My house gets disgusting and it's embarrassing for my kids

[keenunkempt]

I feel really down because my kids are getting older now and are starting to notice how messy and disgusting our house gets. The worst thing is it's a really nice, newly built house. It's decorated really nicely. If I could keep it tidy it's a gorgeous home for them to grow up in and the last thing they'd need to feel is embarrassed but I just can't seem to do it. I read these posts from people saying they grew up in a messy home and now have the tidiest houses ever, but I'm the opposite, I too grew up in a very messy dirty home and I seem to be replicating it entirely for my kids. I will spend a whole day getting it perfect and it just doesn't last a day. I think I'm just a total slob. I want to be a better mum but can't seem to pull myself together. I don't keep on top of their washing so they have nice clean clothes, I don't keep the house tidy, I don't remember to get things out the cupboard or fridge before they go mouldy, I don't remember to charge their nightlights or put new batteries in their toys so they just stop using them. I want to be a better mum than this and have these moments of achievement but always end up back here. How do I sort myself out?

Also probably not high marks in being interesting. Imagine entering every day by voluntarily ripping the hoover round when you could be joining the dcs in their breakfast table chat. So many posters say emphatically that they don’t let their dcs miss out on any quality time by cleaning but we all have to devote time to it. There are only so many hours in a day and you choose where to stop with it.

I mean fine if a post breakfast hoover session rocks your boat, but being superior about it is a bit much because there are various views.

Would you like a medal?

I'm sure that works for you, but it sounds boring and rigid to me, and having an immaculate house has never been my life's goal.

Poor op you sound v overwhelmed. However to all those saying everyone’s homes are grotty with small kids - not true. Am a v tidy clean person which i guess is a bonus but i build cleaning into my routine and it’s become a habit. Eg as soon as toddler eats (v messy) i wipe over, meaning it becomes part of the eating process, hence i never have to go back & do it later, which may never happen! And when i change him i’ll have antibac wipes handy to do the same with the mat. It means cleaning is built into my routine and isn’t a separate annoying job. I also never go to bed with a messy kitchen- wiping over & putting away toys is part of my nighttime routine. All it is is habit!!

I hoover every morning before work, I also clean the loo and the bathroom, wipe down all surfaces in the kitchen, empty bins etc. This has been my routine for 17 years since I had my eldest child.
I don't find it soul destroying etc, I come home to a beautiful clean home every day!
Quite a few posters have said people whose homes are very clean and tidy with young children are either lying, misremembering, or manically cleaning before guests arrive. I can assure you this is (not always) the case!
My memory of 17 years ago is very clear (I'm only 40!, no memory issues) my house was and is spotless.
It was important to me to have a nice home precisely so we wouldn't end up in OPs situation, I didn't want my kids to be embarrassed bringing friends over, it really stunts their social lives.
I don't care how other people choose to live but convincing yourself everyone else secretly lives like that or that people with clean homes don't spend time with their children (my cleaning is done before the kids wake up!), or that people are forgetting that they lived in a midden when their kids were young are only deluding themselves.
Personally I don't want a medal, I have a nice shiny home instead.

If your kids are old enough to be embarrassed then they're old enough to contribute to cleaning the house.

To offer a different view, would your kids rather their Mum spend hours tidying and cleaning or spend that time cuddling and playing with them?

We also really struggle with keeping things clean when we’re both working, the only things that helped were to massively declutter ( helps when kids switch from toys to devices) and getting a cleaner in once a week - gave us an incentive to tidy up ahead of her arrival. At first we were too ashamed to get a cleaner but it turned out to be a great call.

To offer a different view, would your kids rather their Mum spend hours tidying and cleaning or spend that time cuddling and playing with them?

There is always a happy medium, it’s not all or nothing. If everyone pitches in with the house, there is more time for everyone to do fun stuff together too.

If it bothers them, they can clean it

So with ADHD we don't have the same dopamine receptors that neurotypical brains have. So a task like washing the dishes may give a "normal" people the satisfying dopamine rush but for people with ADHD it wouldn't. Without the dopamine / satisfaction stuff just seems boring.

