Is it just me, or is keeping the house tidy basically a full-time job now?

[GlowWithBalance]

I feel like I spend half my life cleaning, tidying, or putting things back where they belong, and the place still somehow looks messy by the end of the day. It’s not even deep cleaning — just the constant stream of shoes, laundry, dishes, school stuff, toys, parcels, and random bits that appear out of nowhere.
I try doing quick tidy rounds, I try doing one big clean, I try ignoring it… none of it makes a dent for more than a few hours. With work, kids, and everything else, it feels impossible to stay on top of.

Is it just you going round tidying up after everybody else OP? If so, why?

My DS was taught from an early age to put his things away and tidy up after himself.

We had a messy boy box that sat at the the bottom of the stairs. Other than that they tidied after themselves we all cleared up after meals so the kitchen was tidy every evening and living room was tidied before bed. My DC put their stuff away more less automatically. It started with a 2 year old learning to put the Brio away and ends with a 16 year old emptying the dishwasher and taking turns to cook meals. I was a working single parent juggling a mortgage a full on job and 2 kids everyone had to pull their weight.

My kids are older now but I have worked full time since they were tiny.
It is hard but definitely not impossible.
I have always got up early (alarm set for 4.45am) to give myself time to clean and tidy before work (husband also has jobs to do!) because I don't want to live in a grotty house.

For me less sleep is preferable if the end result is a clean, functional house.

As the kids are school age, they need to pitch in.
Everyone is capable of putting their shoes away!!

I have been thinking this recently OP. We are never finished tidying. I could spend all of my weekends tidying and cleaning, it's getting me down. To be fair, I have four children who seem to eat constantly and spill stuff on their clothes, so I do lot of cooking, washing up and laundry. This takes away from the time I should be spending decluttering and tidying.

I agree OP. There is SO much involved in running a tidy, organised and clean home. The bigger your house, the harder it is.

Those that dismiss it either have low standards so aren't doing as much (I have been to plenty of houses that are untidy and dirt) or they have integrated into their daily lives so well that they think it's perfectly normal to get up at 4:45 like a past poster to get stuff done. If you spend all the hours before work basically doing this stuff and a lot after work then it is almost a FT job.

I think part of it is that people have more stuff. Especially children, so many toys and often they play in the living area, not their bedrooms.

That was definitely not when I grew up, I had a playroom as my bedroom was so tiny, it didn't even have space for a wardrobe. But no toys in the living room or kitchen.

But when women work then it's about joint responsibility. DH is actually better than I am ensuring stuff is not piling up.
DD is AuDHD and getting her to remember taking things up and putting them away was a battle but we managed to get a system in place; so I would say, it's possible to also train children not to let everything lying around all the time.

@GlowWithBalance your post reads like you feel you are the only one doing this so I would say train your family.

Agree, it's the stuff. I have two dc that get distracted by everything (one does have an ADHD diagnosis) and they sometimes tidy but mostly this involves me having to ask them and follow them as they do it. "Pick up your dirty socks there, no - pick up the dirty socks, no come back and get the socks, look, your dirty socks are there and I've asked you 3 times now can you pick them up. Come back and pick up the dirty socks please"

It's like that for every single item.

So now I just put everything out the charity and I am slowly slimming it down. Dd now has 5 pairs of socks, not 20. She wants a new jumper? Then one jumper has to be put out.

ADHD and autism in the family make it very hard to train your kids to tidy up after themselves. I gave teen DD something to take up to her room when she was walking to the stairs and within 20 seconds she was distracted, put it down to deal with something else and then went upstairs having genuinely forgotten about the item. There's no laziness or malice there, she genuinely can't remember stuff quite often and she doesn't see the mess the way we do.

well yes, you do need to be busy a lot of the day

Our household routine is:

• Mondays - I'm off with my son. Early afternoon, the tidy up.song goes on, and we put everything away.
• Tuesdays - cleaner in the morning, son at nursery Tues-Thurs. Only "single piece" toys and books allowed out. House looks immaculate.
• Friday - Nana comes to look after son, he has free rein over toys.
• Saturday - mid weekend clean and tidy.

