Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To have a spotlessly clean house as a single mum to a toddler

250 replies

Hopeless29 · 06/03/2017 19:04

I'm a single mum. I have a three year old.

I've always been someone who liked to have a clean house. I'm not OCD about it but can't relax in a dirty or messy house.

Everyone told me once I have a child my house would suddenly become a tip but I knew that wouldn't be the case.

Yes my son has toys everywhere during the day but he's been taught to put them back when he's finished and I don't let him eat around the house as I think he should eat at the table.

Between 4-5pm while I'm cooking dinner I tidy the house. I actually enjoy it. My house is spotless and tidy and while it's harder to keep a house clean and tidy with children, I've not found it a chore or difficult.

My friends seem to think my house should be a tip (their own words) like theirs and seem very put out that my house is so clean. They make passive aggressive comments about it and how they don't have time to clean once the children have gone to bed.

I find it so irritating.

If they want to prioritise something else that's absolutely fine and I know some people find it a struggle to keep and tidy house with children and that's fine. For me, having a clean and tidy house is very important and I couldn't live in a dirty house. It only takes me an hour a day when I'm cooking dinner anyway. So it's no bother and it doesn't mean I'm neglecting my son inorder to have the place clean.

AIBU to want and to have a clean house?

OP posts:
Originalfoogirl · 06/03/2017 23:04

Cleaning is boring

I actually really enjoy it! Plus, sit on my arse all day in an office and eat far too much chocolate. I can pretend I'm getting plenty of exercise whilst cleaning so Imdont have to go,to the gym. 😆

Littledrummergirl · 06/03/2017 23:19

I used to have a clean house [wistful] I used to wash walls and skirting boards, clean Windows and mirrors, dust.
It was all so easy when they were young and would only eat at the table. Now my three are teens we are in and out at different times, there is usually at least one person home at any time to make mess. And the dog, don't get me started on the trail he leaves behind him.

I would love to know how you can clean a house from top to bottom in one hour. I'm in awe. Even when mine were babies and I was cleaning to a rota it still took two and a half hours to vacuum my house from top to bottom. Pulling out the wardrobes and dressing tables, lifting beds, moving sofas all took me time. I wish I knew the secret of how to do this quicker.
I would love a clean house again.

Netflixandchill · 06/03/2017 23:28

Can't believe people reply sincerely to this blatant stealth boast 😂 Get a life

myoriginal3 · 06/03/2017 23:30

Why in hell's name would you pull out wardrobes and other furniture to simply hoover? You'd be bonkers!

Originalfoogirl · 06/03/2017 23:35

I would love to know how you can clean a house from top to bottom in one hour.

Sure it depends on the size of the house. A two bedroomed flat would be no problem.

GetOrfMyBin · 06/03/2017 23:35

Would you like a medal?

Floggingmolly · 06/03/2017 23:45

women hate women who can keep a house clean.
Seriously? Nobody hates you, op. They may think you're a little bit odd, with your excessive pride in your clean house, but ultimately they really don't notice or care how shiny your nobs are.

Ilooklikeellendegeneres · 07/03/2017 00:06

The definesiveness is astonishing!

If you get that upset with a stranger on the internet discussing the fact they like a clean house, you need to work through your issues regarding your own home.

This post shouldn't have caused that level of anger and nastiness.

If it does, it's because deep down people are annoyed about the state of their own homes, and anyone who manages to keep their house clean has to become the devil themselves.

Grow up!

ToastVacuum · 07/03/2017 00:14

I couldn't be less smug.

Confused
TinklyLittleLaugh · 07/03/2017 00:19

No one likes a bragger though. If someone went on about how easy they found natural childbirth or breastfeeding or getting their kids to eat a wide range of foods or getting a job that pays loads of dosh, then they would get a similar response. No one likes a bragger.

spiney · 07/03/2017 01:06

I didn't find it bragging though. Just stating the case. Op liked her house a certain way and she was across it. Good luck to her. Wasn't it more about how her friends expected her to be one way once she had a child and how she didn't conform to their expectations.

Weirdly I think cleaning Hmmseems to get everyone's backs up same as much more important stuff .

Even just talking about it rattled some cages.

bummymummy77 · 07/03/2017 01:13

Please don't use OCD in that way.

twattymctwatterson · 07/03/2017 01:25

Oh well done op, just how do you do it? I'm sure you mean what you say when you say that you don't judge others who don't have "spotlessly clean" homes but maybe going on about different priorities and how it isn't hard comes across as a bit smug and judgy as far as your friends are concerned? I'd love to have s spotless home but I have a 3 year old who will not play alone for a second, a demanding job, a chronic pain condition and frankly I just can't be arsed

charlestrenet · 07/03/2017 01:33

I think the reason others comment negatively about clean houses is to do with what a pp said about women always being judged by the state of their homes. It's a pain in the arse frankly and leads to all sorts of stress and anxiety.

Nowadays at least, having a baby is kind of a get out of jail free card in that respect - you can tell people you're an earth mother and focusing on your child and actually you can keep that up for a while - a good couple of years if you're lucky.

