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.

Here's a conundrum for the cleaning/hygeine police
At the weekend I sometimes wake up, scroll on my phone for a bit, put dressing gown on and go down for breakfast. Then start some household chores including cleaning....and then have a shower afterwards....but should I be cleaned and groomed (I always think of brushing a horse or clipping a dogs fur when I hear grooming in this context) to clean the house?

You are very generously permitted to in the evening in OPs house, I believe

My younger teens have to be washed, dressed and have eaten before they can go on devices at the weekends.
It means fewer arguments which can only be good thing IMO.

I’ve just reread the OP’s posts. I’m a bit taken aback at some of the responses. It may not be how others want to live their lives but it isn’t abusive to say that before you come downstairs, you need to be in jeans and a hoodie, not pyjamas. She has not said that they need to be “interview ready”, just clean and moderately groomed. I’ve taken this to mean that if she asked a child to go to the corner shop to get some milk, they could.

@CruCru I don't see why you are taken aback. It's not normal in most houses.

I wonder what other rules OP has in place.

I’m downstairs in the lounge wearing the pjs I slept in. Each to their own but possibly one of the most bizarre house rules I’ve ever come across.

If I needed one of my teens to go to the corner shop they would make an enormous fuss about it I would probably warn them the night before, or I'd simply ask them to go when they were dressed. If it was urgent DH or I would be quicker. In the same way DH usually goes out early if we need something because he's up and dressed earlier. I do more late night trips to the petrol station though.
I mostly ask the kids to run errands in school.holidays when they are home and I'm at work, they can go whatever time of day they wish.

Multiple parts to the house? Do you live in a castle?! I’m imagining you wheeling suitcases full of clothes from the east wing to the west wing.

Terrible parenting

I can't remember ever being iniving room as a kid / teen with nightwear on. My kids didn't either. I didn't have any big rule but I suppose was just the norm for us all

I'm intrigued what @POSTC123 home is like.

I wouldn't set this out as a house rule, though it might be what you ask younger children to do if that's the way you prefer to do things. I think for teens and older it is a matter of personal choice and definitely not worth making a stand on. You could reasonably require teens to get dressed for visitors, but not generally.

DH and I are always showered and dressed before breakfast. It's incredibly rare for me not to do that. So that's the behavour we have always modelled and actually what the kids used to do. But now they are young adults and when they are home they will sometimes spend half the day in pyjamas (not actually generally what they wear in bed, to be fair) and I'm not going to worry about that.

Me too! I hope they come back to update!

No, never! Shower and dressed before anything else. Unless there's a load of people in the house and the hot water has run out!

Don't feel this is the only right way to do things, but it is what DH and I do.

Lol it’s not a castle. But it’s just an odd layout. Like if an octopus was a house. I would say more arms to the house than wings 🤷‍♀️😂

Going back to the night part of the house means I failed in efficiency.

I honestly don't think this is a bad thing. I wouldn't want smelly teenagers on my sofa either tbh and i do think lazy behaviours breed lazy lives.

In the week the kids are all dressed and ready before they eat, at the weekend eat in PJ's then dressed for the day ( even if in comfy clothes) shower and clean pjs at night for TV is fine.

I see no problem in people having standards in their homes and i think the word 'controlling' here has been used a ridiculous amount!

I wouldn't have had a chance if I'd tried to implement this rule. It would only have taken two days of one DS coming downstairs in swimwear and one DD wearing her riding kit all day for me to realise how ridiculous this was and unless I was going to stipulate exactly which clothes were to be worn at which particular times, I was on a hiding to nothing.

Yes, my kids did take the piss all the time. They are not natural rule followers, any of them. I happily embraced the 'wear what you like when you like as long as you put something decent on when visitors/granny are coming over' rule.

Did the rule imposer go to boarding school by any chance?

Why is there an assumption that wearing nightwear/pjs/dressing gowns = smelly?
We are pretty relaxed in our house about wearing pjs etc downstairs but no one smells!

It is normal(ish) in mine. My son comes down in his pyjamas and eats breakfast / looks at his phone but I send him back up to get dressed and tooth brushed fairly sharpish. My daughter likes to get dressed and ready before coming downstairs (her choice).

There are lots of ways of living. I would struggle with the idea of staying in pyjamas all day because I would feel as though I had really achieved nothing. But I would not say that others were wrong to do so.

I wasn't raised like that, though I think I would have liked the standard.
People are much more sloppy these days, including myself, choosing comfort over style.
I'd love to be the type of person who makes effort everyday to look groomed.
I admire people who dress well.
When I make the effort, I feel so much better.
Pyjamas to joggers, another challenge for my long to-do list.

Sounds absolutely awful to me but each to their own!

That sounds pretty normal to me.

I think most people think it's strange that the family can't go downstairs in their pyjamas to eat breakfast and then go and get changed.

Now I think about it I do tend to wash, moisturise my face and brush my hair before going downstairs but I will have my pyjamas on to have my morning coffee. I certainly don't demand anyone else does though.

For me, it isn't necessarily this specific rule. It is the rigid mindset and inflexibility. Rules like this rarely exist in isolation and are likely symptomatic of a wider dictatorial parenting style. Plus, if it is applied to all in the household, you are expecting other adults to also abide by an arbitrary rule rather than letting them live as they choose.

I think that perhaps my comment about going to the corner shop is a red herring - I don’t know if that’s the OP’s reasoning. It may be that, once the children are downstairs and breakfasted, it is a real battle to get them back upstairs to get dressed. Or not.

I would get fairly shirty with my children if they made a fuss about going to the corner shop. But that’s just my lookout.