To think that living in a very messy house does impact on children

[HeatingOnInJuly]

I was thinking of this based on the "small ways your parents fucked you up" thread so it kind of stems from that

My parent's house was very messy - they would say it was normal family clutter, and that it was cosy and lived in, but I'm not sure I've ever been in a house quite like it since, so I think it must have been unusually messy

Door handles would fall off and were never fixed, ancient carpets would be ripped up and the floor would be left, bare cement, for months. Piles of washing everywhere. Nappies bagged and left on the floor for days, though they made it to the bin eventually. Kitchen was frankly dirty, with sides invisible due to stuff being piled on. Nobody ever put anything away after it was used, it would just be left. I didn't realise until well into adult hood that people would immediately put something back where it belonged after use, as a matter of course, everything from bottle opener to hoover was just left. Never sat at dining table due to being piled high with shit. Never taught how to do any chores or how to clean properly and manage laundry. Cupboards unusable as they were so jammed full of stuff. The furniture itself was good quality - plenty of art on the walls, sofas were expensive, good carpets when we had it - so I think this meant it passed as arty and bohemian but actually it was a tip

Never any clean uniform or Games kit which led to detentions at school. Yelled at for losing things when things inevitably got lost the minute they were set down. Difficult to study as the rooms were kept dark with the curtains closed. We were always late because of things getting mislaid. Clothes never hung up, just picked from a communal pile that lived in a walk in closet.

Friends would have been welcome, but by the age of about 8 I was too embarrassed to invite them,but of course I couldn't tell my parents that so I made excuses.

Parents had good jobs and were comfortably off, they just couldn't be bothered to clean or tidy as there was always something they'd rather be doing.

They insisted until they were blue in the face that it didn't matter, that life was too short to waste cleaning, that sort of thing, but actually all it resulted in was a dishevelled childhood where everything seemed out of control and chaotic. If I'd told them that the house was embarrassing they just would have laughed at me.

When I moved out and had my first child, I did what I knew and for about a year or two my flat was a mess. I didn't know how to keep things clean and organised, and I read things like that "dust if you must" poem that floats around and ignored 99% of housework because I was spending time with my child. But then I noticed the same thing happening especially when nursery started, being late because everything was lying everywhere or no clothes were washed or dry, "losing"new clothes or toys in the mess and only finding them once they were outgrown.... It made me realise that while obviously there's no need to go to extremes and scrub your loo with bleach and a toothbrush every day, there's a reason why being reasonably clean and tidy is seen as a desirable life skill. I had to teach myself how to manage a home and to do the most basic tasks thanks to the Internet

The state of my childhood home had a really negative effect on me, and I could see the same thing happening with my own child. no it's not neglect or abuse, but when your house is so messy that it's not a pleasant or comfortable place to be, or when the mess is causing regular stress and impacting on other ordinary bits of life, then your child probably would quite like you to do a bit of cleaning rather than a craft activity with them, certainly once they're a bit older. I think people are really fooling themselves if they think that level of mess doesn't impact on their children

Both extremes are bad, but I do struggle with 'no-one taught me to clean/how to tidy up'.

These are just life skills that you develop as you go along. I wasn't ever taught. It was just something instinctive.

I grew up in a messy house and it's made me the opposite. I would go around my childhood home putting things away, tidying up etc... It wasn't extreme mess, more a case of my parents not being interested in things looking nice or being especially clean. I alwys felt a bit ashamed to bring friends home. Sad really.
Now, my home is always tidy and I would say pretty clean, although I can overlook dirt to some extent if the place looks tidy. I don't know if I would have been like this if I'd grown up in a tidy home. My brother is the same though so it does point to a reaction against our upbringing!

I get you OP, from the other side.

My house was always immaculate, with everything in it's place and, particularly, everything perfectly lined up (rug with fireplace, table with rug, sofa with table etc etc).

I have mild OCD and the need for everything to be perfect rubbed off on me, so much so it's affected my relationships in the past while I've spent 3 hours trying to line up a rug.

It's not fun.

a myth developed that if it were not for my sister and me, the house would be immaculate. This was nonsense, as our stuff was kept in our bedrooms and it was my father's crap that was everywhere

Now as adults my sister and I live in reasonably tidy houses... their house has got worse and worse.

Exact same thing happened to me and my sister. Except that now we've moved out (to extremely tidy houses), my parents place is also now very tidy. So I guess we'll never know whose fault it was!

