to think that a dirty/messy house does not mean you're a "Great Mum"?

[trilogyofjuniper]

Aaaaaagh! All those stupid slogans. "My floors are sticky and my kitchen is messy because I'm a great mum!", etc.

No, it's because you're a slob.

Those saying -my house is spotless , I work full time... that probably helps a bit though!

I work part time and the days that I am at work and the children are at school and childminders, I too leave and come back to a spotless house -when I am at home and have time during the day to do cleaning and washing etc so is my 2 year old who empties toys, makes crumbs , leaves a trail behind her, older children bring kids back in to play after school, and dishes are dirtied and used through out the day. I seem to have much less productive days on my days at home rather than the ones that I am working. I just seem to tidy up the same things all the time when we are in !

This is why open plan is the devil. We have a playroom which is a tip. I close the door voila

So therefore notagiraffe. You are exactly the person that OP is talking about apart from you do not say just think it.

Those people who don't spend every waking moment taking DC's blackberry picking or the cinema is a too busy cleaning to even notice their DC's are there.

If that is what you want to do then go for it but I prefer to strike a happy medium.

Ha Kerala , I like your thinking. Dc3 put paid to our toy room -I do miss it!

Those saying -my house is spotless , I work full time... that probably helps a bit though!

Both df and I work full time. There is someone in our house EVERY day from at least 11.30am. The childminder minds from ours...and she doesn't clean/tidy much.

Working full time does not mean your house is empty every day from 8-6.

Being dirty is nothing to be proud about.

Being obsessive about anything to the detriment of looking after your kid's basic needs isn't anything to be proud about either.

I think the decision to display these rather 'defiant' slogans makes more of a statement that the owner of said kitchen inwardly feels that it's probably not quite up to scratch, but can't muster the inclination to sort it out.

My floors are covered in glue and glitter because I' am a fun mum.

and because I keep forgetting to close and hide the fuckin glitter bottles, you just can't get rid of glitter can you?

I have to agree.

To have fairly clean floors doesn't take that much work. and mine could be better

Nota giraffe-your post is a classic case of what the OP is describing, I think. Justifying mess with an 'I'm a much better mum than a tidy mum' attitude.

But to be honest you could achieve all of that and still have a tidy house. I am a SAHM living in a small house with a messy DH and three young children. It's not spotless, but it's clean and tidy. And I also bake, cook from scratch, and we paint and do playdoh and play board games and go on muddy walks and lots of the other stuff you described. But as soon as I've baked or cooked, I wash up and put everything away; once they've painted, the paints are cleared away and we tidy up; when we've finished a board game we put it away. And so on, and so on.

At the end of the day you will have a tidy house if you're an instinctively tidy person, and if you're not an instinctively tidy person then you won't have a tidy house! But none of this has anything to do with how good a mum you are.

But dietcoke (and Summerblaze) I'm not suggesting I'm a better mum than anyone with a tidy house. I'm not judging them/you. And I certainly don't have naff little posters around taking pride in the fact my house isn't perfect.

I do have a full time job though, and we do have a big house, so there's lot to keep on top of. Being a SAHM with a small house is easier to manage - I've been in that situation in the past.

Also I'm the only female in the house, and boys and men just do seem to trail dirt in and out of everywhere, even though they have to take their shoes off in the hall. If I mop a floor, within seconds, DH has stomped in from the garden with size 11s covered in mud and leaves, the cat has come in with muddy paws, the kids have run through and spilt a drink, and it looks as if I haven't cleaned the floor in months.

So instead of running around after them all day long with mops and pursed lips, I join them. And we have fun. As I said, there's nothing smug about my post - I take no pride in having a pickle of a house. But I refuse to get too brow-beaten by it. We have a great life. We do get out more and do more than most people I know. That's just how we choose to live, and the down side is that our house is less orderly.

Tidiness is just a habit you have to work at, constantly. But the moment-by-moment effort is fairly minimal.

I freely admit that my major motivation for imposing little systems like 'take your shoes off and put them away immediately' is because I am fundamentally lazy. It takes less effort to remind/nag DD to do this sort of thing than it does to first clear the floor, and then clean it. And the cleaning is easier because we haven't walked dirt in. It's a simple cost-benefit thing for me.

Plus I think it is good for children to learn how to keep things from running out of control and reaching Trebus-levels of chaos where you simply don't know where to start. They are going to have to look after themselves one day and this is part of it.

i'm a better parent when my house is clean. the worse it gets, the worse my frame of mind gets, the less motivated I am to do anything with the dcs because in the back of my mind I have to sort the house. when I have it clean my mind is clear for all the good parenting decisions I should always be making.

