Reply to chores and cleanliness standards vs family fun

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]First of all, recognize that it is probably about your upbringing and parents, not actual cleanliness. It won’t be solved just by not cleaning.

I had to lower my standards. I grew up in a house where I did homework, went to my activities, and cleaned. You sat only at meals and laid down when it was bedtime.

I kept those standards for many years because I had been told I was an amoral pig who would shame my family if I didn’t. The strain of keeping those standards up while sharing a house with a husband who did literally nothing finally broke me. I was literally hospitalized with a heart condition from the physical strain of keeping a full time job and maintaining a house to the standards of southern European immigrant housewives trying to prove that they aren’t “filthy immigrants”- I think there’s some intergenerational trauma from my grandparents and great-grandparents. I read my husband the riot act after my hospitalization but also had to let some things go. It’s a process. I’m staring at the quarter-round in my kitchen as I type this and telling myself I shouldn’t watch a Hallmark movie until I clean it.

Listen to A Slob Comes Clean podcast. She says some really helpful things about a perfectionist mindset and the paralysis that comes from doing everything or nothing. I’m working on the guilt and the anxiety instilled in me by my family of origin but it will take a lifetime to unwind.

Also, ignore the dust and go have fun. My mom ruined a ton of special times by waking us up at 7 am beating the vacuum against our doors or cancelling plans due to failed “inspections”.[/quote]

OP here. This is similar too my upbringing. Not the immigration part, but the rest of it. My adoptive father believed that work and cleaning would "purify" me of the sin/bad blood I'd inherited as a result of being born to an unwed, "loose" woman. And my adoptive mother, who divorced and left my adad, would only let me live with her if I kept the house clean and stayed out of sight. I was also subject to inspections and cancelled plans, by both parents.

So, yes, I know this is all about mindset. I'm not raising my kids this way in that I don't use chores to control or punish them, but it kinda does affect them because they don't get to go anywhere if all I do all weekend is clean. I know the answer is that I have to find a way to be ok leaving the house for fun even if the living room floor is wall-to-wall train sets and there's toothpaste in the sink. I guess I just don't know where to begin to let it go. Thanks for the recommendation of the podcast. I'll check that out.
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