So I find housework boring. It's necessary but I don't enjoy it, I don't like it and it's boring. So cleaning a small amount won't give me satisfaction. So I wait for it to be more messy and a bigger task so I'll feel more satisfied when I've finished and get my dopamine hit. But then it gets too big and I look at it and don't know where to start so I procrastinate and put it off and it gets worse.

If and when I eventually start it's then so easy to become distracted. So say I'm in the living room and I've gathered all the plates and cutlery, I'll take them to the kitchen. In the kitchen I'll notice the washing machine has finished so I'll put it in the dryer. Then I might go upstairs to get the washing I know is in the bathroom to put another load of washing on. Get to the bathroom and think the toilet needs cleaning. So I'll clean the toilet. Meanwhile I've got a half tidied living room but now have done so much other stuff I'm tired and don't have the oomph and motivation to carry on tidying the living room and think I'll finish it tomorrow, except I don't.

If I manage to actually stay on task I get bored of it very quickly and I can push through to keep going to a point but when I'm 90% done I'll just think, that'll do and stop. Then the cycle repeats.

Also housework is literally never ending. So if I manage to finish, I'll feel really happy and really proud, but I can guarantee within a day it'll be a mess again so I almost get stuck in a what's the point of tidying it just gets messy again mentality.

So for me that's a few reasons how my ADHD impacts my ability to stay on top of the housework.

A dopamine rush for washing dishes ? Don't believe that

it's boring as anything but just has to be done or it goes stinky - getting it out of the way stops it preying (sp?) on your mind which does help relaxation or moving on

I have never had a dopamine rush from washing dishes, or any cleaning task. I actively despise housework. I just do it because it needs doing, and I hate living in filth more than I hate housework.

You can choose two things: Sanity, Children, Tidy House.

Most people try desperately to juggle all three and end up not doing as well as they want to in any of the camps. Aim for a slightly messy house, slightly neglected children, slight dent in sanity.

You are not a bad parent if you don't instantly put batteries in nightlights.

On mouldy food - sit down the night before you do your food shop and plan your meals for the week. You'll be amazed how much veg you don't need to buy. A week when we're eating pasta and stirfries doesn't need lots of green veg for example. What fruit are you're family actually eating etc. If you see reduced stuff at the supermarket, buy it - for the FOLLOWING week's meals. Look at what food you already have in the fridge or freezer. Do you need to buy peppers or green beans or do you already have them? Throw out anything that looks way past its best. Ignore dates on most things in your fridge. This will save you time and money.

Get some form of to-do-list book. I like the ones you use in offices. Give each task a time it will take of no more than twenty minutes. If it's going to take longer, split it into parts (Stuff on Dining Table 1, 2, 3 etc). You can list by urgency or have a room focus for each day or both! Try to do at least two hours worth of tasks a day.

And if you're kids don't like the mess...they are welcome to help!

I think
that lots of people have posted helpful advice on here and you haven’t as yet responded to anyone says it all. Grit your teeth and do something- it’s very tedious keeping the house and children clean and tidy , you’re not unusual in hating it , most people feel the same but just get on with it. I feel particularly sorry for your children if they are very unkempt- other children will be very unkind to them about it as they get older. Perhaps you could explore why you’re making this happen.

I hear you. I find it impossible to keep my house tidy. A lot of this has to do with having ADHD…….overwhelm, procrastination, hyper focusing on one project etc. It gets me down. Not saying this is you……just saying I understand! X

I think the happy medium sums it up. These threads always bring out the “ my house is perfect” boasters; and if they really are perfect ( at least to my standards!) then the balance is likely off somewhere. Focus on getting it clean first OP ( and there aren’t that many things that require daily cleaning: kitchen, bathroom wipe over, one or 2 important laundry loads through essentially) and yours sound old enough to help with those tasks. Get them each a laundry basket in their room. You can even try putting it in a corner of their closet if there’s room so it doesn’t add to the visual clutter. But it doesn’t need to be emptied daily. And so what if there are piles of books or ironing or other “ clean” mess. Just work at those things slowly.

