I know you all have seen them…
You know, the quotes that circulate on social media saying things like this…
So, if my house isn’t messy… does that mean my kids are not making memories?
Hmmm… I don’t think so. What I think is that these posts circulate so readily as a way to make oneself feel better.
The bottom line is that is your house is messy, it’s because you made a choice to let it be messy.
Now, before everyone goes and gets all mad at me… let me tell you that my house is FAR from pristine. My children are as messy as the next (and the husband is arguably even more so). They leave their shoes lying around, spill things on the counters and fail to pick up after themselves. They drag their grubby little hands down the windows and the walls, so I have those same fingerprints the familiar quotes reference as well. I don’t think I have cleaned my baseboards in the three years since we moved into our current house.
I do, however, try to keep these things in check. Clutter makes me claustrophobic and stickiness makes it tough for me to relax. So, I have my hard lines – the kids have to put their shoes away in the garage when they get home and pick up the playroom before I will turn on night time cartoons, for example. And I have the lines that I let get cast a little longer before I clean… the windows are a good example of this.
I have been known to leave a basket of laundry waiting to be folded for several days (I HATE folding and putting away laundry). And yes, these baskets of clothes, sit there mocking me, obnoxious and annoying. And it would be really easy to say I just haven’t had time. But, that isn’t exactly true. They are there because I made a choice. A choice to ignore them or do something else.
I am a busy mom. I work full time and own a blog on top of it all. I do the lion’s share of the housework, yard work and other various family responsibilities. My kids are at the age where they have schedules too. There are days that I am so tired, that I just can’t do anything else. Or, if I am being honest, there are days when going to “bat night” at Gorman Farm sounds like way more fun than cleaning my bathroom.
And so I make the choice not to.
I am not passing judgement on those with messier houses than mine. As is the case with much in life, everyone has their own degree of importance that they place on this. To each her own. But I do often wonder what happened to accountability.
Those dishes in the sink… yes, sometimes I do run out of time before heading to work and I just don’t get them done. But, if they are still there a week later… well, then that is on me.
So, if you have a messy house and fingerprints on your walls… call a spade a spade. You have a messy house because you have kids , yes… but also because you just didn’t do anything to make it less messy.
And I hate to break it to you. Messes don’t aid the creation of memories or make your children more happy. You do that all by yourself. Take credit for that too.
Thanks for sharing, Sarah! This is great. I too have been working on keeping myself accountable. My house only looks the way it does – good or bad – because I CHOOSE to let it look that way. I’ve actually started creating “cleaning” memories with my daughter, so that she will continue to keep the habit of cleaning throughout her entire life. She is all about being my “big helper” these days, so I am trying to capitalize on that and make memories that way. It’s great for her personal growth of pulling her weight as part of a bigger whole, and she is able to have positive reinforcement and stronger self-esteem from my praise as she does a great job with cleaning projects. Thanks for the inspiration to take ownership of how my home looks and not make excuses for myself – if I want a clean house, then I have to make it happen one way or the other. Accountability is a great reminder! Dirty houses bother me and my husband, so I have to take ownership of my house if I want it a certain way. 🙂