Fighting over cleaning the house is tearing my family apart!

[Sounobvious]

My mom is a clean freak. Every day she comes home from work and yells at me and my sister for the house not being clean enough for her. If the house isn't clean, shes downright miserable and cranky. Every single day we get in a fight over it. She expects the house to be completely spotless and she'll make everyone else in the house miserable screaming at them to clean things up. But no other member in my family thinks a clean house is that important as she does and we think that theres more to life then having a clean house. Everytime we want to go somewhere, we cannot leave until the house looks perfect. So sometimes this delays us getting to where we want to for sometimes hours. Me and my sister cannot drive, and we have no buses we can take to get anywhere so we are forced to follow her orders if we want to get anywhere. So i'm young, and I feel like i have better things to do sometimes than spending most of my day cleaning. If she wants to spend the rest of her life at home cleaning thats fine with me, but I dont feel lke wasting my own life over it. The thing is, even when I do clean, it doesn't matter. She'll never acknowledge the work that we do. Its never good enough for her and she'll always look for things we've missed or she'll find some other job for us to do. Is this fair that she makes us miserable just so she can feel a bit better about the house being clean? I dont understand how she really feels better after shes been yelling so much anyway? She always says we only care about ourselves and we never clean up or anything and it hurts. But the truth is we do help, we just dont put as much work in as she does because it doesnt matter to us as much as it does to her. Cleaning in my house causes more fights than anything else. Actually, its probably the cause to all fights in my house. Is there anyway to solve this? Maybe I'm wrong, should I spend more time cleaning up the house and helping my mom? Its just... I see other families who don't care as much about a clean house and they seem happier to me. Then again I cant make my mom simply stop caring about having a clean house. Is there any way to solve this? Im sick of fighting, and this seems like a lose lose situation. For someone to be happy, another has to be unhappy. Is there any kind of solution?

[moimeme]

You are probably spending more time fighting than it would take to do the cleaning. You're stuck. Your mom is who she is and isn't likely to change. So suck it up and clean and earn yourself more time to go do the stuff you want. Not cleaning is clearly not working for you, now is it?

 

Put it this way - you develop tidy habits now, it'll be much easier for you when you're out fending for yourself.

Bottom line: Just do it.

[shygurl]

Well, it's your Mom's home and she pays the rent/mortgage/bills so you have to follow her rules and try to respect them. Just because a clean house isn't that important to you, that doesn't mean she's wrong. If you know she is the way she is, why fight it? Just do the things she wants done and don't make a big fuss about it. She's likely as frustrated as you are, feeling that she has to constantly harp on you and your sister to pick up after yourselves. Nobody wants to come home from a long hard day at work and find the house is a mess, things not put away, etc. What are the things she expects you to clean that you find unreasonable? Can you list them so we can better understand the situation?

[guest]

do you do your own laundry? wash, fold, hang it up? Do you wash your own dishes? Do you pick up after yourself? do you prepare your own food? When you see someitng on the floor do you walk by or pick it up? Do you leave things lying around? do you move around your house and stir up or bring in dust or dirt? what does the top of your fridge look like? do you have bugs? do you have pets?

 

do you talk to the other families that seem so happY? do yhou know their cleaning routiens? talk to your friends parents and ask them about cleaning. do you have chores to do on a regular basis? do your parents buy you what you need? give hou an allowance?

 

most kids complain about cleaning, b ut think about the amount of work your mom does. does she have a job outside of the house? do you get up every day and fix breakfast and get dressed and go to a job? when you get home from school do you do your homework and thats it? does our mom come home and sit and do nothing or go 'play' with her friends? does she spend time on the computer or is she taking care of you?

[fairy]

its a horrible frustrating situation your in .I'm sorry but just keep thinking to your self one day you'll have your own house and u can be as messy as u like .If u do the cleaning then there would be no need for arguments .Everybody has different priorities and i can honestly say cleaning is not one of mine either but cleaning habits are not the true course for an unhappy family. you should be glad you haven't got more serious problems, if your friends with less tidy houses seem more happy to you i can honestly say the reason would not be less tidying and presides every body acts differently when guests are around.

[Sounobvious]

do you do your own laundry? Yes.

wash, fold, hang it up? Yes.

