Does a messy home negatively affect a child's upbringing?

[MaryPopppins]

A friend of mine has gone away for the week and as an emergency needed me to feed her cats and let them in and out as her mum is also away and normally does it.

I've only been in her living room and kitchen before. They're both very cluttered, no space on sides anywhere. And lots of collections. But I guess I'm used to it and look past it as kids are normally running round playing and we only tend to pop in for an hour or two here and there.

But today saw the bedrooms and bathroom for the first time. And was really quite shocked and saddened.

(It's a bungalow, you have to pass the kids 2 bedrooms and the bathroom to get into the lounge and kitchen, wasn't snooping. Normally the doors are shut.)

The kids bedrooms were covered. I can't quite figure out how they get into and out of bed. And the bath was piled high with dirty washing and towels. Toilet all brown, even the seat, sink full of bath toys. Every windowsill is full of stuff so they wouldn't be able to open/close curtains etc.

If I'd seen photos online I'd assume it was of mentally unwell people or old people who needed help. (I will admit to being a germ phonic person. Quite obsessed.)

But they're smart, and the kids are smart, quite cheeky boisterous children but they're happy enough and doing fine at school.

Am I blinkered and terribly judgemental and that's a fine way to live? Will it effect the kids negatively?

I'm not concerned for their emotional well being. But I suddenly feel really sad for them seeing where they sleep/are supposed to get clean.

I was lucky to grow up in a very tidy home. My mum is very house proud and maybe I just took it for granted?

I feel like offering help would insult them. They're very capable. Maybe they're overwhelmed?

I lived in a 'normal' home growing up...not immaculate but reasonably clean and tidy and lived in. I had several friends who lived in immaculate homes....I was always jealous. One thing I noticed about these people were they were either only children or had cleaners. My parents were friends with a posh but down on their luck couple who had four kids. I remember going round to their house...it was filthy. Huge piles of laundry in hallways...like a mountain of it. Kitchen with all surfaces covered. I used to feel so shocked when we went round there. My mum was very easy going about tidyness and cleanliness but it used to horrify her.

I'm naturally messy but love a clean house and want my dc to have a pleasant home so I make a conscious effort to keep up with housework. I'm a sahm and kids are at school so I spend nearly all day doing house stuff. My home isn't immaculate though. I have several childfree friends who have homes which are spotless...not a single item out of place or a speck of dust or a scuff mark on the wall. I wonder how they'll cope if and when they have children.

I'd hate my children to ever feel embarrassed so if they ever have a friend round, i go crazy cleaning the place and making sure their rooms look perfect!

I was prepared to tell you you were being unreasonable, OP, but what you describe seems indeed extreme.

I grew up in a home that was the perfect balance of clutter and cleanliness. I'm more messy than my mum was, and DH does not believe in putting stuff away when it is more easily reached out on the table, so our house tends to get a little more cluttered - like a 2 in the pictures. I'll be the first to admit we should clean the bathroom more often (it's our least favourite job), but we keep up with laundry. We have a couple of ragdoll cats so even while we vacuum 3-4 times a week, our floor is never hair-free. DD drew on the wall with colouring pens once when I wasn't paying attention - and we've just shrugged and left it. However, we don't let things get smelly or dirty: food remains are cleared straight away, the litter boxes are cleaned a couple of times a week, windows are open every day, trash is taken out, etc. Some people would no doubt be horrified at the state of our home, but it is imo within the normal range.

I wouldn't judge on a snapshot, MaryPopppins, perhaps your friend is going through a rough time and so the clutter and mess has grown beyond the usual. I'd just gently investigate a bit once she gets home. Just ask how they are doing, for a start. Very kind of you to want to help, but only do so if you think you can manage without imposing your norms!

I suspect sadly that this is far more common than many people realise. I know three people with houses at unacceptable levels. Two have a hoarding issue.

I didn‘t blame it all on mental health.

Sltjough there will be many mental health conditions that could lead to a cluttered disorganised house.

We‘re all unique, and I would think the exact combination of circumstances leading to this situation would be different in every case.

Off the top of my head there‘d Be chronic pain conditions, chronic tiredness, undiagnosed physical health problems, ADHD , dyspraxia, grief etc etc etc

I think the wird „lazy“ is rarely without context.

But I guess some people like to judge and don‘t have the empathetic thinking skills to be able to imagine that someone else could struggle with something the find easy.

Although my house is a 1 my car is a complete shit tip. It's shocking. Completely can't be arsed until it gets to an unacceptable level of grimness. It's the complete opposite of my house

I'm going to clean it today, it needs to be done!

The thing I’m wondering about this scale... it’s not a sliding tidiness scale, with picture 1 as absolutely spotless, ready for a visit from the Queen, deep-cleaned by Mrs Hinch and Kim and Aggie, with picture 9 as utterly horrendous and picture 5 roughly the average, what many people would consider accepatbale. It’s a hoarding scale, so is picture 1 actually meant to represent the norm? With 2 and above representing a degree of a worrying tendency to hoard? It says 4 and above is considered high enough that people should be getting help, which implies even 2 and 3 aren’t great (to me).