I'm really, seriously not having a go here giraffe. But in that situation, what happens if you bring down the wrath of mummy and make them clear up the mess they made on your freshly washed floor, immediately?

I don't like logo t-shirts.
I am a natural slob. But my house is tidy. I don't play with ds's much, barely at all. I eat any bits I find on the floor all the time.

consider - Df and I both work full time, have a 5 and 3 year old. We are both studying professional qualifications too. There is no excuse to live in a shit pit.

Not sure there is no excuse, that seems a tad OTT.
For eg, CFS has been mentioned upthread, is that not a good enough excuse?
Any illness in fact? Physical or mental.

DH is suffering from long term depression and works ft shifts, I have, well, a long list of problems, we have two toddlers. Feeding people and making sure they are clean with clean clothes is certainly a higher priority than dusting, mopping floors or hoovering the stairs.

I don't give a shit how clean your houses are. I certainly wouldn't decide that you were a good, bad or indifferent parent based on that.
Be a fanatical cleaner if you want to. You must get something from keeping things spotless, so if that's what floats your boat, good for you.
If you and your family don't care, where's the harm?

I like a clean, tidy home with everything in order. I have always lived like this. However, it does not make me a better parent than someone who lives in a messy home.

I know people who live in chaos and it is just not for me. Having a constant clean and tidy home takes effort and I appreciate that not everyone is willing to/can make the time for it.

moderation in all things!

I dont get all this "i wouldnt say im a great mum" why not?why is it bad to say your a great mum?people arent ashamed to say theyre great at other things so why is it bad to say they are a great mum?

I,personally am a GREAT mum,i am not perfect,but great,yes.

sorry that was a bit off topic,but tbh,if i walked into someones house who had as many children as i do,and it was spotless,and i mean spotless with no toys out or anything,i would wonder how much time they actually spent with their kids,as i know how hard it is to keep it half decent let alone immaculate.

In the dr sears books it says you sohuld put people before things,which i agree with,so the baby needs feeding,your kids need your attention,you need to rest/eat etc,you all need clean clothes and something for dinner,the housework should come after all that.

should sorry!

silverten, because in my heart of hearts, maybe I'm just not that bothered. If they come charging in from rugby or gardening or waterfights, I care far more about how their day has been and what they want to drink etc. It just isn't the first thought in my head, that they should keep the floor clean. It's only after the melee has died down and they've pottered off to watch tv or do homework that I look around and see that an hour's work has been undone in five minutes.

I do get frustrated a bit, and do occasionally have a go, and then they are very sweet and scurry round and clean up the mess (well DH isn't, he gets very uppity if I treat him as less than perfect).

But the truth is, me having a go wouldn't help them remember next time. They don't really have the tidy gene. My mum didn't. I grew up in utter chaos. Far worse than my own home. Lots of love and fun and creative play but no order anywhere, so I didn't learn a thing about housekeeping until I found Flylady. Literally, I was clueless until I discovered her site when DC were small. Using her tips, I'm just about on the right side of chaos. But none of it comes naturally. It takes a lot of mental effort to remember to put things away and remind people to pick up after themselves. I often just forget. There's something (imho) pleasanter on my mind.

Sorry for the essay. I just wanted to point out that not every untidy house has a slob watching Jeremy Kyle as its cause. Some of us are out there, doing stuff with our kids, just as that smug slogan suggests, which the OP disliked.

I think the point is that some parents fail to give thiner kids attention/creative opportunities because they spend all their time cleaning. My mum was like this. I'm more balanced in my approach.

Isn't it funny how different people see things differently notagiraffe? The way I would look at it is, if you have a bigger house you have more rooms, bigger rooms, more storage options and more space generally and therefore easier to make it appear tidy!

I do take the point about the mopped floors and cleaning though. I am also the only female in the house, DH is instinctively messy and we have three boys, the older two of whom are relentless collectors of sticks and stones and all things muddy and (allegedly) 'precious'. I suppose I am thinking more in terms of tidiness than cleaning, granted a huge house is of course harder to stay on top of cleaning wise but in our little three bed terrace where we have just one small living space and a kitchen downstairs it would become chaotic very quickly if it wasn't kept tidy. You can't leave painting and playdoh out all over the table if that then leaves you no room to eat dinner! Same goes for the science and art projects too.

At the end of the day, as others have said it doesn't matter how anyone lives as long as they and others in the house are cared for and happy. But I still think that we all essentially live in a state we are comfortable with - so by definition a messy house is predominantly because the inhabitants are comfy with that level of mess.