Do you wash your own dishes? Sometimes

Do you pick up after yourself? Most of the time or i get screamed at

do you prepare your own food? all but dinner

When you see someitng on the floor do you walk by or pick it up? Not if it isnt mine

Do you leave things lying around? Occasionally

do you move around your house and stir up or bring in dust or dirt? yes

what does the top of your fridge look like? its clean

do you have bugs? no

do you have pets? yes

do you talk to the other families that seem so happY? yes

do yhou know their cleaning routiens? there cleaning routines dont involve cleaning on a daily basis

talk to your friends parents and ask them about cleaning. do you have chores to do on a regular basis? yup clean my room do my laundry clean up the kitch vacumn the floor and clean one of the bathrooms

do your parents buy you what you need? Pretty much food toothpase... things i need and they still make me feel guilty for that

give hou an allowance? Nope "i get to live here"

 

most kids complain about cleaning, b ut think about the amount of work your mom does. does she have a job outside of the house? she does , and yes she does do alot of work but alot of it is unessisary and over extreme like she cleans out the fridge 3 times a week ... is that nessisary and she makes big deals out of little things. Like shes fought with me over not poutting my napsack in a certain spot after school... it seemed kinda stupid because i still hung it up, just not in the right spot.. like... who cares?

do you get up every day and fix breakfast and get dressed and go to a job? I get up everyday and have to go to school... but its summer

when you get home from school do you do your homework and thats it? and i clean and dont go out except weekends

does our mom come home and sit and do nothing or go 'play' with her friends? no she spends her free time making a fuss about the house

 

does she spend time on the computer or is she taking care of you? Not the computer maybe the tv or cleaning or yelling

 

 

it doesn't seem like anyones on my side on this ... im guessing none of you are in my position right now

[moimeme]

The point is this - you can't change the situation except to work with it. Like I said, you spend as much time fighting as you would cleaning so save the time and just clean!

[brashgal]

My guess is that your Mom is very stressed after working all day and unfortunately she is taking some of it out on you when she comes home because what she perceives to be a messy house makes her further stressed.

 

Is it fair? No, but it happens. You can avoid triggering her attacks by keeping the house neat. You can get what you want by keeping the house neat.

 

Make a plan with your sister - maybe she likes to vacuum and you like to clean the kitchen? Figure out your strengths (or at least the stuff you hate the least), split up the work and get it done. Establish 'clean time' - maybe the two hours right before your Mom comes home so the place will stay clean. The rest of the time you can pretty much do what you want.

 

Hang in there - childhood isn't forever. I hated cleaning too - still do but nothing beats the peaceful feeling you get coming home to a clean house.

[shygurl]

I DO understand, "sounobvioius" - totally. Growing up, my Mom was a neat freak, too.....plus, she was the kind of person who stressed out easily, yelled a lot, was always angry about something - and when she was in one of these moods (which was almost always), she'd be on a cleaning kick and would expect me and my sister should be, too. She's still like that somewhat - when she's angry or upset about something, she'll clean furiously (though no prob for me, I'm in my mid 30s now and don't live at home lol). My Mom was very strict and me and my younger sis definitely had to tow the line and we always had chores. I think she had me washing dishes when I was 8 yrs old, no kidding. But I had to learn early on to just go with the flow and do the things I knew she expected - to save her from yelling and making things very tense.

 

My Mom used to be so bad, I can remember many times when I was younger - like between the ages of 10 and 13, she'd have a cow if something in my room was out of place...........and she'd go ballistic and she'd dump all of my drawers into the middle of the room, screaming and yelling like a banshee........and she'd tell me not to come out of my room until it was clean. I can remember many Saturdays being in tears, spending hours having to reorganize all my drawers and ensure everything was spotless. It was humiliating and it made me angry but that was just the way it was.

 

I remember for most of my childhood, Saturday mornings.............she'd come into my bedroom, open the blinds at some ungodly hour..........and tell me to get up and get cleaning. Totally cleaning my room, vacuuming the house, dusting everything, cleaning the bathrooms, you name it. It often took a long time to do and I knew darn well that my friends were out playing and having fun. When I finally moved out at the age of 20, I was in heaven! LOL

 

Just do your best to pick up after yourself - and do the things she feels need to be done, without her asking you. Sounds like she's really stressed and maybe she's like my Mom was - she takes out her stress by cleaning and expecting you and your sis to be the same way.

[suegail]

I don't know your mom and I'm not in your situation so I'm not sure if she's actually being at all unreasonable or only unreasonable from your point of view, but if you know how she likes things done, work as hard as you can to make things nice. It's not too much to ask really. I grew up in a farming area, and I remember going to school with kids who had to get up long before the sun was up and milk cows and feed chickens and they'd put in 3 hours of work before I was even out of bed. And they came home to more such work, because on a working farm it never ends, everybody has to work.

