To ask if you grew up in a clean and tidy home?

[Netcurtainnelly]

Apparently your more likely to be clean and tidy if you were.

Clean yes. Tidy no. I have never been tidy. I know where everything is, which is all that matters to me. I have piles of books and papers all over the place. I also have loads of musical instruments. It's all stuff I use and enjoy.

I don't think tidy/untidy is important. I like my house. I think it's a nice place to be. My friend's house was immaculate, but it radiated love and laughter.

Yes I did. I found my mother’s almost obsession with this pathetic. DH and I share the housework so our house is clean with little time expended, I struggle with being tidy. I’m much happier this way.

My parents home growing up wasn't bad. Dad did the cleaning, and he did a decent job of it. There were always piles of books and magazines around, but it was always organised and neat clutter, if that makes sense. Now that they are elderly their clutter piles have turned into doom piles and I'd say their house is borderline like a hoarder's house. I clean for them, as well as in my own home, but cleaning and decluttering is something I have always struggled with (I believe that I am one of the many middle aged women who have undiagnosed ADHD). I keep kitchen and bathroom clean enough to be considered hygienic (both theirs and mine), the rest, I do my best with what little executive function I have after work and helping my parents with day to day life needs (shopping, some cooking, sorting their bills out etc). There is usually more dog hair on the carpet than I would like, and there is definitely more untidiness in both households than I would like. When I get on a decluttering spree I love it, but the progress never lasts.

Yes and yes to a point.
My mum was a stay at home mum when we were tiny until my youngest sibling started secondary school so was more able to stay on top of the house and my dad also cleaned and tidied it as well - wasn’t just mum’s job. It was spotless but we never felt like we couldn’t living in it we weren’t worried about making a mess just knew we would have to help with the tidy up if you know what I mean, it was lovely having a home like that which is what I want for my kids.

our house is clean and tidy 98% of the time but we both work full time, me in shift patterns so some times the tidying gets a bit built up and has to wait until the weekend/ my next day off. We also insist that the kids keep their spaces tidy expecting them to tidy their rooms once a week and hoover them as well as helping with general chores such as emptying dishwasher sorting clean laundry etc. I really think my parents expectations of keeping the house clean and tidy played a bit part in how clean and tidy my house is.

I'm the opposite. Grew up in a messy borderline hoardy house (not particularly unclean) and I am extremely fastidious about hygiene and can't relax in the evening until everything is tidy and in it's correct place (have to resist hoarding tendencies though). I have had mild to moderate OCD about cutlery and plates being clean and hand washing since early teens, mainly due I think to my parents slapdash approach.

Yes. Very very tidy. My own home now is quite messy

Same. I actually wish my parents had made me help more with the housework growing up.

I did, DM was a housekeeper and as a result treated our house as she did work - everything dusted and hoovered daily; frequently wore the labels off the cooker and washer.

DH grew up in abject chaos bordering on neglect- untidy and filthy; MIL still lives like this.

Our house is clean, but not always totally tidy as we have a 5yo DS and both work - DH full time, I’m self employed so it’s seasonal.

There was grime everywhere. The floors were never washed. I keep quite a clean and tidy home most of the time.

Incredibly clean and tidy.
Tbh when mum was dying I knew that was the end - she had carers who fucked up the airing cupboard and she didn't care. That was very sad.

My house is ok now, but its very big. Everyone says its clean and tidy but it makes me anxious constantly.

I grew up in a clean and tidy home, was an only child. I have 3 kids and about to have my 4th, i struggle to keep it clean and tidy and its been really mentallly hard to adjust to.

My mum didn't teach me much in the way of housekeeping skills. She vacuumed now and again, never dusted and never tidied up, yet it wasn't rocket science to work out what needed doing. I will have learned how to clean a kitchen at school because we did home economics, but a lot of house cleaning is just common sense.

Yes. Yes I'm tidy too. *you're not your.

I grew up in a cluttered, dirty house and fucking hated it. Some people would call it ‘lived in’ but I did and still do carry so much shame about it

As an adult my own house is always clean, tidy and visitor ready. But it’s not a sterile show home.

My mother was obsessive about cleanliness and tidyness. I think it was a coping/control mechanism.

Me, not so much. I try but am not great at it. The house is too cluttered by DP's hobby stuff. And we have a black dog whose hair goes everywhere. Floors are swept/vacuumed daily but when I look again within minutes there's more of it gathering.

