Last Updated on March 14, 2018 by Marie Bautista
I just don’t get it.
But I just don’t have the time to clean!Saturdays are supposed to be shopping days for stressed-out working moms like me, but what am I doing here, home and alone, figuring out how can I finish my laundry when I still have to scrub the bathroom, clean the living room, look for Adrian’s lost homework (my fault)on a very messy desk (mine, actually…), and water my wilted plants??
(Meaning: More important things want my attention and I don’t have the time to clean!)
I don’t know with you, but I was never into this cleaning thing.
I have been a mom for years, and I still haven’t figured it all out.
I know.
I am too lazy to clean.
I still have a novel to read, a movie to watch, the net to surf, the mall to shop.
I have so much more interesting and entertaining things to do than hang out at home cleaning.
But then, somebody has got to do it.
Because the dirty dishes and laundry would pile up.
My dirty desk would gather more dust and give me endless sneezes.
And my plants will die.
I try to put off housework, because I am waiting for more time to do my cleaning right.
I guess as a kid, I was guilty when mom would ask me to clean my room and I will junk all my stuff inside my closet.
But then, I realized that if I will wait to have more time to do my housecleaning perfectly, I will never have that time (unless Saturdays will have 48 hours, which is one of my deepest wishes actually).
It is that wish for perfection that will stop me from getting anything done.
I learned to drop off that guilt trip and decided to be a little nicer to myself.
If I can only spare fifteen minutes to clean the bathroom, I will clean that bathroom in fifteen minutes flat, while I load my mean washing machine and set it into timer.
After the fifteen minutes is up, I watch TV while I vacuum, clear off the room, put away the kids’ stuff.
And that’s my little secret.
I do my housework one at a time, at my own pace.
It doesn’t make my house a lot cleaner, but it sure makes me a whole lot happier.
Even if I just don’t have the time to clean!
I'm not a mom so maybe I shouldn't speak too soon, but I'm a a big clean-freak. I can't stand the sight of dusty furniture or piled up dishes and my mom's usually going like 'Please stop cleaning!' which my friends find very weird.
But there's no urgency and as long as your happy, you definitely should be doing it at your own pace.
Can I invite you over and stay at our house, please? (lol) You are like my daughter. She is such a neat freak, too. Too bad she has classes on Saturdays or I would have let her do the work while I go shopping (and that's a joke haha in case she is reading this)
i know how that feels. just tell yourself it's ok to sometimes have a messy house because you'd rather give yourself some time to rest. it's not a good sight but really….what i do is remind myself that i am no super woman.
I can soooo relate to your post! I used to want to finish all the housechores to keep the house spic-and-span but always end up being so stressed that I become short-tempered then feel so terrible being a horrible mom to my kids. I've realized that my kids always take first priority and that a slightly dirty home with happy kids is better than a perfectly clean house with neglected kids. 🙂 Oh, and that, a happy mom makes a happy home. 😀
I guess this is the case for all working moms (unless of course you have hordes of househelps). There doesn't seem to be enough time in a day to finish everything and still have time to relax. But then it's not all bad, right? Especially when we see our children happy and healthy?