To think that children do care about living in a very messy house?

[bakingmadmum]

A friend of mine put one of those quote thingies on FB today. It is about how the house is messy,because she is spending time with the children,and the children won't care because when they grow up, they will remember the memories, and not the state of the house.

Now, while I largely agree with this, the friend in question has a very, very messy house, bordering on dirty. I am not judging her for this- she has two small children, a large dog, and her husband is a lazy fucking manchild not much help. I know (because she has told me) that the state of the house annoys her. They can't use the kitchen table because it is snowed under, the children are in the same bedroom because the other one is full of junk... They can't use the garden because it is too dangerous. The husband keeps all his hoard of tools and equipment out there, even though they get rained on and rusty.

The thing is, my mum was raised in a similar household. She often talks about how, even as a small child, she was mortified and refused to bring friends over, as she couldn't bear them to see the house. Dirty nappies on the floor for days, the dining room covered in oil because that is where the bikes/junk was thrown, etc. She once visited a friend's house- the family wasn't rich, very solid working class- and thinking they were living in the lap of luxury, because their curtains were clean. She was about 11, and was genuinely baffled- how did they keep them so clean?

Mum has gone the other way now- she is a total clean freak, to the point where it caused massive rows at times, when I was a teen. She couldn't cope with what was, in hindsight, natural teen messiness. Things like a bit of toothpaste on the sink. It was like walking on eggshells for all of us. She has calmed down a bit now, thankfully.

Anyway, I feel a bit sorry for my friend and her children. The kids can't use the table for crafts, or homework, or family dinners, they can't go and play in their own garden. I can't help but feel that this will start to effect them when they get older, despite my friend's denial.

Yes, children often do care. I grew up in a messy house and I hated it. The house wasn't filthy or squalid. I suppose it was fairly clean, but my parents' approach to housework could charitably be described as casual. And there was always clutter on every surface, not to the point of hoarding but certainly way too much stuff. As a result I feel anxious in a cluttered house. It's important to me to keep my house clean and tidy. I certainly don't have a show house though!

My house is beyond a tip due to various reasons. We haven't been able to use our dining room for months, can barely walk though it. I've just been and cleared about half of it after reading this thread. I hate to think of my children hating their home even if a lot of the mess is theirs.

Don't feel sad Shelagh, it's good what you've done so far. I liked a PP's method upthread (sorry forgotten the name now) of doing a 30 min burst each morning and afternoon. That's not overwhelming but will make such a big difference.

I'm so sorry for all these children who were ashamed to bring friends round to their houses. It's one of the great pleasures for children to have friends round and go to friends' houses.

Good luck to all the people tacking their houses now, it'll be worth it. I honestly do think a tidier house helps me think more clearly. I need a tidy piano for instance to start working there - so it's not always true messy = creative, quite the opposite. I need the calm and quiet of a tidy room, clean manuscript paper and a set of sharp pencils

Its a matter of degree.

I struggle to keep the house as tidy as I'd like it a lot of the time due to extreme tiredness. My dh reckons he doesn't "see the mess" layabout and hardly tidies, so that makes it harder (though getting a BIT better now i'm working and he's house husband).

But I whenever I manage to clear the sitting room and dining room for the kids I REALLY notice the difference. There's space for them to play and it shows. They are happier, get out different toys, spread out with puzzles, duplo buildings, etc (they're 5, 3 and 3). They will play for longer and there's far less whining. So for us it does make a difference. Obviously as others have said, you don't want extreme tidiness, but mess/dirt that stops you USING your home (however much that is) is too much.

I grew up with lots of siblings and a very messy AND dirty house. In some places (e.g by my bed) the dust was a centimetre thick. I used to cough a lot if I ever needed to find something from under the bed coz it was so dusty. I felt bad bringing friends around because the house was such a tip (just papers/toys lying about everywhere, and some damaged parts which should've been fixed), and felt our family was 'different' coz we were just a whole big mess. My mum would be embarrassed when certain people appeared at the door because of it. She refused to let me have a party there for my 16th (?) because there was a hole in a door, an inner wall, and part of the sitting room carpet - so even if we tidied up it 'wouldn't be good enough'. I really begrudged it :(

Now my youngest sibling is a teenager and their house is mostly tidy but still pretty dirty in places. But they are at least gradually patching up all the holes!

We moved (for work) from a large 3 storey house to a smaller 3 bed semi. 12 years in the larger house and I knew where everything was. It was chaotic at times but it was clean.

DH was in charge of the move and just threw everything in boxes willy nilly. He stuck them all in the garage, piled up so nobody could get to them, and refused to sort them out. That was 5 years ago.

