Do you clean house like your mother cleans?

[Barb Bouldrey]

Did your mother teach you how to clean house or did you just pick it up by watching her?

My mother and her mother before her is/was chronic "picker uppers" and I am, too.

When my father left us just before I turned 10, we moved in with my mother's Nazarene parents. After baby no. 7 was born my mother had to go to work. So she developed a system.

She would get the oldest(me) up first. She and I would make our beds(we shared a room) and our room was in order when we left it. As she got each boy up, she made his bed. When all the children were downstairs in the kitchen, she straightened the bathroom, so that when she went downstairs, the entire upstairs was in order.

I never saw my home "messy"..even with 7 kids. Mom and Grandma must have constantly picked things up or ordered us to put things away.

At bedtime, the order reversed. The youngest was put to bed first and by the time I went upstairs to bed the downstairs was in perfect order and the sack lunches were made for the next day.

Now, my mother cleaned the entire house once a week, moving all the furniture to dust or sweep under everything and wipe off every mopboard. That is something I did not carry with me into marriage. LOL I occasionally move things to sweep under them and I don't really have "mopboards" any more. I do not clean once a week...at least not the entire house. Because I do not work outside the home I clean when I think it needs it...bathrooms more than the rest of the house.

My house is not always clean clean, but it is always in order. Company can come to my door any time of the day or night and find my house in order..except if I was in bed and the bed would not be made.

It amazes me to realize how much I am like my mother in so many ways, but even at 85 she is a better housekeeper than I am. She still empties her cupboards twice a year and cleans everything. She still washes down her walls twice a year. She still washes her curtains twice a year. I have never done those things faithfully.

What did your mother teach you about cleaning?

Barb

[Barbara Moulton]

Interesting question.

Mom taught me very little about housecleaning but I did watch her. I know that one thing I do because she did was make sure the livingroom is tidy and vacuumed before I go to bed at night. She said there was nothing worse than coming downstairs to a dirty livingroom in the morning.

Other than that, I would have to say I developed my own routines down through the years.

[Donna Adams]

No I do not clean like my mother. My mom was not and is still not a good teacher. There are 7 children in my family as well. Three girls and then four boys. I am the middle girl and #2 in birth order.My mom went to work when the baby was in kindergarten, so that would have made me around 11 or 12. Alot of times when we got off of the bus no one was home waiting for us, excpet a note on the fridge with jobs for each of us to do. And it had to be done before my father walked in the door at 4:30, if it was not or we were in the process, we got the belt. There was never anyone there to teach us how they wanted things done, I learned to cook and clean alone, and reaped the consequences when it was not done to their expectations, and I seldom knew what those were. I learned to cook for nine people, and when I cooked I also had the duties of table setting, getting the food done and cleaning it all up alone.
I learned more about cleaning and cooking, the how of it, from my grandmother, who took the time to teach me, and to tell me what I was doing wrong. She is also the one who showed me how to make a bed.
Today, I love to cook, but I do not like cleaning up alone. I think I've taught my daughter and two sons better than I was taught.
The parsonage I live in today, is so huge that is very hard to keep it clean, especially the up stairs. UGH!
So don't show up here unannounced!! LOL

[Alisa Stoll]

Barb,

Those are two different questions with two different answers!

Do you clean house like your mother cleans? NO!

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Did your mother teach you how to clean house or did you just pick it up by watching her? My mother certainly taught me how to clean house like she did - certainly I wouldn't have been able to sit if all I did was watch! My mother pretty much always worked and from the time I was nine or so I was expected to help on Saturdays. By the time I was a teenager, I was cleaning the house on Fridays pretty much alone in the summer when I was off and home. I was also often responsible for dinner or starting dinner. I am the oldest and my brothers got off easier than me but not totally scott free.

Alisa

[Anne and Dwayne Hood]

No one ever actually taught me how to cook or clean. Mother and Wilma took the lead. Mother would tell me to make the beds while she and Wilma cooked. Mother would tell me to pick out x number of things and iron them. No one showed me how. Before daddy left, when I was 15, he would go into the bathroom, knock on the wall to get me up, and lock the bathroom door. Mother went through a period of time having severe headaches. Wilma was in college and worked, so daddy got me up to put on "the grits" and start cooking breakfast. He had already started the coffee. I would dance a jig, needing to go to the bathroom, as we usualy do in th mornings--wishing that daddy would get me up, before he entered the bathroom, and locked the door. I would dust and pick things up while Wilma mopped and waxed. Before daddy left, he got the boys to do the mopping. By the time I was junior high age, I washed, starched and ironed my clothes--just going by how I had seen Mother or Wilma do, etc. etc. etc. I learned to cook after I married, but have never learned how to really be organized in my housework.
I jump from one thing to the other, but, believe in having a clean living room to welcome guests, at all times--even if we moved there the day before. Also, I believe in "picking up." I always thought, "What if I just walked by there without picking "that" up, and Wilma or mother would come along, lean to pick it up, and fall."
Also, I learned to never walk away from the table and leave the dishes on it for our girls to take to the kitchen. I stayed in the kitchen until the table was cleaned up, and then let them do the dishes. Mother and Wilma, my older sister, seemed to see how bad a mess they could make in the kitchen, how many pots they could mess up, etc. I refused to do that to our girls.
But, after Robyn married, if we had guest, Jeanne always allowed me (her mother), to go straight to the living room to entertain them, while she cleaned up the kitchen. She got up from the table, when we had guests, if anyone needed to be waited on for something--before she married. She knew that I had cooked most of the food, and she relieved me of that duty.
Now, she starts teaching each of her children (5) to cook, when they are ten years of age. Thanks for reading this epistle.

