While I am a remarkably disorganized person, it’s worth pointing out that I was a medical intern at the time, working 80 hours a week or so, and I was going through one of several bouts of severe depression. The last thing in the world I want to do is to make my wife feel like she’s living in hell, and it makes me want to cry thinking about it.
I’m somewhere inbetween:
… and:
The best motive for me to clean is:
And then I generally both enjoy doing it and enjoy things being in order. Then I start noticing all the empty spots in my house and realise I need plants.
I just had an epiphany as well:
Putting one-and-one together, I now take it 50s housewifes were only into men in so far as they created the opportunity to being a 50s housewife. 
Yeah, nobody told me it was going to be like this. All of us young girls expected to be fully liberated, doing as we pleased, looking after ourselves, making our own money and taking orders from no one. Somehow along the way they added all this stuff that women have to do now, but they forgot to take any of the previous responsibilities away! (I get exhausted just thinking about the lives of women with children.)
When I can afford it, I am so getting housekeeping help. I don’t care how bourgeois it is.
I dislike housework, too. I put off scrubbing the kitchen and bathrooms for as long as I can stand it, then once every 3 months or so I spend 3-4 backbreaking hours scrubbing the hell out of them. Then my body aches for two days. Blech. Usually The Elf washes the dishes every night, dirty dishes seem to annoy him for some reason, and occassionally he will run the vacuum, but I have never seen him dust, mop, or scrub a toilet. He used to pay his step-daughter to do it for him. Now I do those things either a) when I get around to it or 2) when we are having a party or something. Otherwise I don’t worry too much about it. I am not a slob, but I do leave things lying about sometimes, usually having to do with whatever crafty thing I happen to be working on at the time. My sewing room sometimes becomes a disaster, but just like the toilets, eventually it will bug me enough to straighten it back up again.
And then when I walk into a freshly scrubbed bathroom or my newly neatened sewing room, I feel so proud of myself for tidying up that I make The Elf come look at it and tell me how wonderful I am.
My kids are thirteen and eight. I recently assigned them both some light chores during the week, and just that little bit of help makes all the difference. The house is still messy, but not dirty.
My best advice is to get a house boy.
We just had a fourth roommate move in. Just finished college, dad cut him off with no job and no where to live. We gave him the library and a fold out for the cost of utilities and cleaning the house while we’re at work. There is nothing funnier then a 6’3" former bouncer dusting your knick knacks. Last night we were debating cooking or goind out to eat. No one really wanted to cook, but money’s tight to be going out. He cast the deciding vote with “Going out won’t mess up the nice kitchen I just finished cleaning. Again, 6’3” scary looking straight guy. I’m gonna be really sad when he gets a job. The counters have never been cleaner.
You’ve got a house boy dusting your knickknacks, have you? :dubious:
I do that too. “Hey, check out the pantry!” He, of course, must drop everything and come give me the adulation I deserve.
Can’t your kids help you out, dragongirl?
Eh, kids. Sure they “help”, but sometimes getting them to do the chore is a huge chore in itself.
Just did the kitchen floor today and 5 hours late, you can’t tell I ever did it. I try to keep things tidy, so that no job is huge…but then there is the basement. Ugh. I face that this weekend. There was a New Yorker cartoon years back that showed an empty room with 2 men and one woman, a table and 2 chairs. Nothing on the floor, walls, etc. The caption read: “Martha hates clutter.”
I have become that woman. Throw it all away–what is it for? ( I haven’t done the Big Purge as yet, but when that last kid goes to college–ok, he’s 6–look out!)
Ugh, cleaning. I hate it. Thing is, our landlord just listed our building for sale (we live in a 2 story house, the downstairs is office space and the upstairs is our apartment) so I’m supposed to be keeping it clean.
I’ll do the kitchen (under protest; will someone explain to me how a family of four can go through two dozen glasses and 30 plates in a single day?). I’ll do the bathroom and the living room and our bedroom and the baby’s room. (I should probably stop calling her the baby, she’s 6.) But I refuse to clean my husband’s playroom (Napoleonic miniatures, paints, books, computer innards out the yin-yang) and wild horses couldn’t drag me into my 14 year old’s room. Very small Europeans have colonized the dessicated body of Jimmy Hoffa somewhere in the bottom layers of that room. There are probably Japanese soldiers in the closet who don’t know the war is over. Every now and then a Pygmy emerges, blinking at the light. I figure he’ll be out on his own in about 4 years, I’ll back a truck up to the door after he moves.
