Kids and Cleaning: Let it Go

You fold the laundry and go put away clothes. You come back and the toddler has thrown the rest of your piles all over the floor. So much for all the hard work you just did. You finally get the dishes done and now it's lunch and the sink is getting full again. Somedays it feels like all you do is clean and clean and clean. And what do you have to show for it at the end of the day? A messy house.

Motherhood is not easy. You are taking a human being that knows just about nothing and teaching them how to be productive citizens and helpful people. There are a lot of ways to help teach a child to clean and to be willing to clean. But today I am going to focus on just letting it go.


Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing." ~Phyllis Diller.


That is how it feels sometimes. You go out and shovel and then it keeps snowing and you can barely see that you even shoveled. But the point is that you can see it. It did help a little. There is that much less snow to shovel. Same goes with cleaning. Don't expect perfection. You are living with little tornadoes. It's tough sometimes. You don't want to do it anymore, because it's not like anyone else seems to care how the house looks. I've learned that cleaning a house isn't really about having a clean house. It's about teaching the kids that it's what we should do. We should take some time for cleaning and then go back to having fun. It's about a having a calm peaceful feeling, rather than living in chaos.

But where is the mother whose house is so shocking? She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking. The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow, for children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow. So quiet down cobwebs, dust go to sleep. I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

I don't know where that quote comes from. But it is so true. Do you want to spend all day cleaning everyday and just telling the kids that you can't play with them because you are busy? That tells them that your clean house is more important than them. I have sometimes wanted to keep cleaning but had to stop to play with my daughter for 15 minutes. She's happier because Mom took some time out and I had fun spending time focused on her. Then I get to go back to cleaning. And our kids do grow up. They only stay little for a short time. Cleaning is important, but so is spending time with your little ones.

Next time I'll post more about some ways to make cleaning fun and ways you can get everyone involved, hopefully without complaining.