The next time a friend is coming to your house with her kids (or even without) and you are about to apologize repeatedly for the condition of your home, I want you to stop.
And I want you to think about this.
While I understand that complete and total chaos in your home can create some stress, complete and total order does not necessarily get rid of it.
There will be time for cleaning when the kids are in school.
If you choose folding laundry over exercise, sure, you may have one less pile on your table.
But folded laundry does not lower your blood pressure or decrease your risk for diabetes or even necessarily model a healthy behavior for your kids.
(Your kids can fold that laundry anyway).
Vacuuming or washing dishes may seem much more important than playing catch or lying outside in the grass with your five-year-old.
There will always be laundry to fold and dishes to wash.
But there won’t always be days where your kids are little and begging for your attention.
Then there are your friends…
If your house is total shithole, what will your friends think?
Let me tell you something.
Your friends do not give a flying fuck about the condition of your house.
How do I know?
Because today I got this text:
Sure, an immaculate house might be nice.
But it doesn’t beat comfortable and inviting.
It’s okay to let the cleaning go for a night. Or a week. Or however long you need to let it go for.
Summer goes by so quickly.
Your kids, and your friends, are waiting for you.
No matter what condition your house is in.
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I’ll take hanging out with my baby and exercising over cleaning any day! I totally agree with you. I do try to do a little here or there so I don’t get too overwhelmed.
We went to one of my BFF’s house (to go swimming and to hang out) and we walked in to the house….she said “we didn’t have time to work on the inside because we were working on the garage” My reply? “should I care what your house looks like?” ……she said “that’s one of the reason I like you”…….don’t judge me……I don’t judge you.
I have to force myself not to worry about these things. Now I’ve decided there are things I need to do to feel somewhat together (i.e. dishes) but things I can live without (i.e. folding laundry – I’m cool to pull clean clothes out of the basket when necessary). 🙂
I have 7 laundry baskets (I used to have only 4. I didn’t want to fold it bad enough that I went out and bought 3 more baskets). They are currently full of unfolded clothing. I also have one in the dryer (sheets) and one in the washer (not sheets). At some point Im going to have to fold one basket in order to do more laundry……(sheets don’t get folded in my house. I strip, wash, re-sheet the bed)…..laundry sucks.
I do the same thing with my sheets! I
I will admit, with nine of us in one small house (ten now that the Bonus Kid has finished college and come home to live with us), I find it vital to my sanity to maintain a certain level of cleanliness. That said, it’s our home. We live here. It’s not perfect. I want people to feel comfortable at my house. And if they’re going to judge me for a dust bunny in the corner when I’m raising 7 kids, some of whom have special needs, then they are not my friends, and should go spend time elsewhere. I have enough on my plate.
But I agree with you. It goes way too fast to lose precious time on laundry when I could be snuggling and playing.
Likewise, I’m almost immediately distrustful of mommy blogs that are too clean and polished. I am not perfect, my kids aren’t perfect, and my blog isn’t perfect either. But come on in, I’ll make us some tea, and we can relax. It’ll be great.
My best friend’s house growing up was messy, but I loved to go there and hang out with her cool family. Some of my best childhood memories were made at that house.
Yep. I moved out of my parents’ home for college and never moved back in. However, I did go back for periodic visits and I started to notice the house wasn’t quite as clean and perfect as it had been for the first 18 years of my life. One day my mom brought it up herself. She said she spent almost 20 years as a SAHM cleaning. She got tired of it. She wanted to go have a life. So after my siblings and I left, and my dad was still working long hours, she started pursuing hobbies outside the home and got a dog. I was, like, “Go, Mom, that’s awesome!” And I made a note to me (clean-freak) self to chill on the cleaning thing as well when I have kids.