Recently, one of my relatives visited me smack dab in the middle of the week without announcing her imminent arrival, so she found me and my house in a state that can only be described as messy by the most generous of people. My sink was full of dirty dishes. My floors had not been swept. To make things worse, I had not vacuumed my seats for days which would not matter except it has been as hot as the devil’s asshole and my cats have been shedding like they were gig workers being paid based on their output. This relative who clearly had no home training had the wherewithal to comment on it and proclaim I should be doing a better job. To say that pissed me off would be a gross understatement. Here we have someone who has someone she’s employed to clean her house every other day dressing me down about not doing housework that she doesn’t do. Girl, sit down! This got me thinking about the pressure we’re constantly under to keep ever-clean, ever-clutter-free homes. How this disproportionately affects women. How I’m done succumbing to the guilt and shame of not keeping a spotless home? Here’s a treatise in defence of messy homes.
Social Pressure and Stigma
There’s immense societal pressure almost exclusively on women to keep a clean and spotless home. Women’s value is somehow tied to their homes with your house functioning as some kind of reflection of you. So if your house is messy, that must say something about who you are as a person. What’s concerning is that all this pressure is not pegged to the benefits of living in a clean, clutter-free environment but rather on fulfilling your duties as a woman. It’s not about your health and well-being and the negative impacts of clutter, just about adhering to the rules about what’s expected of you.
This constant pressure can lead to feelings of shame, inadequacy, and anxiety, especially because no matter how clean your house is, there’s always the awareness that it could be cleaner, less cluttered, or better. We look at other people’s homes, compare them to ours and just feel worse. You can end up feeling so much shame and embarrassment that you no longer invite people over which can wreak further havoc on your mental health and sense of self. This constant social pressure doesn’t benefit anyone.
Devalues domestic labour
The pressure to keep a clean house always has the underlying implication that it’s not that hard. Just sweep. Just do the dishes. Just vacuum all that cat hair off the seats. Except there’s nothing easy about housework. It is repetitive, time-consuming, exhausting and perfectly able to drive you mad. Simone de Beauvoir once said about housework, “Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day.”
This devaluing of the toll of housework is why housegirls and others who work in people’s houses are remunerated so poorly. It’s why many have no difficulty arguing that housewives make no contribution. I mean it’s just housework. Why would you complain about doing dishes, something a child can be compelled to do? People who carelessly judge others because of the state of their homes fail to take into account how incredibly exhausting housework can be. To them, it remains this easy thing you should just be able to do.
Ignores people’s circumstances
It’s astonishing how people who can afford to hire help somehow find the courage to open their mouths to compare themselves to and judge people who don’t. There’s no basis for comparing those two types of people. Their circumstances are worlds apart. This is also why we shouldn’t judge anyone based on the state of their house. Sometimes people are unable to keep up with cleaning their homes because they are stressed or overwhelmed or depressed. Just because cleaning is something easy for you doesn’t mean it’s the same for other people. People are dealing with a lot. Sometimes they’re dealing with so much, cleaning has to remain on the back burner. Your judgment does not help them. Either offer them help such as in the form of cleaning or by giving them cash (that’s always welcome) or just keep your mouth shut.
Living and making a home
Now that we’ve established domestic labour can be a time-consuming and exhausting task, the argument can be made that freeing ourselves from the shackles of living up to society’s impossible standards can give us room to live. To live and engage in other activities that matter from spending more time with loved ones to engaging in leisure activities. A certain amount of messiness and imperfection can make the house feel lived in and more like home. It can add character and personality to our space. Think about those clean and sterile homes you see on Instagram, clean as they may be, they are far from homely and welcoming.
A clean environment is important, we all know this. Still, it’s time to reject society’s impossible, arbitrary and sexist standards when it comes to housework. It’s time to be kinder to ourselves and others. Time to be compassionate to ourselves and others. No more judging ourselves and others because of the state of their homes. People have different priorities and circumstances, and we need to cut each other all kinds of slack. If you think it’s messy enough to warrant concern, find out how the person is doing. We should strive for balance and recognize that sometimes a messy home is a sign that we’re living and prioritizing the things that matter. Otherwise, let’s all chill out, it’s just a sink full of dirty dishes. It’s not that serious.
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