My House Is Always Clean. Why Do I Feel Like I Am The Only One?
Lately, there has been this movement to do things like not keep a clean house, ignore the dirty dishes and skip the laundry and go spend time with your kids instead.
Well, I think that’s horse crap, honestly. Dude, DO YOUR DISHES.
I don’t understand. It takes less than ten minutes to rinse off a sink full dishes and put them in the dishwasher. Heck, if you just rinse them off and stick them in the dishwasher right after you use them it’s even less time than that.
When I step into someone’s house and they say, “So sorry about the mess.”
I am thinking, “Why can’t you just pick this stuff up?”
It takes everything I have to not just start cleaning. I mean, would they be grateful if I just picked up that trash off the counter and threw it away for them?
If your floor is covered in crumbs and crap, what is wrong with you? Just get out the vacuum. Who are these people that don’t vacuum every day?
I don’t understand why this is so hard, it’s a quick pass over the floor. If you keep it up you never have to DEEP CLEAN because it’s ALWAYS CLEAN.
I was standing in Starbucks the other day and I overheard one lady say to her friend, “I don’t know when the last time was I scrubbed my kid’s toilet. It’s so gross in there I don’t even go in that bathroom anymore.”
WHAT?! What the ever loving bleep is wrong with you? Your kids are just hanging out in a pee infested cesspool of germs and you’re like cool with that?
No. Just no. CLEAN YOUR BATHROOMS. Scrub toilets at least once a week. More if you’ve got little boys who aren’t great with the aiming.
A clean house just isn’t that hard.
Look, I am not saying every day needs to be a deep cleaning with all sorts of scrubbing and mopping and whatnot. But, there is absolutely no reason for you to leave your crap all over the kitchen table.
It takes all of three seconds to just put your purse on the hook, and not on the counter. If you just make it a habit to stay tidy then you won’t even have to think about it.
Oh, and your kids will LEARN BY EXAMPLE.
My mom was a neat freak. She was always cleaning. We always had a really clean house.
It was really important to her that our house be clean, and when I was a kid I thought she was crazy, until I went over to a friend’s house one day and saw their kitchen.
Their sink and counter was stacked sky high with the grossest, crustiest dishes I have ever seen. My friend went to make us a snack, and she grabbed one of the dishes out of the sink to clean it before she could ever even start the snack.
“What are you doing?” I was so grossed out. She was basically scraping old goo off of the dish into the trash can at this point.
We don’t have any clean dishes. I have to wash one.
WHAT?! No. Why aren’t there clean dishes in the dishwasher? This isn’t rocket science. When it gets full, start it. Take the five minutes to empty it and then YOU CAN FILL IT UP AGAIN.
Don’t do this to your kids. Make them love cleanliness. Make them crave it.
Make your kids wish they always had a clean house.
When they go over to someone else’s dirty house, they will be rightfully disgusted and they will never ever want their house to look like that.
Kids need order. They need a tidy, clean house, and they need to see that housework and chores are important.
You aren’t doing them any favors when you skip out on the laundry to read them a book.
I promise you, they will still want you to read them that same damn book tomorrow.
This time they will just be wearing clean underwear when they ask.
OMG I love this! I am going to go clean now, thanks for the tough love LOL
There is a difference between a dirty house and a messy house. A dirty house can be a problem, but I completely disagree that doing the laundry instead of reading your kids a book is not going to hurt them. Sometimes you absolutely should take a break and play with your kids instead of doing the laundry. And If your kids have absolutely no underwear to wear, it means you aren’t doing your laundry frequently enough, or they need more underwear.
This article was super useless.
I’m a clean freak and a perfectionist, so much so that I clean for about an hour to two hours a day (we have a three story house). I surely agree that a clean house is important, but gosh did this article annoy me. What do you mean, “What’s wrong with you?” if a person has crumbs on the floor…like, what? If people live in a house, then it will get messy and dirty EVERY DAY. We are a family of nine, and even though I clean daily, that’s because the house gets messy daily. Some people simply have other priorities. Now, obviously, I’m not saying a person’s house should be dirty all the time, of course not, but to suggest that cleaning only takes a few minutes is ridiculous. Every thing that you put away and clean will take a few minutes, so that literally adds up to a lot of time. Some people would rather just spend a weekend cleaning than every day, so, yeah, they’re house isn’t going to be the cleanest. Everyone is different. Mind your business.