[Barbara Moulton]

I always like to keep my livingroom clean too. You just never know when someone is going to pop in to see you. When my kids were little it was a little harder. One of the benefits of being an empty nester is that it is easier to keep things tidy.

[Dana Grant]

I always like to keep my livingroom clean too. You just never know when someone is going to pop in to see you. When my kids were little it was a little harder. One of the benefits of being an empty nester is that it is easier to keep things tidy.

Yes, I'm that way, too. I'm so thankful to have a separate living room and family room. The living room always stays tidy. When we bought this house, my favorite feature was that guests could come in the front door and ONLY see the living room and not the rest of the house. Unfortunately, these days, none of our friends use our front door! LOL They all come to the side door that goes right into the family room/dining room/kitchen area -- so you see all the mess at once if it hasn't been cleaned that day!! HA HA Oh well, if they love me with a perfect house, they'll have to love me with a less than perfect one, I guess!! I don't fret over it anymore!

[Judy Hamilton]

Change the bed linens weekly
wash the dishes, dry them and put them away..never leave them in the sink overnight
we polished the silver set weekly..thank goodness this task is not necessary!
sweep and mopped the floors weekly..there were all hardwood floors
mop the kitchen floor more often
hang out laundry.usually a load of diapers before going to school..do NOT miss this task..as it was painful in freezing winter

now I change sheets weekly
do not leave dishes in the sink over night, straigten the LR daily
and vaccum about every two weeks, now that I live alone
dust whenever
scrub toliets weekly or as needed

[Sara Sheppard]

I am probably a better housekeeper than my mom. We always had a small house and there were 3 kids...so there were always little messes clutter. Now mom's house, which was meant to be just her and dad, has my brother and a 3 year old...so they are still cramped.

I'm amazed at the size of houses some young couples THINK they have to have. I have some friends who recently had their 2nd child. They sold their 2000+ sq. feet house to buy another one because they needed more room. ROFLOL....Whatever. They are trying to keep up with the Jones family if you ask me. ha ha Other than one brief time, our family always lived in about a 1300-1500 sq foot house with 1 bathroom. ok...that's not the question though.

I like to clean bathrooms weekly - I don't know how they get so dirty but they do. My living room I like to make sure its always picked up. My kitchen is usually clean, however, when I have company...my focus is on the company not the dishes. I've learned that life is too short to ignore people and focus on the mess. The mess will be there tomorrow, my guests will not. I do laundry weekly - I hate putting away laundry. LOL I do not iron as much as I should. I throw it in the dryer and hope for the best. LOL I don't vaccuum very often for 2 reasons, I really don't need it because its just me and the other reason is that my carpet is so BAD that vaccuuming it really doesn't help. LOL (I do grab the dust buster pretty often though for small areas). I should dust more often since I have cherry furniture. My guest bedroom has pine furniture - never looks like it needs dusting. My bedroom and living room has cherry - I could dust ever 10 min. LOL

Sara

[Dana Grant]

I'm amazed at the size of houses some young couples THINK they have to have. I have some friends who recently had their 2nd child. They sold their 2000+ sq. feet house to buy another one because they needed more room. ROFLOL....Whatever. They are trying to keep up with the Jones family if you ask me. ha ha Other than one brief time, our family always lived in about a 1300-1500 sq foot house with 1 bathroom. ok...that's not the question though.
Sara


This amazes me, too, Sara....we watch those HGTV shows where people are looking for a new house (House Hunters), and we always chuckle when we see a young couple with ONE child who has a 2000-sq ft house and think they are growing out of it because they have a child and a dog now!!! LOL We have lived with two children and two dogs in 1800 square feet quite nicely!! A few years ago (when we started homeschooling, actually, and space did get a little cramped), we toyed with the idea of moving to a much larger home. However, we decided we did not want to be married to our home. We wanted to have our house paid off while we were still young enough to enjoy it, and we wanted to be able to take vacations other than staying at home in our large house!! LOL Not to mention, our kids did NOT want to move at the time.....so we figured, hey, we love each other, we can be close!! And we stayed put, and I'm sooooo glad! Plus, we have the best neighborhood ever! It's like the old-time neighbors -- we chat out front with neighbors, we have keys to the neighbors' house, they have keys to ours......it takes years to establish those kinds of relationships with your neighbors.......I hope it's always like this!