So does nobody remember that skit from Sesame Street where the mother sends her son to the market and makes him memorize the list? A loaf of bread, a quart of milk, and a stick of butter. He repeats it all the way there, mixing up all the items, over and over again. I don’t know why I remember that.
I woke up this morning a little cold, but ready to try to get something done today. I don’t clean very often, and it shows, so I had decided to make today the day. I would get the living room tidied, get the mountains of (clean) clothes out of all the bedrooms, scrub the bathroom sink (for the first time since we’ve lived here, I know, ew), and do some laundry.
I hate having a messy house, but it seems so futile to pick something up, only to turn your back for 5 seconds and have something else appear where it was. Or even to have the same item reposition itself from whence you took it. I hate explaining to my kids how to hang up their towel, or their coat, or the dishcloth, and having them forget before I’m finished speaking. I hate cooking and not having anywhere to put the dirty dishes, or not having anywhere to chop, because of the dirty dishes. I hate following the tornado trying to repair the damage in it’s wake, only to look behind me and see another tornado following me.
My poor kids have suffered my wrath this morning. I think I might be more stressed on the days that I try to clean than on the days I just let the piles pile. There comes a point where my blood starts to boil. It’s usually around the time when I’m making lunch and instructing the kids to get dressed, because they never get dressed after all the millions of times I ask them to all morning. Inevitably, there are no socks in the drawer. Because someone has worn four pairs of socks per day, and discarded them in various corners of the house, and someone else just can’t be bothered to look in the drawer where we pretend the clean socks live. And a third someone’s socks are just the right size to plug up those pesky holes in the heating vent grates.
Because I’m too lazy to clean up after breakfast, that youngest someone is adept at finding whatever vessel is teetering on the edge of the dining table, ready to empty it’s inevitably liquid contents onto the floor and/or very small someone’s person. Inevitably soymilk.
Because we don’t have any shelves, but we do have too much stuff, the piano is covered with junk again. Piano music, a digital camera, library books, movies, several knitting projects, a big box with a few tiny homemade Christmas tree ornaments, lotion, magazines, a tiny violin, some framed photos wrapped in bubble-wrap, and a hunting horn.
I think I’ve grown up with an inflated notion of the importance of my own talents, and finding ways to use them. House cleaning is not one of my talents, so it feels like such a colossal waste of time, when I should be getting a PhD in music, translating at the UN, finding a vaccination for AIDS, painting masterpieces, writing novels, hosting my own show on the Food Network, working as a forensic anthropologist at the Jeffersonian, designing low-income housing with no environmental footprint, and knitting washcloths.
In the meantime, does anyone know of a support group for people who love their kids, but HATE being a stay-at-home mom?
December 17, 2007 at 6:48 pm
I do, I remember: A loaf of bread, a quart of milk, and a stick of butter.
I hate when I have to wash a dish so that I can use it to cook with–it drives me batty.
I do not have the mindshare to clean properly. I just run out of time. I only have so much time and I simply can’t clean enough to get everything clean. Some people have the house management gene, and I don’t. It is the one big thing I lack (well, that and patience.) The laundry is the hardest, it take so long to fold and put away with all the interruptions. Argh.
December 17, 2007 at 8:45 pm
Oh. Yeah, I totally got it… that lanky kids headed off to the store, doing that lanky skipping thing that he does “gallon a’milk, loaf a’bread, an’ a stick a’buttah.”
Being a SAHM? Sux, and don’t let anyone tell ya differnt.
December 18, 2007 at 12:42 am
I didn’t get it before, but now I totally remember it. I’m just a bit slow.
I don’t enjoy homemaking. Necessary evil, and I’m glad DH is willing to share the work. Because it IS work. We had a cleaning lady for quite a while and it was worth every cent. Someday…
December 18, 2007 at 11:06 am
Not a SAHM myself, but I hear ya on the Sissyphean (sp?) nature of boring home-making tasks. Our office floor is currently covered with change, because Eliza loves emptying out her piggy bank and throwing coins around, and I just. can’t. deal. with cleaning up all those stupid pennies when I know that an hour later, they are all going to be on the floor again.
December 18, 2007 at 11:24 am
I actually love being a SAHM, but have only been one for 2 years, and my kids are teens.
However, I find now that I’m home all day it bothers me more to find clothes all over the place, newspapers and the previous 3 days of mail all over the desk and the adjacent dining room table, and orange juice turning to a sticky mess on the kitchen floor I washed yesterday. Unfortunately it takes about 20 years before a kid learns to clean up after themselves.
I guess when I worked outside the home I noticed less of what goes on inside the home.
December 18, 2007 at 11:28 am
I think being a SAHM has got to be one of the toughest jobs out there. I was at home with my baby for the first three months and there were days when I felt like I was going to lose my mind. And bear in mind, I’ve always had an extremely heavy work schedule in the past and I thought I was going to be tough enough to handle it! When I went back to work, my job felt so easy and relaxing by comparison. I’m really spoiled now because our nanny is a superwoman who not only takes amazing care of our baby but who also cleans our house top to bottom on top of that. (My kitchen floor has NEVER looked that clean before!)
December 19, 2007 at 10:15 am
I loved being an SAHM, what I hated then and hate still now that I’m not is the housework. It is not one of my talents either. A friend of mine made me a lovely sign that reads “A clean house is a sign of a wasted life.”
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
December 19, 2007 at 3:02 pm
HI I just came across you from fMh and loved that you talk about a loaf of bread, a quart of milk and a stick of butter. My brother and I still talk about that.
I’m not a SAHM and I don’t know if I could be. I’m a major cleaner, but the family members are major slobs so I’m always in a fret to keep things cleaner. I think if I was at home all day I’d be even more OCD than I am already. Good luck! and I enjoyed your blog!
December 20, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Honestly, Sarah, it is worth the effort and very satisfying when things are in their place. It takes EVERYONE in the house to make it work. Of course, it’s especially challenging with 3 little ones,which you have. Take baby steps. You can do it, if you put your mind to it. Perfection is not the goal, just a little bit better than the day before. Get Derek on board and make it a game with rewards for the kids.
December 20, 2007 at 9:51 pm
I hate cleaning. But I hate even more to live in filth. That’s just too gross for me. My deal with life is that it is perfectly ok to very, very intensly hate everyone who contributes to the filth while I am in the process of cleaning, and then to forgive them once I am done. It works for me. Once the house is clean again, I am all sunshine.
January 3, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Wow–your post reminded me so much of how hard it is to stay home with kids. I have absolutely no good advice about how to keep a house clean (I mean, come on, you’ve seen mine and I’m now paying somebody to come clean every week). But I do know that you need to get away from your house regularly and use that great brain you have. My friend’s husband gave her a Christmas present that she loves–every Thursday night off–even if she stays home, she’s off the clock. She has two sets of twins and says it’s the best present she has ever gotten! Ask for it for next Christmas–or your birthday–or Valentine’s Day!