My mum and step-dad were neat freaks, I was once screamed at for not washing up the saucepan I'd used to cook my dinner while I was still eating my dinner. They were neglectful, very neglectful both emotionally and practically. They never actually taught me how to do housework, only to stay out of sight at all times. I was only allowed to shower once a week, and when I did it had to be very quick and if my step-dad decided he wanted the bathroom while I was using it that was it I had to finish then and there. I had to be pulled aside by a teacher when I was in year 9 to be told that I smelt and given deodorant - that hurt and I am still greatly ashamed even now. I now struggle with major depression and have days where I have no energy or motivation and just about manage to make sure my childrens basic needs are met, so my home isn't always perfect. It is never what I would call extremley dirty/untidy, but sometimes I would be far too embarrassed to have any visitors around. Obviously if this continues then it will eventually impact on my children which is very, very worrying to me.

There has to be somewhere in the middle I suppose.

Sorry if it's already been mentioned, but anyone who really isn't a natural / instinctively good tidier, there is an app called T.O.M.M. (the organised mum method - obviously not just for mums though)! I really recommend it. It has really helped me get on top of tidying in the past. I personally take longer than she says for the tasks, but that might just be me being a bit cackhanded.

I'm with you OP, I read the title and was going to come on and say that my parents somewhat cluttered house was stressful as a child. But what you've described sounds horrible honestly. There is no question that would impact children negatively.

I'm also one that doesn't think it's a choice between a really messy house or hours a day cleaning. If anything it's quicker to have a clean house, because if it's already clean you don't need to clean it.

Wow what an interesting thread.
My parents were emotionally absent and didn't teach any cooking or cleaning skills.
I have really struggled with all the housekeeping.

Fly lady was the start of my path out of a depressive mess.
I read Marie Kondo and really liked the way she gets all the same stuff together then goes through it.
And now I'm trying to do Team TOMM and Slob lady.

Slob lady has made me realize that clutter begets clutter. And TOMM is teaching me that daily small cleaning job each day really do add up. And it doesn't feel like losing the will to live and getting exhausted 'wasting' hours cleaning in 1 go.

A very messy DH doesn't help. But I just want a clean tidy house to live in, and my child not to be ashamed of our house. It really is baby steps, like fly lady says.

It depends on what you define as messy. I think living in a dirty overly cluttered house isn’t nice but typical mess like clean clothes left in baskets, toys strewn across the living room, shoes laying about in the porch etc is nothing major. I actually had the opposite problem as a child. My DM was obsessed (still is) with cleaning her home and having it spotless 24/7. As a child I’d come in from school and often, even before I’d actually stopped foot over the door step, I’d hear her shouting to me to tell me to take my shoes off. If occasionally lean on the wall as my balance wasn’t great wearing your 90’s style huge heeled Kickers, and I’d get shouted at for leaving a mark. If I took a shower I had to wipe done the entire bath and surrounding area even though I’d already rinsed the bath and all that was left was a bit of water. I had to eat biscuits with a plate in case I dropped I crumb on the floor etc. It made me so anxious and I remember thinking as a child that my DM was weird and not normal. She is still the same now and when I take my dc round you can tell she’s looking to see that they don’t touch things (they’re almost 18 and 9!) and looks on edge. If they drop so much as crumb on her floors (tiled and wooden floor not carpet) she drags the hoover out there and then. She tells my dc not t lean on the walls when they go through the house and not to make a mess in the bathroom. Needles to say I hardly take my dc anymore as they shouldn’t have to put with it. My house is clean but it can get messy and I won’t apologise for that. I clean often and keep up with jobs that need doing around my home but i won’t put cleaning above spending quality time with my dc. Mess hasn’t adversity affected my dc but the way my DP’s behaved when I was a kid, especially my DM definitely affected me.

There's a point where it's no longer messy and cluttered and it's actually dirty and neglected. Op yours sounds the latter (I'm guilty of the former but always clean clothes, kitchen wiped down and cleared away etc)

My kids would probably say they grew up in a tip.

The house was damp and there was mould in places (the rent was cheap and as a single mum to five, I couldn't afford any more). Downstairs was always tidy, their rooms were hideously messy because I refused to martyr myself to the kids and do every stitch of the tidying that they should have been doing.

Landlord wasn't fussed if things fell down or walls crumbled. I tried to keep on top of it, but with no money, no help and the kids doing their best to pull me into chaos, I just had to let some things go.

I hope it hasn't scarred my children for life. But, to be honest, they were partly the agents of their own destruction, because none of them would lift a finger voluntarily to tidy or clean. Their houses are all lovely now (although I bet their bedrooms are still tips!)

