Children = Messy House? - Page 2

[sbgrace]

I think the key would be getting the child into a habit young of putting away a toy after he/she plays with it. I didn't mess with that for many reasons and I don't regret it. We do have places for stuff and can clean up quickly. But when they are playing (a few hours into the day) the playroom is messy if you count having lots of toys out as messy. Today they had their toy cars out, their animal figures out, their legos out, books out, and their musical instruments out, and had a floor puzzle worked on the floor when I walked into the room to get them going for lunch. It probably took 10 minutes to pick up but the chaos would probably have been too much for some--it's personality! As I said, I don't really mind kid clutter during play and normally clutter bugs me. We had an internet repair person stop by unexpectedly and the computer is in the play room. I wasn't embarrassed.

[JeDeeLenae]

Originally Posted by Ksenia

No, but if you choose to have a clean and tidy home, it can be like pushing water uphill.

Or like sweeping in front of an open door on a windy day. I need to adopt a clean while they sleep plan. Or while one naps, because when they're together, my house is just a mess.

However, since DS1 was 6 mos old, we've moved almost once every 6 months, and I'm pretty sure that has added to our problems, disorganization, etc. We're constantly unpacking, until finally it's time to move again and we never finished unpacking in the first place.

[slsurface]

Originally Posted by Ruthla

I think you definitly need to relax your standards once kids join the family, but it doesn't have to be a disaster area just because you have kids. Your own personality comes into play A LOT.

I bet your friends will someday sit in your living room and wonder if your kids are getting neurotic because the house is too clean.

I agree. I hate clutter. So I try to keep limit the number of toys and keep them corralled in baskets and designated play areas. I refuse to be stepping on toys just to get across the living room. DS has his train table in the living room. I also keep wicker baskets under the couch for blocks and wooden trucks. Ds has his own book case in the dining room for books, play food, crayons, and playdough. He has another shelf for big books and puzzles in our "reading nook", which is a small room off the living room. I pick things up a lot, but I also strictly enforce the rule: one toy must be put away before getting out another. We also always take the time to pick up toys before meals and before we leave the house...so things never get out of hand. I try to make it a game and always lead by example...because, let's face it, it can be a challenge some times to get a 2 yo to pick up toys. It can also be a challenge to get DH to pick up his things, so the same "messy house" scenario can be said for getting married . So I don't think that children always = messy house. If you raise your kids to be conscientious and you are mindful about how to store/corral toys, then you don't have to life with lots of mess. That's my 2 cents.

[ElsieLC]

Thanks, everyone, for the encouragement and the reality check. It sounds like a tidy and clean (within reason) home is possible, depending on these factors:
- whether parents were neat before children
- number of kids
- personality/energy level of kids
- trainability of kids and spouse
- time available for parents to spend cleaning

I think I need to enlarge my circle of friends so I can visit some of these tidy families in person!

[I-AM-Mother]

Originally Posted by ElsieLC

If you have children, do you automatically have a messy house?

Nope!

[OkiMom]

I don't think its necessarily a automatic thing but its certainly harder when you have kids. Before DD both DH and myself were Marines (he still is, I have since gotten out). As you can imagine we were both quite clean people from our training in the Corps. I look around my house now and thing "Im sure glad I don't have to pass an inspection). In fact right now, I have books from one end of my front room to the other and I have loads of laundry stacked up to be put away. When DD was a young infant (before she started walking at a little before 8 months) our house was clean, floors were mopped/vaccuumed, dishes done, surfaces dusted. Then she started to walk and get into everything and I have had to relax my standards. I still dont' have dirty dishes stacked up or things like that but I definetly don't have as clean a house as I want to. DD is very high needs at times, she wants me to be with her 24/7 and Im not about to clean while I should be sleeping so her needs/wants overrule my desire to have a super clean house.

[treemom2]

I think the mess changes once you have children. DH and I have never liked to clean. . .we've always been somewhat messy, and now with children we still are but in a different way. Like before children, we didn't have food all over the floors or toys everyplace. . .but we still had dirty dishes in the sink, didn't dust unless we had company coming, etc. . . At least now with children we have something to blame our messiness on

[nolansmummy]

Thanks, everyone, for the encouragement and the reality check. It sounds like a tidy and clean (within reason) home is possible, depending on these factors:
- whether parents were neat before children
- number of kids
- personality/energy level of kids
- trainability of kids and spouse
- time available for parents to spend cleaning

I think I need to enlarge my circle of friends so I can visit some of these tidy families in pers

True. I wasn't neat before kids, in fact i'm cleaner now. My house is messy right now but i pick up and clean every day. I have 2 young kids. Its easiest to just wait until they go to bed to really clean up, otherwise i have a 1.5 year old splashing in the toilet when i'm trying to scrub the tub. My oldest is very energetic . Trainability of my kids and spouse - ha ha, like trying to get them to put their laundry in the hamper, and their toys in the buckets....we're working on it
time is the biggest factor here. I"m in school full time, my husband is in school full time, ds is in preschool five days a week, dh works nights. Cleaning the bathrooms, and laundry getting done is low on a very long to-do list. I'm sure once the littlest gets older we will have more time...or just more money and then we will hire someone.
I think if you truly want a cleaner house with kids it is possible. For myself it is not. I just do not care enough about it.

