I need to write this list.
As I sit here at my computer I’m surrounded by a half-finished floor puzzle.
There are crushed rice bubbles underneath my seat, and an old piece of cheese stuck to the table from this morning.
None of my furniture matches and even I have started using the plastic IKEA toddler plates instead of the Maxwell Williams gold rimmed dinner service.
The dirty laundry has become co-mingled with the clean laundry and the sink is full of dirty dishes. I realise it might have been a week since the table saw a wash cloth.
I’m going to lose my mind.
I have to come to grips with the fact that, despite being 31, my house looks like a couple of undergraduate students from the Faculty of Engineering live here fast. So, here goes:
Eight reasons it’s totally legit for my house to resemble a pig sty.
1. We have the best toys ever. Seriously. Duplo, a train set, playdough, colouring pencils and a George Pig stuffed toy that really needs to see a bath tub. Frankly, if those toys are strewn across the lounge room floor that just makes them easier to access.
2. The clean clothes were just gonna get taken off hangers and out of drawers anyway. Leaving them in baskets in the walk in wardrobe is skipping an unnecessary step between washing them and wearing them again. I’m saving time and energy. I could be a business efficiency consultant with innovation like that.
3. Ignoring the state of the bathroom has allowed me to stay up to date with important TV shows like Masterchef and A Place to Call Home. How could I be expected to function in polite society without being able to comment on Matt Preston’s latest cravats and Noni Hazelhurst’s continuing excellent performance as the evil matriarch of Inverness?
4. I’m building immunity. Don’t get me wrong, I have a couple of bottles of bleach stashed away in the laundry and they get cracked open every now and then, but I figure I’m doing my bit for public health if I don’t mop the floors for (full disclosure: I hope my mother in law doesn’t read this) six months.
5. If any sociology students were interested in an accurate representation of the “balance” (balance! Hilarious!) of full-time work and motherhood, they could just drop in. I have tea and biscuits and I would totally wash the mug before I stuck the tea bag in.
6. I’m four months pregnant. I really shouldn’t push myself. I need to rest and look after myself and my unborn child. After all, as that great philosopher Whitney Houston said, children are our future. Leaving the vacuum cleaner in the linen cupboard is an act of self-sacrifice.
7. There is an almost three year old that lives here, an almost three year old that I love to the moon and back, even though there is encrusted weetbix on the side of the table where he eats, and a half eaten banana underneath the coffee table.
8.There is an exceptional husband that lives here, a husband that reminds me to be a better person while at the same time loving me without judgement and without expectation.
A husband whose very presence calms me and makes the world just a little bit shinier, even though his dishes seem to manifest in the sink and he has an ever-growing collection of dusty empty beer bottles on the computer desk.
In writing this list I have realised it’ time for me to take pride in my house as a place where happy people live. It’s time for me to let go of the house proud, perfect mother I will likely never be, and embrace the messy, loving, working woman I am.
My house is the visual story of my everyday life. My days are filled with joy, love and the odd toddler tantrum. The rice bubbles on the floor are the sign of a healthy hungry little boy. The empty beer bottles in the study are a sign of relaxed, but hard working man who does his best to help look after us. And the dirty dishes in the sink are the sign of the time we spend with each other, and the fun we have together.
The truth is my house is a pig sty and that’s okay, because it’s home.
Alys Gagnon is a woman, wife, mother, social justice activist and a political junkie. She can be found tweeting “insights” from her clichéd suburban existence here.
So what’s your house like? Are you a clean freak or a dust bunny?
Top Comments
I used to think I was messy by nature, but noticed over time that my house was disordered and messy only when I was feeling depressed and couldn't summon the energy to clean. Perhaps rather than being a lifestyle choice as such, it's more a symptom of dysfunction. When I'm fine on other fronts, my house is clean. I actually think it might come down to emotional states rather than messy houses being more "family-orientated". I've been in many warm, wonderful family houses with lots of children that weren't messy. While as a messy person myself I'm not going to "mess-shame", I'm not sure that Alys's thesis that messy houses are kinder and warmer and more fun would hold up to a comparison with other households!
I just wanted to put a picture up in support, Alys. See below. This is how well I'm coping working full time and raising 3 kids on my own. I sympathise.
Doing those dishes would take about half an hour - perhaps you could cut into your internet time a little and get them done?
They've been done. I was trying to illustrate a point. Thank you for your helpful suggestion though.
Or perhaps unwanted advice is kept to ones self... Time on the internet might be the only "me" time mils gets.
That's fine Mils - if we all add up our time on the internet I'm sure we all cost ourselves other things we could have been doing. About half my internet time is productive I'd say.