We rent and that brings its own challenges as your obviously restricted by not being able to change things or never knowing how long you’ll be in a place, so that hallway shoe cabinet might fit this house but not the next. Our house now is much smaller than the last so we have a storage unit for our dining room table and some sentimental stuff that we just don’t have room for here.

Loaf I’m exactly the same! My house is a 0.5-1 most of the time, but my car is a shitpit. No rotting food but loads of receipts, chocolate bar wrappers and half empty bottles of water. Coats and scarves all over the back seat. Stack of bags for life on the passenger seat. Every so often DH gets too upset by it and empties it all out for me.

Sounds pretty disgusting to me. No one expects an immaculate home with kids but they need a certain level of cleanliness and space.

PetrichorRain how funny I think it's because I can shut the door and forget about it, no food in mine either just dust (!!) and sand as we go to the beach and loads of sweet wrappers and about 3 umbrellas at any given time. Even my friends comment about the stark difference between my house and car. It is wasn't so expensive I'd go and get it valeted but it's £35 here and I'm NOT paying that due to sheer laziness!

Perhaps offer to help instead of judge?

My house is a 0.5-1 most of the time, but my car is a shitpit. No rotting food but loads of receipts, chocolate bar wrappers and half empty bottles of water. Coats and scarves all over the back seat. Stack of bags for life on the passenger seat. Every so often DH gets too upset by it and empties it all out for me

Same here! I told my oh that I can't keep a house AND a car clean so I choose the house!

Just had a quick wipe down of the inside of the car,I removed
Umbrellas
4 water bottles
Sweet wrappers
Loose change
3 pairs of shoes
Note pad
Coat

Tidied up millions of bags for life

Also millions of tissues with chewing gum in them rank!

Yes I think the scale in those photos relates to "hoarding disorder" , as evidenced by the fact that theist majority of people on this thread are between a 1-2 , which would seem to be completely normal. A few people going up to a 4, which seems is still pretty normal, andunder the level that it would qualify for concern as hoarding disorder.

I'd say if the OP's friend is a 5/6 then she's in danger of it becoming out of control. If this is a recent escalation, Maybe she's had a recent change in her life? Maybe she's had a bereavement , maybe hit the menopause (linked to depression/cognitive sometihanges), maybe she is having marital problems, maybe she is coping with chronic pain. Perhaps an existing reason for finding organisation difficult (undiagnosed ADHD, depression, OCD) has been exarcerbated by a traumatic life event and is now out of control? Maybe she could do with a non judgemental friend to listen and help?

On this useful link they list lots of mental health conditions, life situations and neurological conditions that can lead to hoarding...
www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/hoarding/#.XQdPOq3MzMU

Good luck OP in trying to help x

I feel anxious just reading this thread.
Finding the pictures for the hoarding scale helped me feel I'm not too bad now. I'm a 2 with occasional 3, but have been a 4 at times in the past.
I'm a single mum working full time in a stressful job. At one point I had a cleaner but it made me feel bad how quickly things looked bad after they'd been, and they can't (unless you pay for decluttering specifically) clean where's there's clutter.
I 'survive' by going round with mental blinkers so I don't 'see' the mess.
This means if I try to declutter the blinkers have to come off and my anxiety rises even though I know the end result is good.
In terms of hygiene in the kitchen it's not too bad at the moment, but even at it's worst I would thoroughly clean the food preparation area before cooking, so I don't think I was ever putting anyone's health at risk.
Ive got two DS aged 21 and 17.
The 21 year old now lives with his Dad as it's close to his uni. He now likes a tidy environment and has been known to deep clean my house while I was on holiday with DS2 (which was nice, embarrassing and slightly annoying when he went a bit far in throwing out things I didn't want him to). More recently he's helped me bring rooms from 3-4 down to a 2 if not 1.
How much of it is low level depression and how much laziness I'm never sure.
How much relates to the stressful job I am now clearer on, so I've bit the bullet and started looking for a new job.

I can’t bring myself to care about the inside of my car. I guess it’s because to me it’s just a means to get from A to B. And if I eat a bar of chocolate in there, I don’t have a bin to put the wrapper in, unlike in the house - so I toss it into the footwell of the passenger side and think, I’ll bin that when I get home. But then after I’ve brought in the shopping, my handbag, my laptop bag, DS and DS’s paraphernalia I either forget or can’t be bothered. But I have to live in the house (as does DS) so I want it to be clean and organised. The kitchen and bathroom are visitor ready at all times (by which I mean clean - there is limescale on the shower head etc which doesn’t get sorted out as often as it should, but there’s no skidmarks or toothpaste scum etc). There’s no food bits on the floor in the kitchen, the hob is always cleaned after we cook, the washing up is done regularly and the sides wiped at least 2-3 times per day.

