Clean houses vs cluttered houses
Well, I am back. I was looking at a thing on twitter and when I opened it. there was my old Blog on Blogger. This one was a draft and as I re read it I decided that I think I will update it and send it out into cyberspace for NO one to read.
A little update: I now live in the Seattle area with the TR and David. they have 5 children, 4 of them crazy boys. I still feel that the below is true to some extent so I am not going to change it
I am so angry. This stupid system had me locked out for 6 days and then it kicked me out of the February challenge. GRRRR! Well, now on to my real topic for the day. So this past weekend I spent in Austin visiting my daughter and her family. They have 4 children and they are all under 8. The youngest will be 1 on the 16th of February. It was interesting, I often wonder if it is just a symptom of large families to have a messy house and yard or are my kids just dysfunctional? I remember that the play room in Jacksonville was a disaster area for about a week and then They would be ordered in to clean it up and they would to much wailing and tears. When we returned to Houston there was no playroom so I guess the mess was everywhere and we picked it up after they went to bed. My daughter, Robin has 3 children and they seem to have the same problems as TR and David, even though they have an 11 year old. There is always left out toys, misplaced stuff and in general confusion and agony when ever they need to go any where.
I remember that all of these hints to get your household organized and clean never seemed to work for more than a month at the most and then there would be stuff lost and not ready all over again. In the 80s there were two sisters that had a TV show about how they manged to turn their messy lives with children into heaven with a card file system of household chores and jobs. I tried it,I still think that the cards are in a closet somewhere, and it worked until you got sidetracked by illness or a vacation and then it was gone. We have tried chore charts, rewards, punishments, rewards for completion while lack of reward for the non- completers but nothing works for a long time. I truly believe that you will never achieve a neat and clutter free house until you live alone. And what fun is that.
Why do Americans feel like their home should be a perfect show place. I think that McCall's, Ladies Home Journal, Family Circle, Martha Stewart, Real Simple and all of those hints magazines are STUPID and give you a huge sense of failure. I would like to see if the home of the editor of ''Martha Stewart" has a house that looks like the pages of her magazine when she has only herself and family to do the housework, cook, laundry and childcare. My mom had one of those neat and clean houses and so did aunt Fern but they were solely housewives. They only cared for the house, children and husband. Of course they did not have PTA meetings to attend, classes to go to , work outside the home or anything like that. I wonder if it is being educated is the reason that we have such a messy home. Mom and Aunt Fern both had high school diplomas but also both were raised in homes where the mom cared for the family and the dad earned the money.
Aunt Helen and Aunt Marian were both raised differently from mom and Aunt Fern. Helen was raised by a divorcee in a time when divorce was a bad word. Her mom had to go out and earn a living working at a clothing store to make ends meet for Helen and her siblings. Aunt Marian was raised on a farm in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and the entire family was expected to work at all of the household and farm chores.
Helen and Marian both had messy houses that were always full of people and noise. Only now in the past few years have I come to appreciate the difference and the less stressful feelings that were evident in Helen and Marian's homes. I do not know how my cousins felt about their respective homes and family situations but I know that I had more fun at Marian's and Helen's than I did at home because it was hard to make a mess at home but something interesting was always going on at their houses.
Maybe I will post this to my blog and my Facebook page and invite the cousins on FB to comment. If I do I will report back on what they say.
In closing, when I compare my home and family to my sister, I am David and Helen and Kitty, as my home was always comfortably cluttered and full of people and noise.
A little update: I now live in the Seattle area with the TR and David. they have 5 children, 4 of them crazy boys. I still feel that the below is true to some extent so I am not going to change it
I am so angry. This stupid system had me locked out for 6 days and then it kicked me out of the February challenge. GRRRR! Well, now on to my real topic for the day. So this past weekend I spent in Austin visiting my daughter and her family. They have 4 children and they are all under 8. The youngest will be 1 on the 16th of February. It was interesting, I often wonder if it is just a symptom of large families to have a messy house and yard or are my kids just dysfunctional? I remember that the play room in Jacksonville was a disaster area for about a week and then They would be ordered in to clean it up and they would to much wailing and tears. When we returned to Houston there was no playroom so I guess the mess was everywhere and we picked it up after they went to bed. My daughter, Robin has 3 children and they seem to have the same problems as TR and David, even though they have an 11 year old. There is always left out toys, misplaced stuff and in general confusion and agony when ever they need to go any where.
I remember that all of these hints to get your household organized and clean never seemed to work for more than a month at the most and then there would be stuff lost and not ready all over again. In the 80s there were two sisters that had a TV show about how they manged to turn their messy lives with children into heaven with a card file system of household chores and jobs. I tried it,I still think that the cards are in a closet somewhere, and it worked until you got sidetracked by illness or a vacation and then it was gone. We have tried chore charts, rewards, punishments, rewards for completion while lack of reward for the non- completers but nothing works for a long time. I truly believe that you will never achieve a neat and clutter free house until you live alone. And what fun is that.
Why do Americans feel like their home should be a perfect show place. I think that McCall's, Ladies Home Journal, Family Circle, Martha Stewart, Real Simple and all of those hints magazines are STUPID and give you a huge sense of failure. I would like to see if the home of the editor of ''Martha Stewart" has a house that looks like the pages of her magazine when she has only herself and family to do the housework, cook, laundry and childcare. My mom had one of those neat and clean houses and so did aunt Fern but they were solely housewives. They only cared for the house, children and husband. Of course they did not have PTA meetings to attend, classes to go to , work outside the home or anything like that. I wonder if it is being educated is the reason that we have such a messy home. Mom and Aunt Fern both had high school diplomas but also both were raised in homes where the mom cared for the family and the dad earned the money.
Aunt Helen and Aunt Marian were both raised differently from mom and Aunt Fern. Helen was raised by a divorcee in a time when divorce was a bad word. Her mom had to go out and earn a living working at a clothing store to make ends meet for Helen and her siblings. Aunt Marian was raised on a farm in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and the entire family was expected to work at all of the household and farm chores.
Helen and Marian both had messy houses that were always full of people and noise. Only now in the past few years have I come to appreciate the difference and the less stressful feelings that were evident in Helen and Marian's homes. I do not know how my cousins felt about their respective homes and family situations but I know that I had more fun at Marian's and Helen's than I did at home because it was hard to make a mess at home but something interesting was always going on at their houses.
Maybe I will post this to my blog and my Facebook page and invite the cousins on FB to comment. If I do I will report back on what they say.
In closing, when I compare my home and family to my sister, I am David and Helen and Kitty, as my home was always comfortably cluttered and full of people and noise.
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