If you have been following along, you will have noticed a theme to the posts that I have written since this blog was started. In the book, which will be produce from a compilation of posts at some point in the future, all of these will fall under the heading 'Cleaning'. As a final addition to this section, I offer the following apology...
There exists some misconception that women are innately clean, that we are the neater sex. I knew two guys in college, roommates, with color-coded closets and hospital corners on their beds. Meanwhile, our six-female house -- the house that we lived in because of our impressively high combined GPA -- was a perpetual mess. It’s true that my mother’s house is pristine. My grandmother’s house is ready to have a meal served directly off the shining floors. But, apparently, cleaning is not a part of our genetic makeup.
I think, based on my own experiences, that women's tendency to clean obsessively has far more to do with societal pressure. Ironically, though, we do this to ourselves. What do we do when having friends over? How do we prepare for a visit from the in-laws? We clean. Then, when we visit the houses of our friends, we marvel at the cleanliness of their houses (forgetting entirely that they are very likely paying us the same respect, cleaning just before we arrive) and feel somehow inadequate while considering how the pristine space compares to the mess that waits at home.
This, combined with my constant worry about Jack (my son with asthma, dust-, dander-, and mold- allergies), has led to a transformation within me. Once upon a time, I didn’t care who walked into our college house and saw the mess. Perhaps, that was because the blame could be spread over many shoulders, or maybe because I just didn’t really care. Now, I have developed the apology syndrome (this is the inability to sit through one evening of friends or family visiting without uttering the words 'I'm sorry about the mess..." Or "please excuse the state of my house…" Or some other similarly apologetic phrase). These are not muttered because my home is in a truly atrocious state. More often than not, they leave my lips because I suddenly notice a cobweb in the corner, a hand print left by one of the kids on the wall, or the toys inconspicuously sticking out from beneath the couch, and I am embarrassed.
Why do I feel the need to be pristine? Why do any of us, as mothers, with so many obligations burdening us, feel the need to impress others with our immaculate homes? In my opinion, it all comes back to the pressure that we unconsciously place on each other.
Somewhere out there, on the social media maze, I happened upon an image of a woman cleaning, which read “I clean for two hours, just so I can apologize for the mess.” That sums it up quite nicely.
The kids don’t seem to mind the mess, as long as I am not asking them to clean it up. I can clean around them all day, following behind their path of destruction and they are not, in the least, burdened by it. Nor do they find an untouched mess disturbing. They’ll just happily push it aside to create a new space to play. I, on the other hand, often find myself walking in circles, talking to myself, and wondering when exactly someone will arrive to deliver me to the insane asylum.
The good news… if you want to call it that, is that I have had several moms of previous generations inform me that when the kids leave, the mess leaves too. However, they also point out that they would rather take on the clutter than the lonely, empty nest. So, I suppose that we have two options. The first is to make enough money to hire someone to handle the impossible task of keeping our homes sparkling clean. The second is to simply face the fact that there is no such thing as a clean house with kids. As Phyllis Diller once said, “cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.”
I think, based on my own experiences, that women's tendency to clean obsessively has far more to do with societal pressure. Ironically, though, we do this to ourselves. What do we do when having friends over? How do we prepare for a visit from the in-laws? We clean. Then, when we visit the houses of our friends, we marvel at the cleanliness of their houses (forgetting entirely that they are very likely paying us the same respect, cleaning just before we arrive) and feel somehow inadequate while considering how the pristine space compares to the mess that waits at home.
This, combined with my constant worry about Jack (my son with asthma, dust-, dander-, and mold- allergies), has led to a transformation within me. Once upon a time, I didn’t care who walked into our college house and saw the mess. Perhaps, that was because the blame could be spread over many shoulders, or maybe because I just didn’t really care. Now, I have developed the apology syndrome (this is the inability to sit through one evening of friends or family visiting without uttering the words 'I'm sorry about the mess..." Or "please excuse the state of my house…" Or some other similarly apologetic phrase). These are not muttered because my home is in a truly atrocious state. More often than not, they leave my lips because I suddenly notice a cobweb in the corner, a hand print left by one of the kids on the wall, or the toys inconspicuously sticking out from beneath the couch, and I am embarrassed.
Why do I feel the need to be pristine? Why do any of us, as mothers, with so many obligations burdening us, feel the need to impress others with our immaculate homes? In my opinion, it all comes back to the pressure that we unconsciously place on each other.
Somewhere out there, on the social media maze, I happened upon an image of a woman cleaning, which read “I clean for two hours, just so I can apologize for the mess.” That sums it up quite nicely.
The kids don’t seem to mind the mess, as long as I am not asking them to clean it up. I can clean around them all day, following behind their path of destruction and they are not, in the least, burdened by it. Nor do they find an untouched mess disturbing. They’ll just happily push it aside to create a new space to play. I, on the other hand, often find myself walking in circles, talking to myself, and wondering when exactly someone will arrive to deliver me to the insane asylum.
The good news… if you want to call it that, is that I have had several moms of previous generations inform me that when the kids leave, the mess leaves too. However, they also point out that they would rather take on the clutter than the lonely, empty nest. So, I suppose that we have two options. The first is to make enough money to hire someone to handle the impossible task of keeping our homes sparkling clean. The second is to simply face the fact that there is no such thing as a clean house with kids. As Phyllis Diller once said, “cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.”