A couple of investments I’ve found super helpful are a second hoover, with one kept upstairs and one down. I think most people don’t mind pushing it round the rooms, it’s the stairs ( lugging it up, hoovering back down etc) that can make it a task to delay. This also means you can conceptually divide the task in two which means it’s easier to face tackling it. It’s a cost upfront but then they both age half as fast and you have a ready back up when one does die. Similarly I keep a mop, floor cleaner and bucket in a bathroom cupboard as it’s so much easier to fill bucket in bathroom, flick mop over floor, empty bucket ( down loo if water was too dusty looking!) . It changes it from a fifteen minute task of carting it all up from laundry cupboard where I used to think “ oh might as well do kitchen, cloakroom loo etc … so add another ten mins and make that more like half an hour) to literally a five minute job tops.

But it’s so easy to make these things straightforward on paper when in reality it’s the unexpected curved balls that throw things off. Some people just seem to have more going on than others. Regardless, be kind to yourself. Housework is very visual but there are probably aspects of parenting less easily pointed to that you are doing a fabulous job with.

That’s really an insight. And what I also notice in your description is that all the right intentions, and even the requisite exertion, are there - which makes sense a bit of self compassion really important.

I think it’s finger pointing posts like this that have driven OP away. She posted feeling down. Not everyone responds best to a “just look how great I am compared with you” treatment.

Oh yes the intentions are there! I absolutely LOVE it when my house is tidy, I really do. I'm actually very Houseproud. I've decorated to a nice standard, had new floors laid in the hall and living room. I'm planning on renovating my kitchen this year and changing the carpet on the stairs (I do it all myself as well BIG dopamine hit there! 😂)

But even that feels like a thankless task when my 4 year old is drawing on my nice white walls 😭 (only one out of the 4 children who has ever drawn on the walls!) And the toddlers toilet training having accidents on the floor, so again I get to what's the point mentality.

But I always push myself to do it, eventually, and always try to do my best when I do get round to it. I just don't do it "regularly" enough or have a good routine of doing it and really struggle with trying to do it that way.

I look for solutions too, like my living room always looked like a bomb hit it covered in toya etc, so I moved my 4 & 5 year old into the biggest bedroom (which was actually my bedroom) so I could put all their toys up there with them. They're still going to mess it up. But it's in their room not in the main room of the house so it doesn't look as bad.

And I know as the children get older things will get easier too. So in the meantime I do the best I can and don't beat myself up over it.

You can access mental health support via IAPT
this is the nhs self referral system.
you’re not an awful mum. We’re alll different.
you can also look on organisation tips and think about the amount of stuff you have.
also
wroting lists helps :)

Get rid of 75% of everything in your house.
Donate, bin, recycle, sell.
Assign everyone a tidy or cleaning task if old enough to handle. Clean the house together, use timers per room with a list of 3 or 4 jobs per room then move to next area. After that keep it minimalist, repeat small, quick cleaning jobs daily or every few days. User to bleach toilet, spray & wipe shower & sink area each use. Have no more than 3 things on a worktop/surface. Dry and put away dishes as they accumulate. Having hardly any clutter and no stuff lying around means far less to organise. Get rid of excess books, bedding, towels, toiletries, crockery, pots etc. It's v liberating.

Minimal Mom on YouTube is brilliant for all things decluttering, routines, and living sanely with small children. She's non-judgemental, kind, empathetic and practical.

I've never met any children who are bothered about the state of houses they visit, and my DCs were never embarrassed to bring friends home. If children feel like that they must be picking it up from adults. While my DH and I avoid having people come in unless we've had time to tidy, it's never been the case with DCs.

I think most children would prefer to grow up in a tidy, clean and organized home - just like most adults. Trying to get things done in a chaotic home is hard enough before you even get to being ashamed to invite friends around. It's just not fair to let it all go to seed while you console yourself that you are somehow a better parent for the grot.

All kids are different, just like all adults are different. My eldest DD hates mess/untidiness/dirt, it stresses her out.