[mommyto4grits]

I think the more people you have the more clutter you have. It depends on the ages and stages of the kids also. My 2yr old and 7 yr old are messy, and have toys, my 11 yr old hates to clean her room, my 13 yr old has no toys, but leaves her book and iPod wherever she feels like it.

I am also to OCD to have the house super messy it drives me crazy, and makes me totally stressed. I have decluttered A LOT though, and make everyone tidy up for 15 minutes each day. I also makes sure the routine stuff is done each day, and I have to have a clean kitchen, that drives me crazy!

[flowmom]

I also want to pipe up with an opinion that I realize may not be shared by some. I believe that children are best served by growing up in a clean, orderly, and attractive home. I'm not talking about parents driving themselves crazy and spending lotsa dough trying to make the home Martha Stewart perfect...but IMO it's really worth parents taking the time to declutter, organize, and beautify their dwelling. Once that is done, daily cleaning and tidying is not nearly as time-consuming or frustrating. Our home is a work in progress so I am not "there", but I'm making it more of a priority because I realize that our home environment is where my kids spend a lot of time (we are homeschoolers) and I can see that they respond well when it is looking nice and orderly. And I'm also realizing that having mess and clutter around me has been draining my energy and that it's actually easier to just deal with it. Some people are messy and have a higher tolerance for disorder...but let's face it, very few people like other people's clutter and mess. That's why clutter and mess don't work very well in a family setting even if individuals might prefer being able to trash their nest. I know of what I speak because, unlike most of my friends, I grew up in a messy home -- it really didn't work for me . It's amazing how easy it is for me to fall into re-creating the family home of my childhood, but that's not what I want.

[newbymom05]

Never be home. Esp for meals. That goes a long way for us in keeping the house clean.

[MrsSurplus]

Originally Posted by MamaPyratekk

When I first had my son and my house was a disaster area I would always say, "I think it's more important to spend quality time with my children than to clean." Well, I've had time to dwell on that now and I now realize you can absolutely have both.

As a mom of five I completely agree you can have both. However, as a mom of some older kids as well as babies, I would really encourage any mother struggling with this issue to prioritize time with the kids over a spotless (or even "very tidy) house. I can attest to the fact that babies grow way too fast. You will have many years to scrub & dust...but the baby rocking/listening to my child/enjoying my teen years go way too fast! (That said, a clean, streamlined house and home maintenance routine gives you MORE time with the kids because you spend less time looking for lost items...and being depressed about how messy the house is!)

Also...I have accepted the fact that I can really only have one "hobby" per season. In the summer, it HAS to be the garden...or nothing gets done. I got rid of my crochet hooks and knitting needles. I still have my scrapbooking supplies and my sewing machine. No other hobbies for a while. That cut down on the clutter, the messes *I* was making, and the guilt of buying stuff I don't have time to use. Now, I spend that time enjoying my kids. I can knit when I'm 90. (Well, if I'm not babysitting the greatgrandkids!)

[hellyaellen]

i've got two, one is almost three the other is eight and a half. and i'm temporarly single (dh comes home in 12 days..... total he will have been gone for 63 days )

anyway our house overall is not messy or dirty or cluttered. i am somewhat naturally neat and tidy though.........

i do beasic stuff like making sure dirty laundry goes into the hamper, dishes into the sink, etc every day usually while the kids are in the tub or sleping, and do more hardcore stuff like vacuming, mopping, etc on my days off.

i declutter on an ongoing basis and always have a box in the car of stuff headed to goodwill.

i do have hotspots like thee computer room (slowly getting better on that one though......in fact when i get my butt up i'm going in there to keep the momentum going), the kids room is a bit of a mess but, well i let that go most of the time and only periodically go through and really clean and declutter and tidy.....

its do-able but you must be willing to do it, and having help really helps to make it so.........

[Miss Information]

I think the key comes down to having adequate storage. If you have appropriate storage, anything can look orderly, no matter the amount of stuff.

When things have an attractive home, it's much easier to put them away. If you are stuffing too many things in one space, it tends to make things look cluttered, even if it really isn't.

If toy boredom becomes a problem, rather than buy more toys, you can halve the amount you have and rotate them in and out every few months.

We've evolved over the years. I look back at some of the early photos we have and see all the embarrassing clutter (both kid clutter and my own), and I get down on myself - but I have to remind myself that having 3 kids in 3.5 years was really hard. And having inadequate storage combined with inadequate energy to pick up after us made things really cluttered for a while.

The past year, I've been very thoughtful as to the toys that come into the home. I asked family members to not buy so many toys for Christmas, and they listened for the most part.

I pared down considerably what we had, and had to be brutally honest about which toys actually got used and loved, and which toys just took up space.

It really does become easier when you have a manageable amount of toys with good storage space.

