Making Home

I grew up in a pristine home, kept by a mother who never seemed to tire of cleaning, and who never required any of her six kids to do chores aside from setting the table and unloading the dishwasher.

My mother never seemed to resent Saturday morning cleaning sessions. In fact, I never even remember seeing her clean, although I also never saw her sit. Our house being in a constant state of near perfection was just a given. I only remember one time ever being fussed at your making a mess. My sisters and I happened to discover that you could squeeze pomegranate seeds at each other and wage beautiful, pink warfare. As it happened, my mom's newly hung antique lace curtains became the most tragic casualty.

My own house and attitude towards housecleaning are almost 180 degrees from my mother's. My house always needs a minimum of four solid hours of deep cleaning, even after I've spent four hours deep cleaning. I force my children and husband to help me vacuum and wipe off baseboards and deposit things into the appropriate location. And I resent almost every minute I'm doing it. I just want to be reading a book, watching a movie, taking a walk, or engaged in pretty much any other activity that isn't cleaning.

I try to remind myself that my house doesn't need to be perfect. I read books that assure me in their very titles that "A perfectly kept house is the sign of a misspent life. " I start a blog series on the beauty of other people's messes, but despite my best efforts, I just can't come to peace with the dusty corners or the act of dusting.

I have a "source" who told me that after having been invited in to several old money, New England houses, that she discovered that these people, the paragons of class and culture, had boarder line dirty houses.  I think it's like the house keeping equivalent of French women's hair; when things are incredibly beautiful and tasteful, grooming is superfluous.

I don't think that I am supposed to admit this, but I have always sort of wanted to pass myself off as some sort of bourgeois bohemian, although I'm pretty certain that the fact that Tom and I both work actual jobs and receive actual paychecks forever precludes us from being such. Regardless, in my bobo fantasies, my untidy house is charming and whimsical, not simply a testament to lackadaisical nature.

I'm not certain that I will ever come to accept my mediocre house cleaning skills. I hope to one day feel confident enough in my home making skills that I no longer care. Meanwhile, I will blame my mother for this problem because I'm pretty certain that is how to deal with most problems in life.

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