As a child I used to stay at my friends they were traditional Romany gypsies at heart. My friends bedroom was freezing with damp however her pony would stick his head through the window every morning which made it all the more fun. The loo and kitchen was indescribable. Now she lives in a clean environment

I know a woman who lives in an absolutely immaculate home. She has two young children but if you walked in her house, you'd see absolutely no evidence that children live there. It's actually quite sad. I mean if you just stick your child on the sofa every day with a tablet computer, your house would be much cleaner and tidier than if your children are playing with toys and doing crafts etc.

On the other hand, I absolutely agree it's unacceptable to force your children to live amongst clutter and squalor .

Everyone has different standards though. I have a childfree friend who lives in a show home. We recently visited a mutual friends house who has a toddler. Her house was absolutely spotless and her toddler had a single basket of toys which he was sitting on the floor playing with in the middle of an immaculate living room. Childfree friend starts ranting about how she couldn't live in such chaos it was totally bizarre. She's ttc now so that should be interesting.

On the other end of the scale I had a friend whose house was like a show home growing up. I hated it when she wasn't ready when I called because it meant she would invite me in to wait on her. I was so paranoid encase I walked a spec of dirt in. He mum would hoover around me wiping things down that I'd touched.

I once witnessed the mum slapping my friend across the face as she'd found a empty crisp packet on her bedroom bin. She wasn't allowed to eat in the bedroom and no rubbish was supposed to be place on the bin, it was just there for show

I think what you are describing op, and in some of the pps, is extreme and not what people mean when they say the mess won’t harm you.

I think that’s referring to a little bit of mess or mess that gets tidied up every few days etc. They aren’t saying let it descend into total squalor, or something that can’t be cleaned because of the mess, just not to run yourself ragged keeping all toys put away etc.

@Bluntness100

it wasn't until DH moved in that I had a mop, as I'd never seen anyone use one to clean a floor

You see I don’t understand this. Because you see this sort of thing all the time, on tv adverts for example, or books, folks clean, but ultimately it’s not difficult.

I grew up in a council flat, this didn’t mean I didn’t know that grass needed cutting or a lawn mower was required for the job. I didn’t think gosh I wonder how folks keep their grass down and that I’d never heard of lawn mowers.

Even if we never saw our parents mop, Hoover, dust, mow the lawn or drill holes, we still grow up knowing these things happen and the tools required for the job. Because they were advertised on tv, or a character did them in a book, or a family member talked about it.

You get told that they're unnecessary, they're full of germs, only rich people do it/only common people do that kind of thing, there's no point doing it because you (the child) are only going to destroy anything that's done, that people are stupid about cleaning and it's good for the immune system to be around abject filth a bit of dust, people never used to be so fussy about kitchen floors and livestock used to sleep in mud huts and nobody ever complained then, and it's all your fault anyway, so how dare you criticise and be so stupid as to think that the things said by companies that want to sell you stuff are true anyway, etc. And that food hygiene is all a myth to make you throw away perfectly good food that's only six months/twenty years out of date and covered in mould/slime from decomposition.

One of my mother's ones was that washing the windows was dangerous and if you tried, the pressure would make the glass fall out or shatter and you'd be sliced to pieces with your head hanging out and your guts over the windowsill and floor inside. Another is that I messed the house up, so it's impossible for her to deal with it. I moved out 30 years ago. And my room was tidy then.

That and fleas didn't move once they lived in the carpet. So if you didn't stand over that side, you'd be fine.

You'd be surprised at just how much work goes into making sure you don't know how to keep things clean and tidy. Because if you knew just how bad your place was, you might tell a teacher and they'd alert social services.

Skanky people are incredibly motivated to keep the place like it.

My house, for instance, is clean but gets messy quickly at the moment because i really need to get rid of stuff. However everything has a place to go and gets put in it every few days. It would just be easier with less stuff, but the toys will be gone in a few years and I’ll probably miss this time!

And we have a lot of lego...

Having a house that goes the other way can also have a negative impact and also have an effect on a childs confidence and well being. You can never relax or bring friends found in case you're screamed at for making a mess
My mum was like this..still is to a point. I remember her hitting me very hard because I put ironed clothes on my bedroom floor once instead of putting them straight away and freaking out cos I left a dirty cup on the coffee table and leaving the room. I grew up and went the opposite way, my house was a mess all the time and with 4 children, poor mental health and 2 kids with autism and a lazy dp meant I couldnt keep up and gave up.

My own kids were embarrassed to bring friends over too.

It's all changed now, my house is nicely decorated, not cluttered, clean and tidy and there are no holes in my doors anymore. Still gets a bit messy though but quickly tidied.