DH went from 4 nights/7 to 5/7 and they increased his hours to 43. So he decided, without any consultation, that as he was doing so many hours he wasn't going to do any housework. A few months later I was dx with cancer, and with the surgery and the chemo that whole year was pretty much written off. I stopped doing everything. I'd hoped he would pick up the reins but he didn't.

So now our finances are in a mess (my job) and the house is a tip and dirty. We can't find anything. His mantra is "we've got too much stuff". I think he believes if he says it enough the cleaning fairy will sort it all out. I took a day off work last month to try to sort DD's room out, and hadn't finished after 6 hours. She came home, saw toys she hadn't seen for a while and pulled everything out. Honestly I could have cried. It's going to take at least another 6 hours but I just don't have the energy.

He knows where things live to get them out but won't put them away. His idea of tidying is to put everything in piles, which then requires me to go through them. He won't pile like with like; a box of newspapers had DD's original birth certs buried in with them, plus letters from school, bills, and rubbish. Every time he goes to do a job in the house he has to go and buy tools because he puts them down where he is standing and then can't find them.

I can't force him to clear up after himself. I can't make him leave. My options are I do it all, or I leave it, or I leave my house and my things. Then I read this holier-than-thou thread with all these busy women who can keep their house sparkling (is it 1950?) and I know I will continue to be judged. Even though it is DH causing the problem. DD knows she can't have anyone round to play because of the state of the house. Thanks for making me feel like shit.

Indantherene that's the trouble with posts like this, people just assume that if your house is untidy or in a state, that you're lazy and it's just not the case in so many instances.

How old is your DD? Maybe you could ask for some help from Homestart? I can't remember how old DCs need to be for help. Do you have a friend or any family that could come and help? Not because I think you need to tidy up, but because you sound sad.

My mother is a hoarder (5-bed house for two people, stuff piled on the stairs and in a bathroom they don't use) and had a cleaner from the first day they could afford one. We don't take the DC to their house any more as it just isn't safe. She is decluttering by selling stuff and giving other stuff away but she has an emotional attachment to nearly everything and finds it impossible to resist a bargain so it's a long ongoing battle. They have always had far more stuff than places to keep it.

Growing up I struggled to keep my things well because I didn't have places to keep them. That got better as I got older but I have a tendency to acquire stuff until
I run out of space, then panic and declutter ruthlessly. I have a horror of acquiring stuff just because, though: everything has to have an identifiable and real purpose, so I can buy a DC winter coat a size up but not buttons which might be useful some day.

PIL are neat freaks. When emptying the dishwasher FIL will take out a dish, close the dishwasher, open a cupboard, put the dish away, close the cupboard, open the dishwasher, take out a dish, etc. They will wash up between dishing up and eating so the food will be cold.

DH doesn't deal with mess well. He would be just as told off for leaving his duvet crooked as leaving everything all over the floor so he doesn't appreciate scales of mess and doesn't bother with top-up tidying.

Daily tidying and following the MN rule "don't put it down, put it away" keeps us the right side of chaos, but if I'm incapacitated for some reason (eg this weekend mega busy with school fete) nobody steps up behind me even to put the dishwasher on let alone empty it.

I feel oppressed by mess and stuff but I am not allowed to sort DH's stuff in case I throw the wrong thing away or "hide" things. His suitcase sat on the dining room floor for a fortnight after his last work trip as a result and every time I saw it there I wanted to cry.

We have a lot of storage in our house now and stuff has places to live. We have three sons so it's hard to get rid of anything until DC3 has finished with it, but I am getting better at discarding eg a top with a mark on it which is good enough for playing in the garden but could really go in the rag bag. I am teaching DH how to throw stuff away as he is hopeless and will keep eg all his old school exercise books rather than one representative example or a jumper his mum gave him that he doesn't like and will never wear (she is alive btw). I work hard to quash any hoarder tendencies because they terrify me.

This thread has inspired me to have a better clear out. DH is away a lot with work at the moment so I can do a sort through without his wailing about a book he hasn't read in two decades and won't read again or a particularly good pen that doesn't write any more.

Wow. Lightbulb. It's not me, it's him.

This is interesting, I grew up in a messy and scruffy but mostly clean house. Dh grew up in a almost obessively tidy one (not sure it was any cleaner). When we met 20 years ago he was sure I would see the light and the joy of cleaning the outside of sauce pans, washing up straight after dinner and wiping down surfaces up to 4X a day. Actually we have met in the middle, our house is more "lived in" than MIL's but tidier than the one I was raised in.

