Tell me if this scene looks familiar:
It’s 9am on a Saturday. You’ve spent the last hour frantically cleaning, because your parents announced they were coming over today with all the advance of a phone call this morning. Or because your toilet broke and you need to have someone over to fix it TODAY. Or because you absent-mindedly told your neighbors that, sure, they can swing on by later for lunch! Or any other number of reasons.
Anyway, whatever the reason for your home being exposed to people from the outside, you’ve spent the last hour cleaning because your home, inarguably, inevitably, and according to all laws of the universe that dictate our lives, is a mess just when company is expected.
And it’s not like you never clean! It’s just that you have a young kid or two (or three or more!) and…well, there are a plethora of reasons your home might be messy.
Maybe you just cleaned thoroughly yesterday, but your kids ransacked the house and you can no longer tell it was ever cleaned.
Maybe Sundays are the only day you really have time to clean and you weren’t prepared to have to take care of it sooner.
Hell, maybe cleaning just isn’t really a priority!
And to a non-parent—and to those select few parents who somehow have the time, energy, and mental capacity to stay on top of every aspect of life at once, which to me is highly suspicious and probably indicative of some kind of bargain with evil involving their soul being exchanged for superpowers—those might sound like excuses. After all, part of taking care of your kids is keeping their environment clean, right? And you’re the adult, you can clean up after your kids, right? And also you’re the parent and should be teaching the kids to clean up after themselves, right? And things have got to be sanitary, right?
First of all, yes, of COURSE things should be sanitary. But that’s not what we’re talking about here, and to assume “my home is messy” equates to “my children are living in unsafe and unsanitary conditions” is a heck of a reach so I hope you did some good stretching first.
But the number of people—especially women, because patriarchy, amirite?—that I have seen shamed for having a messy home, to the point of being accused of neglect and abuse or just not caring about their kids, is asinine.
Here’s the reality: Kids make messes. All the time. If your kids aren’t making messes, are they really even children?
No, I’m being serious. Are your kids really able to enjoy and explore childhood, get that hands-on learning, and really enjoy play to its fullest extent, if they’re not making messes?
I’m of the belief that kids should be making messes. For crying out loud, let your kids play in the mud! Let them experiment with stuff! Let them try new things that they might mess up on, so that they might learn!
I’ve even caught myself saying things like:
“Please stay out of that puddle, it’s muddy and you’ll get your shoes and pants all dirty.”
“Let me pour the drink for you please, I don’t want it to get spilled.”
“No, I don’t want you to play with that right now, it’s too messy and I just cleaned.”
I get it, it’s hard. It’s stressful already having such a long list of things to do—a day job, a side hustle, a car to fix, a family to find time for, friends you’ve too long neglected, a never-ending mess to clean. If you can prevent most of the messes, doesn’t that free up so much free time?
But for what? What am I spending that free time on? Nothing worthwhile, if I spend half of it just trying to keep my kids from doing what they want for fear of creating more work.
So screw it. I’m done power-cleaning before company comes over. I’m done being embarrassed over inevitable messes and stains. From now on I’m just going to say, “Excuse the mess, we have a kid,” and leave it at that. If they know or care little enough of children that they don’t understand it, that’s on them.
Because the truth is, I could have my house spotless, and if I don’t severely restrict what my four-year-old can and cannot do, it absolutely will be messy again in a couple hours.
Again, not unsanitary, but if you’ve never seen a child recarpet a clean living room with only their toys in under an hour, count yourself lucky. The dishes were just done, but now all the pots and pans are floor toms and the wooden spoons just right for drumsticks. Or maybe you mopped this morning, but someone spilled their entire glass of juice and now you have to mop and clean the table and change the kid’s clothes and give them a bath and somehow even after all that this one spot on the floor is still sticky!
And sure, you can put every toy in its place, re-wash all the pots and pans, or get on your hands and knees and scrub the sticky spot in the kitchen right now. But it might happen again in an hour.
A clean home is not really a reasonable request, and it’s seriously time parents stop beating ourselves up over that—or worse, wasting hours to get a temporarily spotless home, just to avoid judgment from someone who frankly has no place to judge us to begin with.
“But,” you may say, “Did you say earlier that a clean home is just not a priority for some? I get that it’s hard to keep up with, but you have to at least try!”
NOPE. Wrong.
My powers in writing are limited, so just imagine a “wrong answer on a game show” style buzzer here, or maybe that disappointed sounding horn noise from The Price Is Right.
Look, cleaning doesn’t have to be my priority. I don’t have to even make a half-hearted attempt at keeping my home clean at all times. You know why?
Because if it’s a question of picking up my kids’ Legos or getting on the floor to play Legos with her, I’ll choose the latter every time.
Hell, if it’s a choice between cleaning up a whole floor full of toys right this second, or bringing my kid outside before the heavy rain passes so we can play in the deluge and jump in puddles as they form, the living room floor can wait.
We won’t let the garbage overflow the trash can or keep food rotting on plates in or near the sink, but rest assured we aren’t going to prioritize eliminating clutter above enjoying the all-too-transient childhoods of our little ones. And I, for one, am absolutely done being made to feel guilty for it.
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That Feminist Mom 