Mom Asks How To Keep Her House Clean After A 4-Year-Old Called Her Home Dirty — 'I Know She’s A Little Kid But It Stung'
There are worse things than having a messy home.
New Africa / Shutterstock Parenting is a joyful yet chaotic task. It’s an intense labor of love that often requires letting certain things go in order to make it through the day.
Kids seem to have a special, tornado-like talent for tearing a house apart. Turn your back for one minute, and suddenly, there are crayon drawings on the walls, Legos scattered across the floor, and the counters are mysteriously sticky.
Little ones also have a way of speaking truth to power, or at least to the adults in their lives. One mom found herself feeling vulnerable after a neighbor’s daughter commented on the state of her home.
The mom wondered how to keep her house clean after a 4-year-old told her it was dirty.
She wrote to the r/parenting subreddit to ask other parents how they keep their homes clean amidst the daily wreckage of raising a family.
The mom of three described herself as someone who’s “never been the most tidy person,” yet she works to “keep the house at a somewhat manageable level.”
But she professed a dream to level up to Martha Stewart-esque heights of housekeeping, saying, “I aspire to be someone with a super clean home. I just can’t seem to stay on top of it.”
Despite her best intentions to keep it together, the mom was unable to shake the creeping concern that her home is known as “the messy house” of the neighborhood, especially compared to her other mom friends.
She shared that two of her neighbors have kids around the same age as her own, yet their houses are “immaculate, like, entirely spotless.”
“I truly don’t understand how they keep it that way all the time,” she confessed.
Her anxiety spilled outward after one neighborhood kiddo came over for a playdate then told the mom she was going home to use her own bathroom.
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“I told her she could just ours, then she pauses and says, ‘Why is your house always dirty?”” The mom said. “I was shocked!”
“I’m not the cleanest but apparently it was noticeable enough to this 4-year-old that she didn’t want to use our bathroom. She then said that I never pick up my house,” she continued.
‘I know she’s a little kid, but it definitely stung,’ the mom said.
She shared her routine, saying, “I clean my bathrooms once a week usually, vacuum daily, mop every couple weeks, and feel like I’m picking up constantly throughout the day.”
The mom asked for advice on getting her house “clean, clean,” and the responses revealed just how much of a struggle it is to keep a house full of children looking neat.
Other parents agreed that it all came down to one main tactic: Panic-cleaning right before guests arrive.
“We do it quickly and stressfully about an hour before you get there,” one person said.
“I am constantly cleaning and picking up,” someone else said. “I basically never sit down until the kids are asleep.”
Another parent shared that their tips for tidiness rested upon a variety of different techniques, including having a pet-free house and using a robot vacuum for maintenance, if only because it forces them to pick up toys from the floor.
Yet one mom and former nanny revealed the real truth behind families who have clean homes: “They have housekeepers,” she said. “That is the secret.”
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While there’s some difference between a home that’s slightly cluttered versus a dirty, hazardous environment, there are worse things in the world than being messy.
As therapist KC Davis noted, cleaning is a morally neutral task, meaning that your value as a person doesn’t depend on how clean you keep your home.
There can be beauty in an untidy home. Toast crumbs on the table mean your kids are well-fed, and paint splatters on your couch mean your kids are getting creative and having fun.
Holding on too tight to the heady mix of guilt and anxiety and carrying the weight of the mental load is a straight path to parental burnout.
Ultimately, there are more important things than having a shiny house, like raising confident, emotionally intelligent kids who know that having fun sometimes means making a mess.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.