Not really. It was ok.. Decently decorated and maintained ext but not tidy. There was always a bit of a panic and a race to do a quick tidy up if someone said they were popping around in half an hour and a quick rush upstairs to put clean towels in the bathroom if anyone dropped by unexpectedly and I am the same 😁

My dad was super tidy and liked to clean
and my mum was the opposite. She also didn’t throw much away. I don’t remember my house being dirty but equally I don’t have memories of it being clean either. My house is always clean and the downstairs rooms are tidy and organised. My kitchen is cleaned daily before I go to bed. Upstairs bathroom is clean and tidy, teenage girls rooms are untidy!

yes, but I'm naturally messy - but I've learnt to confine my mess as DH is very tidy and that is nicer.

Best friend grew up in a house that was borderline 'posh' hoarding - lots of antiques and collectables but everywhere and so dusty. Her house is the same - very messy. But she loves it all.

My grandmother had a tidy but lived in house, I never saw her clean, she must have done some, but not in some 50s housewife style. They weren't horders, but there would be bills and work related paperwork on the dining room table and they had loads of knickknacks. It was a fun house.

My mother was quite similar, the house was kept tidyish, and the hoover went round a couple of times a week (we had a dog), but she was never a typical housewife, always cleaning etc. It was seen as something that had to be kept on top of, but not the top priority. Toys went away in the large toy box when it was time to hoover and friends were always welcome.

I think I follow a similar pattern, although when I worked outside the home and had DC at home I also had a weekly cleaner. Now I can do it myself. I have less clutter/ornaments than my mother and grandmother had. My house has a lived in look and if there are dishes on the side, because I haven't rotated the dishwasher for the day, then that's fine.

My DH on the other hand comes from a line of working class women for whom having a spotlessly clean house was very important. Think along the lines of bleaching the front step and sweeping the path outside. When I first met MIL I couldn't believe how tidy and spotless the house was, the bathrooms weren't clean they shone with brightness from the sparkling taps. I admire that she could do this, work full-time and bring up 3 kids.

Interestingly all 3 kids now have much lower standards, with houses with the lived in feel. For DH it is my influence, but for the other 2, who are both either single parents or have been for a period, it is out of choice.

The only person I know now who has the perfect house, no mess, no clutter and cleaned within an inch of its life is my sister. Her DH is one of the people who has cleared and washed up your mug before you have finished drinking your tea. He has also been known to repaint a whole room because of a mark on the wall that you needed a magnifying glass to see. It is not a relaxing environment.

I did, and I am not. I find very clean and tidy houses disturbing. I still feel shame, inadequacy and expect to be scolded when I unexpectedly hear washing machines/hoovers etc going (my washing machine is out the back of the kitchen and I run it at night).

Every Sunday was cleaning day. No fun until that was done. All hell broke loose over a crumb. I do understand why my mum was like that - she needed a little control in her life, but it was fucking stifling.

I may have gone too far the other way though.

I meant to mention, though, that my DH (who will be 60 later this year) is still in classic rebellion mode after growing up in a house that was hospital-clean and show home-tidy at all times, and seems happiest when our place is a complete tip. He thinks the only people who care about these things are people like his mum (who I'm pretty sure has OCD where house cleanliness and tidiness are concerned, and whose gems of wisdom include the notion that men don't need to be taught to cook or clean because 'that's the job of their wives'), and doesn't seem capable of seeing that there's a ton of middle ground and that in fact most people inhabit said middle ground!

He has a pet theory that (obvious things like toilets and kitchen surfaces aside) most people live in homes that are dirty and untidy most of the time, with their occupants apparently just having a mad dash round when visitors are due. He's absolutely convinced of this. 🙄You can imagine how easy it is(n't) keeping the house decent when he has this attitude - tbf he has got better at doing certain chores, but asking him to do specific things (e.g. dusting) always results in a tiresome back-and-forth because according to him it 'doesn't need doing', it 'doesn't matter', and 'nobody notices'. 🙄

I spent my 20s in a relationship where I was expected to do all the housework simply because I was a woman (I didn't, btw), and now I'm in my 50s I'm with a man who wants both of us to do practically no housework and spend the time dossing about instead, because according to him no one else does housework either. He's a great husband in most other ways and his laxity about housework doesn't extend to other areas, otherwise I wouldn't still be with him, but his attitude towards house maintenance really tests my patience and I absolutely think his upbringing is the cause. Having said that, at nearly 60 he's clearly never going to grow out of it...

No. Mother was excessively tidy, food & kitchen hygiene were non-existent.

Brother & I are both the reverse.

Same.

Our house, growing up, was always really clean but with 4 kids not exactly tidy. Our house is clean but it's really untidy. There is just no room for storage which is really annoying.

No and my mother’s house now is a health hazard. My house is clean and tidy. My gran was obsessively neat and clean. Her house was like a showhome. I remember helping put up her net curtains after they were washed and she had a small mark on the very centre of the top hem and the same on the hanging wire so she could line them up perfectly,