On Cleaning and Evenings or "The Apple Does Not Fall Far From the Tree"

[gwyn_bywyd]

A whole range of things have had me thinking in recent days of how strongly influenced by my upbringing I am. (As I suspect we all are.)

recessional  has written this wonderful meta-post about cleaning: recessional.dreamwidth.org/66533.html

For me one of the fantastic parts of her thinking was distinguishing different types of cleaning from one another. She mentions particularly 'cleaning as performance of virtue.' Which rang so many bells it was like a carillon in here! One of the distressing things for me with cfs has been the inability to take adequate care of myself. Granted I have always been pretty messy. But I don't really recall it being so utterly overwhelming that I would cry about it. And then this article www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/wellbeing/hope-for-chronic-fatigue-sufferers-20090428-almj.html suggested that this is common in cfs sufferers. In fact it said:

'The clutter problem is almost universal with these patients, Lapp said. "They get so distracted that they start multiple projects, and the house ends up ... a mess. It's overwhelming."'

Which also made me cry.

So, I'm not alone. But I've also got this vexed relationship with tidiness. My mother has very definite psychological problems with mess. If as children we were untidy, we were BAD PEOPLE. As we grew up it took on another dimension, not only is mess inherently bad, we are also bad for making our mother so unhappy. (And frankly, on occasion, so mentally ill) Interestingly, it is more about tidiness than cleanliness for her, she is actually alarmingly laise-faire about food hygiene! It also didn't lead as much to a criteria on which to judge other people as it was a criteria on which to judge ourselves. Once I went to Uni I discovered that other people didn't live the way our family did. My mother will say "Will someone please go and clean up the appalling mess in the lounge-room?" You go into the lounge-room - and it is perfectly tidy, except there are some DVDs sitting on top of the television and the cushions on the seats look as if someone has sat in them.

Friends in Uni would have some fun trying to upset me with their lax hygiene, but mess seldom bothers me in other people's houses. But in my own house it has me deeply, profoundly distraught. Some of it is about functionality, it gets so I can't find the stuff I need for work, so the energy of finding it is added to the energy needed for the actual task, exhausting me further. But the post has crystalised for me that part of my problem is that I believe that part of what an adult woman* does is have a tidy home. For me to live otherwise is not being an adult. Also, there is the shame involved if someone else should happen see the mess.

The other way in which I am such a product of my parents is this idea that I am supposed to very strictly limit what I do in the evening. I have certainly heard the idea that one should not be looking at a screen in the evening before, although I have not implemented it. Apparently I am not supposed to be doing craft-work or reading either. Which doesn't answer the question of what I'm supposed to do if I am still working at 10.30 at night. This habit has come to me from my parents, both of whom spend the evening in front of the television working, all evening, every evening.

Again, according to my mother, watching television while not simultaneously doing something else makes you a BAD PERSON. It makes her very, very angry to see any of us doing this. And once again, you not only feel bad for doing this inherently bad thing, but you also feel bad for making her so unhappy.

So, a plan. I don't know if I'm really capable of reversing the thought-patterns of a life-time, but I'll try to stop working by 8.30pm, switch off screens - tv and computer - and use the extra time to do a little gentle tidying. However, the cfs-police can wrest my bed-time book from my cold, dead hands! Let call this a plan!

* And, yes, I am VERY aware of the messed-up gender stuff going on here. My mother frantically cleans the house before my father gets home from work despite the fact he would not notice her so-called mess. Every evening is like a very particular little time-warp to the 50s! Despite working (in mostly unpaid capacities) so many jobs that they add up to more than one 'normal' full-time 9-5 type job. Pointing out to my mother that this is a complete contradiction to - nay, betrayal of - her principles does not get a person very far.

Comments

[puzzlement]

Hrm. My mother is quite open about it: in her utopia, men would do their stare of the housework. But we don't live in her utopia, we live in the real world, and you play the game (as a woman: do lots of cleaning and tidying, wear makeup, etc) if you want to get ahead. So in some ways I think she sees mess as a lack of ambition, and also a failure as a woman to care about people you love in a socially mandated way.

It's funny to learn how other families worked. It wasn't until I was in my twenties that I realised my parents were highly unusual in having almost no non-work-hours interactions with other adults.

[gwyn_bywyd]

Huh. My parents, too, have almost no non-work interactions with other adults (if we count unpaid volunteer work as work) My mother is forever looking at home renovation shows and saying "But WHO is doing all this entertaining?!"

And cleanliness as socially-mandated expression of affection. Interesting - I'll have to reflect further on that. I don't think that is it for my mum, cleaning is more a self-soothing behaviour. (She'll come home from a hard day at work to a kitchen I have spotlessly cleaned, and wipe down (clean) cupboard doors.)

In other news, is your mum a "make-up every day" person, in our non-utopian world?

[puzzlement]

My mother will wear makeup if she's going to be seen by non-family. She works five days a week and they go into town (they live about 10km outside) at least once every weekend. So that's six days of makeup at least.

Cleaning is also self-soothing for her, although not to the extent that she'll clean already clean things. She will typically work in the garden once the cleaning is done, and her garden is one acre, so there's always something that needs doing. (So is the one at your parents' place though, I think?) I appreciate the gardening thing a little more. I don't think I'd ever personally want to spend her two to three hours a day working in the garden, but I can at least imagine the alternative universe where I would. Not so much with having everything spotless.

[gwyn_bywyd]

My mother, also, if she will be seen by non-family (and by 'family' I mean only her spouse and off-spring) will always wear make-up. But while I currently know mothers of teenage girls who encourage them to wear make-up (these are, to my mind, little kids, year 8 and younger), my mother has never pushed make-up on her daughters.

There is, indeed, always something to be done in my parents' garden. My mother, however, does none of it. The outdoors is - for her - something that happens to other people! I also have far greater interest in gardening than in cleaning for its own sake. Even if my garden is only some pots :-)