So basically we game our routine so the house is immaculate for three days, and two days less so with a break inbetween.

i dont understand why you say a full time job Now?
now you have children you mean?

i think it is hard in a small house
no where to put things away
so much clutter on display

It's not the toys that create the main issue because at least they can be scooped up and dumped away. It's the homework books, PE bags, laundry, toiletries etc. which have to be sorted out (you can't leave wet pe kit on the hook until next time)

It always has been. Before it became the norm for women to work, the role of housewife was a full time job, that job still needs to be done but now usually gets split by two people who are probably working full time outside the home too.

You're house may be immaculate, but that's far too many rules for me 😣

OP im the same, and yes it's mainly following people around picking up their crap 🤦‍♀️

Everyone in the house needs to do their share.

We are also renovating so that certainly adds in another element. But yes it is a full time job in itself just most have to shoe horn it in somewhere.

All my children are up at 5am and one doesn't sleep great there's no way I'd be getting up even earlier to clean and tidy I'd burn out.
My eldest is a genuine help around the house but my younger two are like having tazmanian devil's wirling around. Everyone has jobs it just doesn't last long being tidy. We are also at home an awful lot no wraparound or clubs here.

The less we have the better.so I focus on decluttering. Good storage is a must. Aside from that low standards and as the children get older it should get better. Oh and Robot hoovers are really helpful on keeping the day to day crumbs down.

So you have a cleaner once a week, of course your house is immaculate. OP is trying to manage on her own, the thread is about how hard it is for one person to manage without help.

This is why I'm loathe for us to both work full time, we simply wouldn't clean. We need some downtime in the evenings and getting up at 4.45 doesn't appeal either.

I wonder if this untidiness has something to do with the short attention span of most of our brains now due to devices.

Simple tasks like putting things away properly seem like big inconveniences if we need to break off from a screen. This goes for all ages. It feels never ending and sometimes the chaos looks like pure laziness, certainly in our house it does. Or we’re just lazy slobs.

Think of it like a process that needs to be organised. Where is the mess coming from? Things don’t move themselves around, it’s always people causing the chaos. Stop the chaos in its tracks

declutter so you have a place for everything and everyone knows that place

don’t put it down put it away

you then need to make sure that everyone on the household sticks to these rules. Voila

I don't recognise this feeling. My kids are preschool, and I'm terrified of turning into the house maid when they're older so we're training them now. They put away their boots when they come in and hang their jackets. They tidy their toys before bed every night (I help them still). I'll keep working on it. The only other person in the house is DH and he is a functioning adult so he tidies up after himself and also contributes to general tidying.

You call laundry 'mess', but unless it's being left strewn over bedroom floors it's not really messy? It just goes in the basket and then to the washing machine and then hung to dry?
Ditto dishes - doesn't everyone take them to a tidy pile next to the sink/dishwasher?

If you are the only one doing these things, you have found your problem 🤣

Have less stuff if they can’t be arsed to look after it

lower your expectations to those of the people around you

kids rooms are their rooms and they can keep them how they like. Have one space that you relax in that must be kept tidy with war breaking out if anyone messes it up

have a couple of shove it places / corners where stuff gets shoved out of sight rather than put away

get something interesting to do in your life then being a bit untidy doesn’t matter

I can’t understand people who forever need to tidy up but I know a few people who can’t see a crumb drop without getting out the vacuum cleaner and I wonder why … it really doesn’t matter

on your death bed you won’t care about money and you won’t care about the tidy rooms you created

Its pretty easy to keep tidy as you have one small child who is out the house for three full days. Its much harder with older kids, coming in and out at different times. I find it hard with mine even to keep the hall tidy. We have 3 kids. All play numerous sports. All are teens over 6 foot tall.
In our little hall we have:
Over 40 pairs of shoes ((school, work, sport trainers, going out trainers, football boots, climbing shoes, dance shoes, sliders, wellies, walking boots)and their massive!
10 coats.(warm, rain)
15 hats, scarves,
3 school bags, 3 Pe kits, 3 lunch bags, 3 other rucksacks.
Plus 2 large dogs, so leads, balls, bags, harnesses, towels, coats in there too.
People come and go all day long. The kids tend to do at least one sporty thing a day, at weekends often two. They come back with wet or sweaty kit as do dh and I. That creates easily a washload day and muddy wet shoes that need to dry.
Writing this out has been a bit cathartic and makes me feel better that it its impossible to keep on top of!