The following question was asked of me recently by a fellow Savvy Auntie:

"Why is there this unwritten, unspoken assumption that if you don't have kids around to mess it up, your home should always be completely spotless, like something out of the pages of Real Simple?

My home looks lived-in; clutter and dust don't bother me, but I do make an effort to get the house looking nice when company will be over. I don't intend to ever be able to see my face in the kitchen sink or in my hardwood floors, but it seems that lots of people (women, mostly) spend a lot of their free time exhaustively cleaning.

Do people actually believe that old adage that "cleanliness is next to Godliness" or something, or are they just expressing their own anxieties about the cleanliness of their own home? Or are they just germaphobes? How do I deal with comments, passive-aggressive or not - that come from both women with children and those without?"

People do make certain assumptions about how we keep our homes, but everyone is different and has different "thresholds" for cleanliness and clutter. The people who are clean freaks are more than likely dealing with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) issues. Those with hoarding and chronic clutter issues are on the other side of the OCD scale.
 
With singles, it's easy to let things wait since a) you have no one else but you who needs the clothes out of the laundry basket; b) no one's around to see it; and c) we're only one person.

With two parent homes, you have TWO people working on things as well as possibly a housekeeper/nanny (or both). Meanwhile, we're doing everything on our own with one income.

DINKs (double income, no kids) may not have children, but like singles, they too have only so much time to do things since they're focusing on career and outside activities, such as traveling. 

With the comments people make to you, oh, gosh, that's just so rude. The comments come out of jealousy more than likely. With kids and married life, there comes an expectation that you need to be "grown up" and have a super duper clean house to protect the children from all types of germs. These are the people who clean before the housekeeper comes. Sigh. By the second or third kid, you think, "well, a little dirt couldn't hurt."

Marilyn Paul, author of 'It's Hard to Make a Difference When You Can't Find Your Keys,' says that she grew up with a mother who thought the opposite. Her mom always said women with clean houses have nothing better to do. So you can just tell the commentators that you do have something better to do!

Janice Marie Simon, MA, CPO

Published: August 17, 2010