, it's not smokey anymore and is less cluttered but i don't feel "at home" there. My mum would be horrified if she I felt this way! I try not to be obsessed with cleaning and decluttering in my own home but I know I am and if i had more time I would spend more of it sorting and organising

We lived in very overcrowded conditions until I was about 12. Was hard to have people round but it was the 80's / early 90's and most of my friends were in similar situations (sharing bedrooms was the norm)

Well, yes, but sharing a bed with a sister AND either your aunt or your not-very-continent grandmother wasn't the norm for anyone else in my circles.

It also meant that as my grandmother was in bed during the day she was bedridden I could literally not spend time in my bedroom unless I was actually going to bed, as apart from anything else, the room was so small we had to edge round the double bed.

It made me an adult who is extremely keen on my own space.

Just curious- did any of you grow up in a London flat and felt ashamed? I know that living in flats is quite uncommon in the shires so that would be different, i think.

Mine was a beautiful house, large, detached, clean and tidy.

However the parents were a shit show of DV and horribleness so I was deeply unhappy and not one of my friends wanted to visit.

My kids live in quite a deprived area and we don't have the money to buy new furniture. However, I have put my heart and soul into getting their rooms beautiful and keep their bedding clean. I find lovely vintage pieces which I upcycle and do upholstery for my business so they have nice curtains and sofas.

Creating a warm, comfortable, peaceful and loving home was my life long dream and I achieved it despite being a messy bugger

Embarrassed. We had a big detached house, which was very posh for the area. However inside it was in a bad state of repair. Leaking roof, so often there were damp or mould patches on ceilings. The atmosphere was cold and unwelcoming, we never had family meals, we never done anything as a family. My parents prioritised having a house in a naice area and having naice antiques and naice antique furniture, but were never bothered about the mould growing on the ceilings

My house was a 5 bed, 2 bath detached house with a massive garden. It was spotless and meticulously maintained, we had a cleaner 3 times a week and a gardener once a week. I was indifferent to it and considered it totally normal and quite small and nothing special, It was only when I left my girls private school that I realised just how privileged I had been. I had absolutely no exposure whatsoever to anything other than middle class comfortable life. I just thought we were poor as I was never allowed to go on the school ski trip.

@MrsCrosbyNRTB thank you for your lovely 😊 she is proud but it's the least we could do as she has given so much to us.

Desiringonlychild Yes our first home was flat in London. We were surrounded by poverty, a lot of the people I grew up with have made national news for doing ridiculous things (hate crime, murder, drugs). To give you an idea of the area, we had riots when I was young. Lots of people to play out with, not all nice, you learned to dodge the weirdos and stick up for yourself but if you had a bus pass you could pretty much go anywhere you liked.

I was happier there than I ever was in the new house where I had my own room, because my dad was well then. It was only after he got sick and Mum started drinking that we moved and I became embarrassed about our house. In fact I won’t even say embarrassed, it was more than that, it was a deep shame.

@IamPickleRick well my flat is in a leafy London suburb so I kinda meant more like if you felt worse than your friends who might live in bigger houses. Though I need a million to buy a terraced house in my area.

Thank you for sharing x

No I didn’t really have any friends at that age who didn’t live in a flat or what looked to me to be a similar state. They are all Georgian, 1930’s or flats here and most were in the flats because of the school I was at. So I never felt anything really, I liked the flat (above a shop, not a high rise).

My grandad had a 3 bed flat off Upper Street and tbh at the time my parents always spoke like that was worse than ours. He sold it for barely anything in the 90’s. I’d love to live in a flat like that now but at the time as kids we didn’t really have any idea of differences because all my friends were in similar boats. By the time I was a teenager we had a big house but it was dank!

It’s weird actually, we drove past the house my husband grew up in last week and he remembers it being horrific but on rightmove it had gone up by £1.5 million and been made in to what looked like a mansion If only his family had held on to it for 40 years, we’d have been in the money!

London is a different one these days I think. You have such massive poverty next to gentrification now, but back then it was just the poverty (unless it’s Highgate or something!)

@CallarMorvern this is the problem. I'm enjoying reading the thread and all the different comments but makes me feel upset what my 2 DC will say about my house when older.
I don't plough lots of money into the house but it is modern and their bedroom has been updated in the last 4 years. I instead choose to spend my money on holidays as I feel memories are more important and I drive around in a 13 year old car in order to achieve a few holidays a year.
Now I'm thinking should I scrap the holidays and fun days out and spend on the house.

Mondeofan Nah, I'd stick with the holidays, I think this is one of those things where Mumsnet isn't the real world🙂 We have very few holidays, but I save and I'm hoping DD won't need student loans when she goes to uni.
I talked to DD about our house and she said some of her friends have lovely houses, but they aren't allowed food or drink away from the dining room table, aren't allowed to do their art projects in their bedroom, (she's currently making homemade paper and spray dying it for GCSE) etc. On balance she prefers our house. Her friends sleepover and have pizza in front of the TV in her bedroom.

I don't remember really thinking about it much. The house was usually tidy but not show home perfect or anything. Most of my friend's houses were the same really.

The house I grew up in was always clean and well kept, my parents are still the same now.

A friend of my youngest son said to me "your house is weird!", was a little surprised as it seems normal to me. I asked him why and he said "it's always clean and tidy".

I'm not sure what the house is like inside as I've never been in it, but it looks well cared for on the outside.

I was always embarrassed by our house, although I am now embarrassed that I was embarrassed IYSWIM.
We grew up in poverty & although my DPs both worked really hard to provide for us, neither of them were house proud & only the minimum amount of cleaning ever got done.
My DM very rarely cleaned & I took over the domestic duties from a very early age. I was still cleaning up after her until she died very recently.
As an adult I have made sure our home life is completely different for my dcs. Clean & welcoming has always been my aim. I know my children think my cleaning regime is more than most but they have never known the shame of being unable to invite friends in because the house is a tip.
There is always a theme to these type of threads that you can be either clean or welcoming but not both but I strongly disagree with that.
All my children have felt able to have friends over & now they are adults we have big open house type parties that they love & invite their friends to also, even though they don’t live here anymore.

Not proud, although it was a big home in classical cottage style with plenty of antiques and big soft sofa's in front of the fireplace. It was very clean. So could have been proud if I thought about it. Our home was my "normal". I did have a friend who lived in a cluttered, not very clean house and I didn't like going there and certainly didn't want to eat there. I still have that friend and she now lives in a cluttered, not-so-clean home as well so I kind of feel sorry for her kids knowing that it does matter. Would never mention it of course.

It was clean, neat and tidy. Certainly to look at.

However, my parents were smokers (a pipe smoker and a cigarette chain smoker) so it stank of fags. It was normal to me, and until near adulthood I didn't give it that much thought, but looking back I know it must have stunk of fags. I must have too.

I really loved the house I grew up in with my parents, it was in a nice big cul de sac where I had many friends and we all played out together and they often came to play inside/have sleepovers. It was always kept clean and tidy. We moved into a new house when I was a teen where my parents still live now and it's also lovely. The first house had recently been up for sale and I would of loved to buy it but was slightly over our budget and we live in a different town now. I have very fond memories!