That, and cleaning the rooms together, so the kids know where things belong.

[mama_ani]

Originally Posted by Miss Information

I think the key comes down to having adequate storage. If you have appropriate storage, anything can look orderly, no matter the amount of stuff.

:

[ilovebabies]

I'm working on this myself. I need storage tips but that's another topic!

I think it depends on what season of life you're in. I prefer a very neat and tidy home and I hate clutter. But, I can't have that right now unless I ignore my children all day and work just on that. In this season of my life, I'm homeschooling, have 4 children, and am suffering from horrendous morning sickness. My teens are a great help and my dh too, but it's still very hard to keep up with.

So, for now, it's okay. We'll get there again.

We have a very small home so even the slighest mess looks like huge clutter. I can't do anything about that either. We desperately need more storage which we need to work on. We just don't have the space!

So I say there are messy seasons a neat seasons!

[Magpie1972]

I agree witht he OP's who say children are best served in an orderly home, and that you can spend time with your kids AND keep a decent home.

I WAH 32 hrs and do it in off hours mostly. I also have four kiddos. We spend an inordinate amount of time together, and soem of that is doing all of our chores. Recently we hired a housekeeper though to do the deep cleaning stuff. If I didn't work, I would be set though. I grew up in a messy, nasty, cluttered - overall disgusting home IMO. I would never let my kids do that. May be my baggage though. Honestly I think it's selfish of parents to have a truly dirty house. Your kids deserve better.

I also disagree that it's a matter of storage. I think we don't need as much as most of us have. Lots of people have an embarrassing excess.

[Teensy]

I find most of my messes have nothing to do with toys. One example - the kids get home from school. So they are eating a snack (messes #1 and #2, the mess on the kitchen counter where they prepared their snack and the mess at the kitchen table where they ate it), while I empty their backpacks of lunch boxes to be washed (mess #3), school papers to read (mess #4), homework sheets to be completed (mess #5), artwork or stories to keep (mess #6), and what ever other detritus they bring home (a rock found on the playground) that needs to be tossed or put away (mess #7).

So, if I hop to right away with the washing and putting away and supervising DSs to do their homework right then, I can get these messes all taken care of quickly. But if anything intervenes (trip to library, phone call, kid had a rotten day and needs to talk about it), well, my kitchen is cluttered and messy, no matter how many hours I spent cleaning it that morning.

The mess will get cleaned up sometime that day/night, but the next day I face the same messes all over again.

******

What's the Phyllis Diller quote, something like "Cleaning your house while the children are growing is like shoveling your walk while it's still snowing."

[ilovebabies]

Originally Posted by Magpie1972

I also disagree that it's a matter of storage. I think we don't need as much as most of us have. Lots of people have an embarrassing excess.

That's for sure, we definitely don't need as much stuff as most of us have. We live on the bare minimum and have a few rules. First is if we've had it for a year and we haven't used it, we get rid of it. Our second one is when we bring something new in, something else has to go out. This really makes us all think before we purchase something! Do we REALLY need it, and what will be get rid of to make room for it? One of our sayings is, "we value people over stuff and relationships over things."

Nonetheless, when you have a very small home that was built to work well for a family of 3-4 and you have a family of soon to be 7 trying to squeeze in, the fact is you will have to be very, very creative in the storage department. This house has nearly zero storage, and it's not an embarassing excuse, it's a fact. Come over and see for yourself!

We use our kitchen table for school instead of purchasing desks that take up space, we purchase the minimum amount of school books and materials we need so that we have less to store. We do a lot on the computer. Both of our little ones share our room (with dh and I) and our teens do each have the other two bedrooms but one is super tiny and that teen only has room for a dresser and bed. He is a guitarist and there's not room for this guitar and related things. He pretty much just sleeps there.

Just stuff like that and I could go on. The facts are the facts, not an excuse. Small homes are super hard to keep decluttered (not clean--we don't live in filth--but decluttered). And unless you live in a house this size with as many people, you have no idea what it's like.

But I am not complaining because I love our little home! We feel very blessed for what we've been given.

[Miss Information]

Originally Posted by Magpie1972

I think we don't need as much as most of us have. Lots of people have an embarrassing excess.

Yes, while I agree with that statement, at least with respect with toys, generous family members don't. And despite best efforts to tell them not to, they still give and give. So you are back to the fact that you need storage to put things people lovingly give your children and you feel guilty for throwing out/giving away, etc.

So, you have to balance out things and if you did read on, I did become ruthless about what I kept and what I didn't in the way of toys.

We still have a lot of but a lot less stuff than we used to - not in the name of toys per se, but of educational enrichment (math manipulatives/science supplies etc). It's very important to me to have these types of things, since I really don't trust the public school system to do a complete job of educating my children, so I provide things at home for them to make up the deficits.

So, yes, people can do without a lot of things, but sometimes living a spartan life is not what people want to do. I don't see anything wrong with making room to accomodate passions/hobbies, yours or your children's. Not one bit. Moderating hobbies so they don't overtake the home is a necessity, to be sure though.