Oh Gawd, I am so there w/you. :: checks to make sure this is the Pit:: This shit just never fucking stops! And our place doesn’t look good even when it is clean - our couch is still ugly, the hallway still needs to be repainted, the kitchen floor tile is still worn and torn.
We just celebrated our twins’ first birthday Thursday, and I couldn’t figure out why I felt so down. Today it hit me - I’d thought it was going to get easier. Hah! Sure, they don’t scream for a bottle/diaper every 45 minutes, and they do sleep most of the night – but now there’s Tupperware, toys, socks, shoes, blankets, Cheerios, and their clean clothes (pulled from their drawers) strewn from one end of our apartment to the other.
I’ve thought it was so difficult for me because I’m not domestic by nature - I’d much rather be going places & doing things. Before Kids, I’d run the vacuum once a month whether I needed to or not . Now, of course, I have to do it every day (along with the usual overwhelming list of household-running tasks).
It’s not much comfort, but I figure Domestic Goddesses must suffer even more when they have kids, because there’s no way in hell they can keep up to their previous standards.
My Aunt has a really spiffy-clean house, and her advice was to break things down into 5-15 minute tasks and just constantly keep after it. That’s actually helped a lot - I used to procrastinate more, because everything looked like an hour-long project. As eleanorrigby pointed out, de-cluttering is big - if it hasn’t been used/worn/enjoyed in the past couple of years, out it goes! I usually clean up the kids’ toys as part of our going to bed routine; they don’t help, but I’m hoping they’ll figure it out one of these days (“cleaning” means “throw everything into a bin”). And I do not dust! The television is the only thing that gets wiped down when Elmo starts looking grey.
Catsmeow mentioned Erma Bombeck - boy, do I miss her too! I was surprised to read that she regretted having spent as much time on housework as she did. I always thought she was a slacker, but apparently she wished she had slacked a lot more.
I call them “relatives”; dust to dust, y’know. It helps rationalize my reluctance to disturb them.
I rather enjoy housework once I can kick myself into gear for it. Getting myself into gear is the problem. (Note: I live gloriously alone so the level of mess is nobody else’s problem or business.)
Can’t offer much in the way of actual help on this one. Just about the only thing that’s made much difference for me is the garbage-bag tour. A staggering amount of my clutter is paper: old catalogs, envelopes from paid bills, newspapers, flyers, etc. I now keep a small stack of garbage bags on each floor of the house. Grab a bag in passing, then do a quick swoop through of each room. Amazing how much junk gets whisked up in quick pass-through. Then the bags get dumped by the door to be put in the car for a run to the recycling center.
Otherwise…heh. Life’s too short to obsess about cleaning.
Veb
Most of what I find around the place is hair. Where does all this hair come from? I never seem to have any less hair. I vacuum it up faithfully though I am puzzled about why it is there. I know people shed hairs throughout the day. But most of the day I am not even here! The bathroom is another story. Three other people use that bathroom and all of them are slobs. My room is very tidy. The rooms of my roommates are disasters. As long as they keep their doors closed, I don’t care. They’re their rooms, after all, not mine. It can be annoying not having anywhere to sit in their rooms because of all the junk, though. Cleaning sucks. I love to wash dishes and vacuum but anything else I hate.
God, I hate that crap. What helps me at least feel better about it is to think of my foremothers - you know, grass was anathema to my granny’s country generation? You had to go out there and kill all the grass? Not to mention the canning, and the washing on the washboard with lye and shit, which took you all Monday, and the icebox they delivered ice for, and the chicken pot pie that started out with feathers, and the clothes for the kids that started out as flour sacks - hell, I haven’t done a damned thing, but my “not a damned thing” is a hell of a lot better than if Granny had just sat back and read her book instead of whacking the chicken’s head off. It’s comforting.
I suspect that Dragongirl and I may be somehow related.
I don’t mind housework as much as I used to when I was still with my ex. It was worse then because not only did I do all the work, I was living with an abuseive asshole who continually complained about issues such as “You don’t make enough broccoli.” And our house was about level 3 chaos, which meant that no matter what I did, I never seemed to make any progress.
