What do you think of this family house rule?

[Porcell]

People in the house are not allowed to come downstairs in the morning without being fully dressed/clean and moderately groomed.

This does not apply to school kids during the week. But at the weekends/school holidays memebers of the household are not allowed to be in pyjamas. They can veg out on the sofa but they have to be groomed and in clean clothes. Trackies are allowed.

You miss the point. They will leave and rarely bother coming back. Which is not the point of raising kids.

I can honestly say that all this woman is doing is raising children who at 18 will run off to live lives where they will spend all day in P J’s lounging around. Afterall they have years of relaxing to catch up on

On a non working day I often don't get dressed until at least 11am. Get up, multiple mugs of tea, tidy the kitchen, washing on, exercise, clean the house (makes no sense to me to shower before cleaning) then a nice leisurely shower.
I don't sweat at night, change my pjs daily and keep a very clean tidy house. Can't see the problem. I'd hate your draconian rules OP

And why would they have to be moaned at? Just because they are in their pjs?

I’m an adult and I wouldn’t live with this.

We do this but it’s not a rule really. It’s just what we do because there are multiple parts to the house. Day part and night part and it’s a trek to go back and forth. We also sleep naked as adults so have to get dressed anyway. Brush our teeth before breakfast. And have young children who can’t dress themselves and don’t want to ferry back and forth.

Its a good rule but I wouldn't want to stick to it myself and so wouldn't implement it in my house. Something I would aspire to, like cleaning the base boards weekly, but in reality would never do.

Sounds sensible to me.

People are too slothful these days, and then whine that they aren't getting ahead in life and blame it on ordinary and predictable rises in COL or other factors beyond their own laziness and self indulgence.

Nowadays I never get dressed before breakfast unless I'm staying in a hotel. However, I did expect my children to put their uniform on before having their breakfast on a school day when they were little. You have some odd rules.

Im a bit concerned that your children are in dirty pyjamas. Are clean pyjamas acceptable?

Utterly ridiculous and controlling.

Eh? 😂😂😂

My children have very busy weeks, with school and extra curricular activities most evenings etc.. so they quite frequently have a pyjama day on the weekend when they very often won't get dressed all day!! Its great and I feel they deserve it :)

Grossly controlling and rigid. Setting it up as "you can't be downstairs until you do this" makes it more of an appearances thing, or at least about adult convenience.

I do think it's part of my job as a parent to help my DC explore how routines can make a difference in their lives, but that's more about them learning what works for them. I've always gotten littles changed in the morning and once they're at independent-dressing stage I'll remind them to do their grooming and suggest they dress at the same time (learning to group connected tasks), but exactly when that happens is flexible. Everyone has a toothbrush downstairs for brushing when they're ready for breakfast. Until the teen years each kid has a morning and evening checklist that includes grooming and dressing (they help us make their checklists) but they generally get to make choices about when they do each thing. For our teens we strongly encourage a "change clothes at least every 24 hours" bare minimum but that's never been something that we actually have to enforce. By that age we openly talk about what their DH and I have learned about changing and washing up every morning and night making a difference mentally and about how routines can work as "automated decisions."

No one in our house is spending days on end at home unoccupied outside of serious illness, even during summers. We encourage everyone to have downtime when they need it and the occasional "small world day" is something we intentionally have here and there (stay home all day with no real schedule, maybe in pjs) but in general everyone leaves the house daily even if it's only to help an adult or teen sibling run errands. So if everyone is going to get dressed at some point almost every day, why would we need to make some rigid rule about when exactly it happens?

Victorian crazy.

Feeling personally offended about youngsters having messy hair over the weekend is a bit weird.

If you were really busy and successful in life you'd understand the value of a little down time first thing in the morning to get your head in the right place before things kick off.

i don't see anything wrong with that at all.
In fact that was probably how I was brought up.
Standards of acceptable behaviour do appear to be slipping and the trend is downwards.

Don't come to my house. My just turned 13yo has been known to stay in the same pj's from Friday night until Monday morning. Weirdly he has a shower Saturday night and then puts the same pj's back on ( I need to buy another pair but can't find them).Same again on Sunday. His bedlinen is washed weekly. He showers everyday except Friday, when he comes straight home and puts his weekend pj's on.He has heaps of different pj's that he wears during the week! ( don't ask, I don't understand either)
He also ( due to the distance to his school) is up and dressed and has had breakfast by 6.30 every weekday,after showering the night before. I then stumble out of bed and make his lunch and find anything he might be missing and drive him to the busstop. I think he earns his pj weekends.
Obviously this is only if we aren't having visitors or going out , even for a walk , then he gets dressed properly.
Also , if he spills somehing on them then straight in the washer.
He is comfy and happy so it's fine with me.

Do you know me because you certainly just described my experience.

The only difference being that I ran before I even reached 18. Bang on about the rest though.

As for OP doing the whole "I can neither confirm nor deny it is me" thing. I think subsequent posts more than hint towards confirm. Reminds me so much of my tormentor, it gave me trauma flashbacks. Not so bad as the thirty odd years before my trauma therapy but still there.

It's never about producing functional adults. It's about nasty narcissistic control freakery. To be referred to as, "...who shall be OBEYED", is not a compliment. It means arrogant bully, more often than not.

Perfectly acceptable rule

Also . I know this is a UK website but just wanted to point out that a lot of the world have single storey houses, not sure how OP would cope withh that!

It would work for some families and not for others.

My inlaws would never ever come downstairs unless fully dressed, bed made etc and we do the same when there. I have friends who live like this too.

It wouldn't work for us, but I don't think it's batshit or controlling. Just a more formal family dynamic, and that's okay.

I could not agree more. I'm so sorry for your experience and Thank God you got out. People like this as you sadly know want to control EVERYTHING. I seriously doubt this is the only thing being controlled in this unfamily home.