or is it actually impossible to keep a tidy house

[HairyHandedTrucker]

and get food on the table and do anything fucking at all if you a 1 and a 2 year old child? I wanted to stay home with I love them but if I were at work my house would be clean right? it's fucking pig style, by the dh gets home and we get them to bed and do the dishes there's no time to do anything else. then we just go to bed.

yes potty training here too, love the faint smell of wee throughout house

YANBU

It's impossible.

And I make a lot of money off of it.

Yes also impossible with 6 month & 3 year old! I've given up! So long as its a happy pig sty I don't care x

Yanbu. We're out at school, work and nursery most days, but the house still gets trashed. At weekends it's like holding back the tide, so I more or less give up.

I used to have a lovely house pre DC's.

So, I think it is possible (at the moment-it goes in fits and starts depending on how much else is going on and hiw much sleep im getting) and I have three dc aged 7, 4 and 20 months. This makes me think I have lower standards of what constitutes tidy and so would like people to define what they mean by tidy!

I'm on maternity leave from my full time job, I already have one dd (10) so when I found out I was pg with 2nd dd (8mo) I thought I'd save money and so I did away with the cleaner and my ironing lady - and boy do I regret it!

My house has gone from being clean and moderately tidy most of the time to being a tip all of the time . I'm honestly quite ashamed of my inability to look after one baby, collect one child from school, and keep a tidy house. Thankfully DH is not bothered and is good at doing his share or else we would be festering in our own filth.

Oh-best not mention lightbulbs! Ours stay popped for ages. It starts to become clearer than ever that I have low and superficial standards!

I must be the only one with a tidy house I am a bored witless SAHM though

Katy do you work for biscuits and are you willing to commute to america?

I thought that this thread was going to turn out to be a safe haven for slatterns and then noisytoys turned up

noisytoys - you're not my neighbour are you? I am still cringing from my neighbour's four-year old proclaiming "wow, your house is really messy".

I used to live next door to a very old lady and I would sometimes take my dd round to see her.

I didn't do it very often because I felt very uncomfortable about the fact she refused point blank to let me clean up any mess dd made.

Her house was always immaculate but she always said to me,
I like to leave it there for a while so I can see somebody has been here.

There will be plenty of time to live in an immaculate house but when you get there it will probably feel very empty.

Entropy- basic physics everything moves to disorder , hence I have given up trying to fight nature

Fwiw, I have a policy of tidy up toys with dd before she goes to bed and do the rest after.

I will not spend my daughters childhood too busy worrying about keeping the house immaculate to spend time with her or allow her to make a mess

I'd never heard the word slattern before mumsnet. I have adopted it now though

Maybe I am your neighbour. I have a 4 year old

YANBU I have a 12yo, 8yo, 2yo and 11mo and am a slattern.

my Mum thought she was playing with a bit of playdoh with DS2 today but it was an old soggy mini weetabix which I had to whisk away before she put her glasses on

Hairy If you pay for the commute, I will clean for free and bring the biscuits!

I'll think about it Katy . Damn Notso you are brave!

I revel in feeling a bit superior that I am always doing such interesting things that the state of the house doesn't bother me. But it does.

There isn't really an excuse for our household but I do think some people just enjoy house stuff more than others.

Second an earlier idea of a box each. Here everyone has their own basket and once clothes are ironed and folded they go in and are brought upstairs. No more sorting. Has helped, a bit.

To answer your q, I have found it impossible to keep a tidy house esp once we had the children with their masses of toys and clothes. Do we all have more stuff than when we were children too?

each of my DC in their very short lives own more clothes than I have ever owned in total in my entire life. and people just keep giving them crap. crap with pieces

I would say it is quite possible.. if you have a playpen.

playpen? what's this playpen you speak of? do you mean the place where I now throw random junk when visitors arrive that has no real function because DD has been able escape it for about a year...

Yes.
YANBU

i have x4 DS and it is chaos.

i sometimes remind myself -unsuccessfully- that I will miss it when they are gone.

since DS1 is only 8 its gonna be a while