I grew up in an immaculate home, somehow with two daughters who tore through the house my mum managed to keep the house looking like a Home Beautiful editorial.
I don’t know how she did it! I think back and my grandmother was the same, only compared to my mum, my grandmother’s house was like a museum. Things were there to look pretty, not to be touched.
Although, I rarely ever went to my grandmother’s house, I do have a vivid memory of my little sister finding the ‘Frisbees’ and hurling them around the living room only to have my grandmother nearly have a coronary when she discovered all her vinyls had been smashed. I don’t blame her, I’m sure they were all classics, but at the time, we all learned not to mess with anything ornamental, shiny or not ours.
Growing up this way, you’d think I would have inherited the genes of a neat-freak, and for a while I was, mind you I was still living at home so my mum still had say over my messiness. To get a clearer picture let’s just say my house is a far cry from being impeccable. There’s no need to call DOCs or the producers of Hoarders, but the house is, well, lived in. And we like it this way.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s clean, I’m not living in my own filth, I just don’t believe in living in a house that looks like a display home. I want to enjoy my home and for my son to enjoy our home, his toys and our backyard, and if that means the house looks messy, then meh, I’ll survive.
Keeping the house messy isn’t for lack of trying, for instance, my drawers used to be neat and tidy, that’s until my toddler realised how fun it is to take all my clothes out and throw them around the room. Honestly there’s only a certain amount of times I can fold the same t-shirt that gets thrown around before I scrunch it up and shove it back in the drawer.
Now as for the toy room formerly known as our living room, I don’t mind the toy chaos. I do tidy up and am working on the ‘let’s all pack away together’, but there’s toys around, get over it. It just won’t ever look like the beautifully styled living rooms in magazines, it’s fine, I can live with that.
I do cop it every now and again from family or some friends about being ‘the messy one’, but honestly, I don’t care. I’m happy, my husband’s happy and my kid loves us no matter what our living situation is. So next time you come over and happen to step on a deadly Lego block or find the dishes in the dish rack, don’t whinge about it because it won’t magically turn me into a Stepford Wife, it will most likely result in me reconsidering having you over.