[Another guest]

I have to say I sound like your mother. I'm not even thirty but I have a five year old son and I do expect him to set the table for lunch and dinner every day, to pick up his toys and to put his dirty clothes in the basket. I think it's very important that children realise mothers are not there to pick up after them. I get very stressed with all the cleaning that has to be done ALL the time and I hate looking at an untidy house because all I can think of is that I have to tidy it up.

 

Maybe your mother feels like that. It does sound unfair that she shouts at you all the time about it - I guess there everything is unfair when taken to the extreme. Is there any chance you could sit down and talk to her about it? Get a routine going everyday, where you put your napsack, coat etc. and everything else you will do a certain amount maybe two or three days a week?

 

I know when I was young we got no pocket money once we turned seventeen and I had to clean my own room, do my own ironing and putting away, I had to make dinner once a week, vacuum the house once a week and clean the bathrooms once a week. That was it.

[SunnySG]

Uh, this was my life when I lived at home years and years ago.

My mom is not only a clean freak, she's a control freak - I think the two go hand in hand.

 

But my mom had a bad childhood - she was in and out of foster care for years, got locked out of houses, abused, etc.

When I was younger we lived in a dump and I shared a room with my brother and we had block furniture.

 

Now, years later, my mom is living large with 4 private homes and making everyone miserable.

We can't go to the lake and just relax. Everyone has to pick up constantly. My mom vacuums out the boat if the dog jumps in it (they're usually not allowed because of the hair).

The day before we're scheduled to leave we clean the whole day, and she cleans the floor on her hands and knees on her way out of the house while we wait in the car. Then she locks up and we leave. Or she screams at everyone that she has to do everything by herself.

 

Back at home home, she's just as bad, and every cleaning detail is scheduled. The cleaning lady comes Monday at 7:00am for floors and bedrooms, etc. Thursday is bathrooms. Midweek she rips apart the Fridge and bleaches it. There is always Comet in the toilets and sinks. She scrubs the toilets in my brother and sisters bathrooms everymorning. When I lived at home, that's the sound that woke me up before the alarm clock - the toilet brush. I would CRINGE. Then she would poke her head in to my room and say, "Oh good, you're up. Come help me." I thought I was in hell.

 

My friends would sit stoically on the kitchen stools not knowing what to do with their food because she would wipe up the crumbs on the counter as they were eating.

 

Now that I'm older, I know where my mom's real issues stem from. She never had a home. She didn't have a family. Her mother was an alcoholic. My one aunt and one uncle (her sibs) are THE SAME WAY as my mom. Clean Freak. Control Freak.

 

I have learned to nod my head, grin and bear it. My mom isn't going to change unless her hair lungs burn out from all the bleach she uses.

 

It's a huge joke in our family and with their friends.

My parents went to a wedding in Arizona, and in the hotel room when they got there, their friends had put a scrub bucket, yellow plastic gloves, and a bottle of Chlorox.

My mom was like, "Sweet! This room is a mess!"

 

I have to say, she's a little better but that's because she's just tired. Too much stuff, too much running around.

But still, I loathe stopping by her place on Monday's and Thursday's.....

So, I wish I could tell you that talking with your mom would help, but she is who she is.

Until you're on your own, you're going to have to picth in. I did.

If I wanted to live under her roof, I had to contribute to the family. It was my job - that and getting good grades.

 

Now I'm on my own.

I have panic attacks when I know my mom is coming to my house because she eyeballs everything. She may as well bring a white glove and run her finger along the mantel.

But those are her issues.

We just have to work around it.

 

My approach - "Okay Mom." "I will." "Oh, I was about to." "Yup, right after I'm done with _______."

 

Then she's satisfied your're being productive and you've bought yourself some time to read one more page of your magazine....

In mom's house, "IF YOU CAN LEAN, YOU CAN CLEAN."

[RecordProducer]

I think your mom suffers from neurosis that she projects on the house. She needs to repair, fix, and clean things from her past, probably related to her earliest childhood. She needs a good therapist. Her case is not lonely in the psychiatry. All family members should talk to her and make her see a therapist. You have to be firm in your attitude that you will not clean (more than you think is normal) or take her yelling until she visits a doctor. Explain to her that she has a problem and not you. Nobody needs to put up with anyone's quirks.

 

In the meanwhile, stop cleaning too much and ignore her yelling. There is so much you can take. She needs help in terms of psyche, not in the cleaning area.