Yeah you clearly don’t have ADD and depression. Its never easy for me to wash dishes. It took me 3 months to clean my apartment. I wanted to and I started to every day but I gave up and got tired every time. I would do a little then stop then it would get dirty again. This went on for months. I finally started feeling a bit better and cleaning the messy house of 3+ months. But I still get fatigued quickly and forget what I’m doing at all then go sit down and fall asleep etc. It takes me 3 day to clean, and thats when I CAN clean. So dont take for granted being well mentally and physically, energetic, good at organizing, and not accident prone. Most other people lack some or even all of these. For some people cleaning is the hardest thing to do. I will paint a whole portrait with no problem but struggle to do dishes. Its really difficult. I dont know why. Lack of dish washer, lack of space, lack of proper equipment etc. Lack of energy. I could go on and on. Anyway, never forget that you’re VERY lucky. Most people want a clean house, they just can’t get it. The only way I will ever have a consistently clean house is when I can afford to pay someone else to do it.
While I agree with keeping things neat and tidy, I also feel you and some of the commenters here are dreadfully rude. I wish you could have sent the message across whe not being so condescending. Not everyone’s situations are the same, so maybe before instantly judging, remember to be kind.
I love these estimate, I have 8 kids omg if washing up only took 15 minutes. I clean every day for a minimum of 2 hours a day, 3 loads of washing clean and caring for kids and while my house is clean is seldom tidy. I sweep some 5 times a day mop every day, and if I had someone as judgey as you walk in and tell me to clean my damn house when that’s all I do, i might find you disrepectful.
How about instead of judging mums maybe offer a hand if they aren’t up to your standards ?♀️
Ha ha this article is awesome! My house is always clean and I get crap for it. I don’t judge others …. ok I might give side eye at times, but we can still be friends. Ha ha.
I love how mad this article made people!
Ps. I work, travel for work, my husband works and has crazy hours, we have two kids a dog and a cat. It’s possible people.
I want to know how many kids you have and if you work. And sorry not everyone has a dishwasher. Good job at the mom shaming tho!
Just clean your house.
I love these estimate, I have 8 kids omg if washing up only took 15 minutes. I clean every day for a minimum of 2 hours a day, 3 loads of washing clean and caring for kids and while my house is clean is seldom tidy. I sweep some 5 times a day mop every day, and if I had someone as judgey as you walk in and tell me to clean my damn house when that’s all I do, i might find you disrepectful.
How about instead of judging mums maybe offer a hand if they aren’t up to your standards ?♀️
I too grew up with a neat-freak mom. It did not make me want to keep a super tidy house. In fact, I rebelled against tidying up. We also have a horrible relationship because growing up she spent more time cleaning the house than she did with me. I know that’s not the case all of the time, but you can be damn sure I’m going to invest more time and energy into having a relationship with my kids than I am into making sure there aren’t any crumbs on my floor.
Same! My mom cared more about a perfect house then spending time with us kids, her mom did the same so I can’t blame her, but unlike her I want my kids to know they are more important than having the floor vacuumed every day, only crazy people do that
I don’t agree with the tone, but I do agree with the message. “A stitch in time, saves nine”. Clean as you go, set up and follow a schedule, don’t put things off, don’t go to bed leaving a dirty kitchen, run your dishwasher daily (even if it is not full), otherwise you are just using it to store dirty dishes, do laundry daily – stay on top of it – etc. It isn’t rocket science. It is consistency.
You have appropriately shamed me into cleaning up my pig-sty-of-a-house. 🙂
Can you come hold my hand whilst I do so?
hahah of course! <3
Wow, you are really judge-y and holier-than-thou. It’s disappointing that a fellow mom want kids to be judgemental too- it’s ok to be “rightfully disgusted” after someone tries to be hospitable and invites them over? It’s sad that you prefer a memory of doing laundry over reading to your child. I feel sorry for them. Maybe you need a psychiatrist for your OCD?
Also, my house is pretty clean but I just do it when rug kids go to bed, so there are moments in the day when, yes, GASP there might be a dish in the sink.
Meh, you do your thing, I will do mine. We are both entitled to our opinions. 🙂
entitled is definitely the word I would use to describe you…
Your judging isn’t any better than mine…
How wonderfully refreshing to read this post. I am so old, I rode a dinosaur to school with St. Patrick 🙂 and it seems to me that clean homes, meals with the whole family and expecting your children to follow a good example are not nearly as important as they were. Bravo and blessings to those of you who strive to do these things.
I can say growing up my mother kept a clean house. She also didn’t do things for us she taught us how to clean. We made our beds every day. We where mot aloud to trash the house with toys cluttered throughout the house. One toy at a time. Now in today’s society the children controls the parents. Shame shame. Most people today always make an excuse about priorities and it goes to show. And the next question you are probably going to ask if i had kids of my own and the answer is yes i do. I guaranty you in my house their is such thing as deciplen. Not punishment but order. I will not live in a dirty house. You set examples and instead of wiping the childs rear end when they are at the age of 20.
@Charles Taylor,
“Guarantee” “There” “Discipline”