Since we’ve moved, it’s MUCH better. But still…
There are days when I do dishes (in the dishwasher, yes, but still) three or four times. Laundry, three or four loads. Vacuum at least once per day. Feed the animals two or three times per day. Take out trash a couple times per day. Clean off the counters several days each day. EVERY chore seems to multiplied by two or three or four, I think because no matter how much I clean, I still have four kids, four dogs, and a passel of cats. Of course, I delegate some chores and am attempting to delegate more, but my delegatees are somewhat resistant. 
Overall, my house is a lot cleaner, and I can generally invite anyone in, which is a huge change for me. But it’s a constant job, and it does get discouraging sometimes.
May I make a suggestion? Twins is huge and they are at a busy, busy age. Toys can consume your living space. I didn’t have twins, but I have 3 kids.
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Keep some space your very own, even if it’s just your bedroom or bed. We made a NO TOY zone of our bedroom–helped my mental status no end.
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Get a big Rubbermaid or similiar container with lid for toys–eases the tidying up at the end of the day.
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Open shelving for clothes in closets does make for fun for kiddies, but it easier on you than trying to redo drawers all the time.
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Put away all your knick-knacks (if any)–the kids won’t break them and the place wont’ look so cluttered. I brought out all the breakables once they reached the age of reason (I determined that as age 4; YMMV).
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If you have room, designate one room as the playroom–we took down our formal dining room for about 2-3 years and it became our default playroom for winter and rainy days. Helped contain all the BIG preschool toys…
Oh, and since it’s the Pit. Fuck and damn. Hate housework!
What I’m going to do to reduce housework:
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Make little plastic space suits for the cats.
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Stop feeding them.
Voila! No more cat litter, much less vacuuming.
There may be a flaw somewhere in my plan, but I don’t see it.
I enjoy housework sometimes, but knowing that there’s always something to be cleaned, constantly aware that there’s something that needs doing… it can drag on my subconcious until I can’t bear the thought of doing anything. I find loose scheduling helps- I will get such-and-such done some time on Wednesday, and still have time for a nap and internet surfing.
My husband has just gotten a new job with killer hours, and I’m back to doing all the housework again. It’ll be difficult because several people have quit at work, so my schedule is variable, not stable. I’m going to try to give myself one lazy day a week. That should help. One day where I conciously absolve myself of all cleaning responsibilities.
Hey eleanorigby thanks for the suggestions! I’ve actually implemented all of those except for space of my own (doesn’t it just figure!). The big Rubbermaid toy bins are the best, we have five! If they were smart, they’d make 'em in nice rainbow colors, but I’ll take grey if that’s all they’ve got. And their clothes are actually on the lower shelves of their changing table in potato bins from Ikea - I do not fold!
Actually, dragongirl, I thought of one shortcut I use. Since my Hubby gets home from work @5:30, I don’t change the babies out of their PJs until after naps/lunch/snack, at 4:00 or so! And that tidying up? 5:00 sharp! I figure if I’m going to manage one “clean” moment/day, it’ll go further if Hubby’s there to witness it! The rest of the time it’s just me & my messmakers, so who cares!
Clutter makes me nervous (something I inherited from my mom, I guess) so I generally keep things picked up fairly well. A clean kitchen is a must for me. Even a few dishes in the sink annoys me. (I mean, really, dear husband…I love you bunches but the dishwasher is right there! Would it really be that difficult to put your dirty plate inside? And don’t even get me started on the empty toilet paper rolls…) Yeah, I’m somewhat anal retentive. I freely admit it and embrace my quirks.
What really bugs me is my dog’s constant shedding. The main floor of our house is mostly vinyl tile or hardwood so there’s always dog hair dust bunnies (though I think I’m going to steal Rhubarb’s “ghost turds”) floating around. It’s a never-ending battle. And about once a month, the vacuum cleaner has to be taken apart to dig out all the balls of dog hair that have gotten up into the workings of the machine.
But deep cleaning? That’s another story. I hate cleaning the floors. We have a relatively large house and because I feel a mop just pushes dirty water around, I’ll end up scrubbing the floors on my hands and knees. Needless to say, this sort of cleaning just doesn’t happen that often. And a bad back and mild carpal tunnel into the mix and it’s a grim day in the Wing household.
The same thing goes for the showers. Tilex shower cleaner really helps extend the times between cleanings, at least in my experience. At least it makes me feel better! Another thing that helped me (since I have a weird shower phobia) is buying a long handled sponge scrubber.
Since I don’t work, I pretty much do it all, from cleaning to laundry to bill-paying. I don’t mind most of the time (seems a fairly even trade-off) but it can get overwhelming.