[FlutterBug]

Sounds to me like Mom has an obsessive compulsive disorder. Go on-line and do some research on this, there are organizations that may be able to assist with info. Also, where is Dad? I think that some cleaning is necessary in order not to live in a pig sty but my philosophy was (with my daughter) is that you're only a child for a few years, enjoy it... you'll have many, many more years than that to clean, work and be miserable.

[MWC_LifeBeginsAt40]

Originally posted by shygurl

I DO understand, "sounobvioius" - totally. Growing up, my Mom was a neat freak, too.....plus, she was the kind of person who stressed out easily, yelled a lot, was always angry about something - and when she was in one of these moods (which was almost always), she'd be on a cleaning kick and would expect me and my sister should be, too. She's still like that somewhat - when she's angry or upset about something, she'll clean furiously (though no prob for me, I'm in my mid 30s now and don't live at home lol). My Mom was very strict and me and my younger sis definitely had to tow the line and we always had chores. I think she had me washing dishes when I was 8 yrs old, no kidding. But I had to learn early on to just go with the flow and do the things I knew she expected - to save her from yelling and making things very tense.

 

My Mom used to be so bad, I can remember many times when I was younger - like between the ages of 10 and 13, she'd have a cow if something in my room was out of place...........and she'd go ballistic and she'd dump all of my drawers into the middle of the room, screaming and yelling like a banshee........and she'd tell me not to come out of my room until it was clean. I can remember many Saturdays being in tears, spending hours having to reorganize all my drawers and ensure everything was spotless. It was humiliating and it made me angry but that was just the way it was.

 

I remember for most of my childhood, Saturday mornings.............she'd come into my bedroom, open the blinds at some ungodly hour..........and tell me to get up and get cleaning. Totally cleaning my room, vacuuming the house, dusting everything, cleaning the bathrooms, you name it. It often took a long time to do and I knew darn well that my friends were out playing and having fun. When I finally moved out at the age of 20, I was in heaven! LOL

 

Just do your best to pick up after yourself - and do the things she feels need to be done, without her asking you. Sounds like she's really stressed and maybe she's like my Mom was - she takes out her stress by cleaning and expecting you and your sis to be the same way.

 

Are we sisters?

 

My house is a mess and sometimes I actually feel guilty and clean it - musta been my upbringing. But seriously, I have little time to "tidy" but I can't stand "dirty". Therefore, I have no choice but to clean up after myself. I even have to tell myself when I see something lying around....hmmmm now how do I suppose this object will find it's way back to where it belongs? And I take this rule with me wherever I go,whether it's to work, to my MIL's, my mom's etc.

 

With your mom Sounobvious, I think it's alot more than the house being clean. Do you talk with your mother about anything or is it all screaming and yelling about how clean the house is.

[Sounobvious]

Originally posted by shygurl

I DO understand, "sounobvioius" - totally. Growing up, my Mom was a neat freak, too.....plus, she was the kind of person who stressed out easily, yelled a lot, was always angry about something - and when she was in one of these moods (which was almost always), she'd be on a cleaning kick and would expect me and my sister should be, too. She's still like that somewhat - when she's angry or upset about something, she'll clean furiously (though no prob for me, I'm in my mid 30s now and don't live at home lol). My Mom was very strict and me and my younger sis definitely had to tow the line and we always had chores. I think she had me washing dishes when I was 8 yrs old, no kidding. But I had to learn early on to just go with the flow and do the things I knew she expected - to save her from yelling and making things very tense.

 

My Mom used to be so bad, I can remember many times when I was younger - like between the ages of 10 and 13, she'd have a cow if something in my room was out of place...........and she'd go ballistic and she'd dump all of my drawers into the middle of the room, screaming and yelling like a banshee........and she'd tell me not to come out of my room until it was clean. I can remember many Saturdays being in tears, spending hours having to reorganize all my drawers and ensure everything was spotless. It was humiliating and it made me angry but that was just the way it was.

 

I remember for most of my childhood, Saturday mornings.............she'd come into my bedroom, open the blinds at some ungodly hour..........and tell me to get up and get cleaning. Totally cleaning my room, vacuuming the house, dusting everything, cleaning the bathrooms, you name it. It often took a long time to do and I knew darn well that my friends were out playing and having fun. When I finally moved out at the age of 20, I was in heaven! LOL

 

Just do your best to pick up after yourself - and do the things she feels need to be done, without her asking you. Sounds like she's really stressed and maybe she's like my Mom was - she takes out her stress by cleaning and expecting you and your sis to be the same way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

YES! somebody understands me ... My mom is EXACTLY like that!