I grew up in a clean home. But now looking back I don't think it was hygienic as I thought. Stroking the dog and then cooking without washing hands. My mother once stroked one of the dogs and then put her hand onto the scrambled eggs to get the spoon that fell into the pot as we were cooking it. Then bedsheets changed probably once a month and washing up in a bowl full of food particles, saliva and grease. I wash plates and cups under a running tap. The other way is so disgusting.

My friends mum was literally ocd clean freak. Not allowed to sit on sofas. They were for display only. You had to either sit on the floor or share the very deflated pathetic beanbag. Weren't allowed to eat inside, would have to eat in garden. She couldn't cook and going to there's for tea was awful as it was just a massive plate of cold dry noodles or half cooked raw pizza and hard half frozen chips, or the odd treat to Mcdonalds and while I was grateful for the food. At 14, I really wasn't full on a fish finger happy meal. Small fries and two fishingers. We weren't allowed to sleep in my friends bedroom incase we messed it up so her mum insisted we slept in the garage next to the bloody car on a pull out sofa that was basically the floor. Everything was kept spotless it was like a show home. The house was gorgeous but in the end I stopped going round. My friend and her mum would fight all the time too which would result in her mother calling the police. When the police came, she laid out a path made of Tesco plastic carrier bags from the front door to the kitchen for the policemen to walk on, because she was scared the police would wreck her carpets.

I love clean things and I can't stand mess or clutter but I'm not over the top. My eldest kids also help out. Maybe your siblings and you could have helped your parents. I wouldn't sit in squalor as a child, in the end I would have said to the parents, please can we have a clean home without dirty nappies and laundry everywhere.

But, to be honest, they were partly the agents of their own destruction, because none of them would lift a finger voluntarily to tidy or clean.

That’s kids though! Perfectly normal for them not to be born knowing how to have a bedroom cleaning routine. That’s your job to teach and enforce.

It really is about finding a balance. There is a level of normal and acceptability. Apparently things need to be pretty horrific before Social Care will step in sad examples up thread.

At times my parents home was just a bit cluttered and dusty, other times it became filthy. I resent the fact that I told her and asked her about it and was always laughed at! That is why I don't feel guilty now about not going in their home.

The lack of maintenance doesn't help! Maintaining a house is expensive and can be a pain but you do need to pre empt it. Kitchens do not last forever, grubby line only gets worse, unhoovered carpets eventually stink!

"Bedroom Waste Paper Bins are for waste paper ONLY!"

I had to visit my best friends mum recently to drop off a prescription and that was ringing in my ears as I rang the bell. (I put satsuma peel in the bin.)

I think that is the issue though greenfingers - it's not at all instinctive. If you found it was, perhaps you had a good example to follow as a child?

If left to my own devices my house has two states - clean and a shit tip! Because I don't really notice it building up until it's really bad and then I blitz it all.

I do struggle with 'no-one taught me to clean/how to tidy up' These are just life skills that you develop as you go along. I wasn't ever taught. It was just something instinctive.

It isn't that you don't know how to clean/tidy up, it's that you're not conditioned to do it or even to recognise when it's needed. You grow up with a messy, dirty house being the norm and it's only when you start visiting other people's houses that it - slowly- dawns on you it's not normal.

This thread isn't the place for a nature/nurture debate but I don't believe tidying up is an instinctive human skill - it's something learned; like language, by imitation. If you never see things being cleaned or put away in your formative years, learning to do so later in life is like learning a foreign language as an adult, as opposed to picking up your native language without thinking about it. Most adults find it a long and sometimes difficult journey to 'fluency' although it can help if you later live with other 'native' tidy people.

@lunar1 My mother was the same as yours...just couldn't be arsed. Thought things like sewing our names into PE kit was 'stupid' and refused to do it. I was always getting into trouble because of that. Hobbies were stupid, after school activities were stupid, sleepovers were stupid (never went on one), parent/teacher evenings and other school events were stupid and the people who did all of them were 'boring'.

Never checked homework was done, showed zero interest in what we were doing in school. For 2 years when I was 13 I had to sleep on a bed in the living room (only a two bedroom flat and my two brothers had the other bedroom), her and my father used to stay up until gone midnight watching television, which kept me awake - I was made to go to bed at 9pm. I was constantly tired and still suffer from insomnia now. The easy fix of getting a portable television for their bedroom was considered a 'waste of money'.

I can still remember once in art class we had been doing silk screen printing. We were told to make the finished print into a picture, cushion, etc as homework and bring it back the next week. My mother refused to buy any materials ...I can still remember a friend's mother had helped her turn the print into a beach bag, and how lovely it was. I felt so sad that my mother was so different and disinterested.