In reality of course for most people it's just that cleaning is fucking boring and it's nice to have an excuse not to do it, but it's bad form to admit this and also I think that to an extent many women - very few men, mind - internalise this message that dirty house = failure at womanliness.

And so when someone demonstrably keeps their house clean even though they've got kids, others feel that their getout has been removed from them and suddenly they're back in the judging ring again. They can feel the pressure.

Of course none of this would matter if women could just say that they refused have their worth judged by the state of their home, but that would involve dismantling the patriarchy so instead what happens is that they try to convince everyone that it's inevitable to have a messy house when you have kids and you, OP, are basically fucking that up for them.

spiney · 07/03/2017 01:48

I take your point Charles. But it seems like it is worse form to admit that you like cleaning or as Op did that she is good at cleaning. people seem much happier to say they don't like cleaning or are crap at it. Not the other way around.

TheDowagerCuntess · 07/03/2017 05:30

I agree, Ilooklikeellen.

Zoflorabore · 07/03/2017 05:53

I do have OCD and really struggle with the house being messy but I learnt a lesson a few years ago when it did affect my daughter.

I have always had a spotless home, it helped that ds was an extremely tidy child, he's now 14 and is showing many signs of OCD, this all changed for me when I had dd who is now 6.

We outgrew our little house, dd's stuff took over every available space and I became overwhelmed.

It was her 2nd birthday I think when someone bought her play doh and I was horrifiedBlush she was desperate to play with it and I couldn't cope with the mess.

Up until this point my friends had always joked about my house and me being OCD as i was only diagnosed last year, one particular friend kindly said to me that i was not being fair on dd and I had been like that since forever at playgroup, not letting her get dirty/messy/covered in paint etc.

I felt so bad, I compromised and insisted on a messy mat and let dd have the play doh.
Her favourite thing to do until this day is craft! I struggle with it still but realised I had to let her be a child and play.

Right now her room is a bad tip, it's small and I try and sort it bit by bit every day, OCD is a sod, often used to describe anything and everything but really living with it is horrible.

I am not suggesting you don't allow your ds to get messy etc but for me I did not want my dd to grow up and resent me due to the wanting the show house look at the cost of her having a normal childhood.
It may not always be spotless op and you will be ok, our house hasn't collapsed due to dust or a bit of mess, it just took a long time for me to realise that.

PointxTaken · 07/03/2017 08:46

I would sincerely love to know how many posters on this thread are male.

Whilst being tidy by itself has nothing to do with gender at all, how many men are so defensive and feel the need to bitch about other people cleaning habit like that.

JustifiedSinner · 07/03/2017 10:08

Of course none of this would matter if women could just say that they refused have their worth judged by the state of their home, but that would involve dismantling the patriarchy so instead what happens is that they try to convince everyone that it's inevitable to have a messy house when you have kids and you, OP, are basically fucking that up for them.

I don't think it really requires anything quite as total as demolishing patriarchy for women to resist social pressure to see the cleanliness of their homes as some kind of reflection of their moral worth as a woman. On these threads on here, women continually post to say 'I can't relax if the house is messy' and complain that their spouses/male partners don't 'see dirt' 9and it also comes up all the time on threads about unexpected visitors being unwelcome primarily because it doesn't give a chance to tidy) but don't seem to want to unpick the fact that an inability to relax in a messy house is socially-created and gendered, and that it's at bottom a choice to go along with that pressure, just as much as it is a choice to judge another woman (but not her male OH) for her house's tidiness.

PointxTaken · 07/03/2017 10:33

don't seem to want to unpick the fact that an inability to relax in a messy house is socially-created and gendered

that's bollocks. The most obsessed people I know about a tidy and clean house are male!

spiney · 07/03/2017 10:47

Interesting Sinner. I know I'm one of those that can't relax aswell in a messy environment. I have always thought it's more of needing a ' visual calmness' and giving my brain a rest.I know that sounds HmmHave never truly felt a 'social ' pressure to be like that. In fact among my mates the opposite is true. But I don't actually care about their Houses ( or judge them )

So liking tidy is a social and gender pressure.

spiney · 07/03/2017 10:49

Points taken

True

grannytomine · 07/03/2017 10:49

PointxTaken, I agree with you. I have a friend and her relationship broke up because her partner was so obsessed about tidiness. She said she was frightened to go to the loo on a Sunday morning as she would come back to find he had thrown her paper out as he thought she had finished with it. Yes you often leave a paper open halfway through for five minutes because you want someone to throw it away.

DustyMaiden · 07/03/2017 10:49

I've never found it hard to keep a spotless house. Then I had DGC, they can make mess quicker than I can clean.

I think if you tidy as you go, if you sleep well and have energy it's easy. Sometimes lack of sleep means things slide and then snowball.

Semaphorically · 07/03/2017 10:53

Liking to be tidy is not ONLY caused by socialised gender-based pressure imposed on women. You can like being tidy for other reasons obviously.

But feeling guilty about the house not being tidy enough is more of a gender-conditioning thing I think. Just because a man once wanted a tidy house doesn't make this not about female socialisation and women doing boring wifework for free.

Swipe left for the next trending thread