DS is allowed to get out any toy he wants, and I don’t care if he mixes them up, but we do tidy his room before bed and the sitting room too. Though saying that sometimes if there’s eg his brio is all laid out on the floor I don’t make him put it away on Saturday if he’ll be playing with it on Sunday too. I only make him put one thing away before he gets out another if eg there’s Lego all over the floor and he wants to get out the scalextric but there’s no room.

I agree that sometimes people go too far the other way in response to their upbringing. My parents’ home was quite bad - probably at least a 3 most of the time on that scale, and not very clean either. Now my mum is dead, but dad’s place is pushing a 5 at time. I won’t eat there, and I know DH hates visiting. As a reaction against this, I find it hard to relax if my home isn’t as near to spotless as possible, and find it really affects my mental health if it’s messy. But I do worry I’m too far this way and will give DS a complex so it try really hard never to shout at him for dropping food on the floor, or make him constantly tidy up his toys. He knocked over a cup of hot chocolate onto a cream carpet the other day and I didn’t even raise my voice though inside I was gutted (my vault for letting him have it). A happy medium would be best. My mum used to say that a tidy home was a sign of a wasted life but it’s not like she was doing much except reading and watching tv anyway!

interesting article about laziness

www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/hide-and-seek/201505/the-causes-laziness

I'm naturally messy but love a clean house and want my dc to have a pleasant home so I make a conscious effort to keep up with housework. I'm a sahm and kids are at school so I spend nearly all day doing house stuff. My home isn't immaculate though. I have several childfree friends who have homes which are spotless...not a single item out of place or a speck of dust or a scuff mark on the wall. I wonder how they'll cope if and when they have children.

I'd hate my children to ever feel embarrassed so if they ever have a friend round, i go crazy cleaning the place and making sure their rooms look perfect!

Honestly, this is a tragic waste of a life. Why would you spend all your time on housework? Surely, if your children are 'embarrassed', let them clean their own rooms?

Women who are obsessed with housework, and see the cleanliness of their house as some kind of reflection on them (and not on any of the other people who live in it), is as much a mental health symptom as hoarding, for me.

It's interesting reading this thread taking a break from tidying the house this morning. I can see myself that when everything is tidy and clean that I feel better, lighter, just easier in myself so I'm sure the kids feel the same way.

I also notice that the kids are happier because there are clear surfaces to eg do a craft activity, sit down to eat together, not have to pick their way across a room because of stuff strewn everywhere, quickly wash up a cup because the sink is clear. Things like cooking and washing up are easier and quicker to do with clear surfaces and everything in its place so we have more time for each other, everyone can find their things so no constant yelling up and down of where is this or that, so a more peaceful house overall.

I also struggle with this (adhd) and have found this book by Sheila Chandra to be SO helpful: www.goodreads.com/book/show/7954855-banish-clutter-forever

It really helped me understand how being tidy 'works', if that makes sense; it's based on the idea that everything should be stored right next to where it is used so that you can always put it away without going more than a few steps.

Her system works really well with my adhd because if it takes more than a few seconds/steps to put something away I will get distracted/forget what I was doing and it won't get done. Also helps with cleaning; I used to keep all cleaning products under the sink in the kitchen because it seemed to make sense, but if I wanted to clean the bathroom I could easily get distracted on the way to/from getting the cleaning products, and the whole thing could take hours instead of minutes. So now I keep some bathroom cleaner etc next to the bathroom sink too and that helps.

For those who think mess and creativity go together, she also has a really great book about organising for creativity (esp for managing a creative career).

This discussion has made me remember an exchange with a friend. She shared a photo of an over flowing laundry basket (really over flowing) and my response was "you have too many clothes!" (I always know I need to do a white wash when DD gets low on vests) whereas her response was that they didn't have enough clothes.

Same situation, entirely different reaction.

People are different. Always have been, always will be. IDIC - infinite diversity in infinite combinations (a Vulcan philosophy)

Habits, routines, systems. That's what keeps our home organised. Oh and not having too much stuff. We're nothing special.

I think it true people generally have too much stuff.

It doesn't help with MH issues, it makes them worse.
I tend to clear out and recycle stuff often it makes a big difference.
I use small burst to get things done.
I recommend choice theory by William Glassier, I often go back to it when my MH is slipping.
It reminds me I have a choice, I can be depressed and sit about or I can be depressed and do the dishes, it is all my choice.

Hmm.

I have friends who have ridiculous amounts of clutter. As in, most rooms in their house have a six inch layer of crap all over them (only kids' bedrooms excepted). They can't possibly clean with that mess. This long predates their having children.

The thing is, my parents are hugely untidy too. The kitchen is always a state (my mum won't let anyone else near it, and every surface is covered in clutter and spillages).

It took my sister and I a long time to realise that it was steadily declining after we left home because we weren't there to clean up any more.

Funnily enough, the messy couple stayed with us in my parents house with other friends, and they didn't lift a finger to help cook or clean! They are very up themselves with values of dirt being good for you etc, but it seems to very conveniently go in hand with a complete abrogation of responsibility for the practical responsibility of adulthood.