I think we have it about right: an example was a few xmas's ago and the dcs wanted to make cookies. In the house I grew up in there would have ensued an hours hiatus while cupboards were emptied looking for cutters,sparkles,icing sugar etc. In MILS house it would have been a flat no as it would or might make a mess.
Because of our comprises the cookie set has a place where is it put back so no chaos looking for bits and we were relaxed enough to let the dcs cover the kitchen in flour and glitter. :)

Dsis OTOH has gone the other way and there it literally not one spare meter of space in her house although it is clean(ish).BIL will shout at you for putting a glass in the wrong cupboard.

Indanthereme I hear you.
I have ME and struggle energy wise. DH has had to pick up a lot of the slack because I'm not able to do that much.
If it hadn't been the case (as it was initially as he thought he was just lazy and couldn't be arsed), there is no way our house would as tidy as it is now (which is nowhere near perfect btw!!)

Could you have a harsh chat with your DH re him making things 100 times harder for you?

((Hug)) to you and I hope you are getting better now.

Is it just me or does anyone else hate it when MN post these kinds of threads on Facebook? It feels like a violation when people have shared deeply personal experiences

Yep that's why I nc very very regularly, I also change some my details (boys/girls, number of dcs if need be).

I'm too scared to share things that are very personnal all that to be shared on FB and a whole lot of other 'social network'.
I think it's crap but you see it's all about money (Not bitter about that issue at all....)

Pass I agree with you even though others may argue that the experiences have already been aired to the internet, flagging it on Facebook feels a step too far.

How can we see what threads MN put on Facebook? Not sure I like that.

Indan
I am absolutely stunned that you went through so much and your h let you live that way
I hope you do manage to clear everything out, including him.

ghost I liked MN on Facebook so it comes up on my feed.

The thing I noticed is that some people comment who are not necessarily mners and can occasionally be a bit snide.

I don't mind at all when it is a fun thread but when people have shared personal stuff on a network of their choice for them to have it shared for them on a network they did not choose seems beyond the pale.

I think it does have a lasting impact on children. For me, growing up in a messy/hoard-lite house I did have a big sense of shame.

On the very rare occasion I braved it and brought people home I had to warm them about the mess beforehand, then apologise throughout the visit.

My mum always blamed my brother and me for the mess and this added to the shame and guilt. Since we have both left home the house has got much, much worse. One room is now impassable and the garden is a jungle.

I'm not a clean freak, I have a baby and a toddler and live in a small flat so at the moment I'm a realist - but we're moving to a house soon. I regularly have a clear out and if I ever, ever utter the fatal words "this might be useful" it automatically gets donated/recycled/chucked.

Yes, most of the comments on the FB link to this thread are vile.

I grew up in a dirty house as a child and it was mortifying. My house is always immaculate because I want my children to feel that their friends can come round at any time and it will never be an issue. People like me don't own houses and therefore my husband and I are incredibly proud that we have been able to create our "dream home" for our family and so we look after it.

Custard that is probably a very good piece of advice for anyone with hoarding tendency.

Does anyone think it is worth reporting the thread to ask MN to remove it from FB? Or am I being silly?

I have no excuses! I am messy! I am spontaneous and if the dc want friends round its a yes. I hardly had this as a child. We have day trips unplanned. Create games from rubbish. The dc and theirs and our friends love it. I hate clinical homes which are over dettoled! More to the point the dc are rarely ill or off school, unlike my clinical friends dcs ....

I'm not on FB. I wouldn't want this in there

I have just reported my post to share my concern. It just doesn't seem fair.

I think it depends on the child. I grew up in an immaculately clean and tidy home. My Mum's standards were exceptionally high, too high. Our home was like something out of a glossy magazine but I never felt it was homely or welcoming.

But at least I never once felt awkward or ashamed when bringing friends home.

My personal prefetence would be to live in a tastefully neutrally environment with zero clutter. But this isn't just my home though. So in my turn I strive for something that is tidy, clean and fresh but not too pristine. So I am happy for DD to leave her latest creative chaos spilling off the table and onto the floor in the den I just grit my teeth and shut the door

I don't mind if she leaves her blazer on the back of a kitchen chair. A damp towel left on the landing doesn't make me rage.

But I admit that my house is still probably tidier than most. I can't help it. But I tend to do most of my tidying and organising when I have the house to myself so it doesn't impact on the rest of the family.

A friend never invited friends over after school because her home was so scruffy. Several weeks worth of ironing just piled on the living room floor. Visibly dirty wash basin and loo in the bathroom. Food stains on the carpet. It verged on being squalid. She was deeply embarrassed and it genuinely distressed her but out of loyalthy to her Mum she never told her so.