Monotony of Everyday Life

My niece felt that she had to vent on the monotony of everyday life of a mom. The never ending chores or piles of clothes. Not to mention the ever present search for the matching socks - I swear the prime purpose of washing machines is to eat socks. Even I have problems with this one and there is only one of me.

I have never been a fan of housework and made it known for many years by having a button pin on my kitchen curtain which said "To Hell with Housework" so that anyone who came to my house knew exactly how I felt about it and did not expect too much when they came to visit. Don't get me wrong, my house was clean; just never spic and span "eat off the floor" clean. You would not want to look under my couch, easy chairs or beds because I had colonies of "dust bunnies" existing there.

I think that one of the big reasons that I enjoyed my job so much for all those years was that when a project was completed, it was done and I never had to look at it again. There is nothing about housework that is ever completed - you are always looking at dust on the furniture and piles of clothes or dirty dishes that need to be washed. Then there are the dirty windows, walls etc. that need to be spring cleaned and dust bunnies that need to be rounded up and done away with. Like I said the phrase on my button was my mantra, much to my husband's disdain.

Another reason that I liked working was because Paul could not expect me to keep the house "white glove" clean - which would have been the case if I were a stay-at-home wife and mom. That would have been the demise of my marriage for sure. So I was much better off being a working mom.

My son learned at early age how to wash his own clothes, clean his own room and even cook. He was pretty good at it too. (I was bound and determined that he was never going to expect some gal to do all these things for him like his father expected me to do.) When Terry let his room get a little messy and his father would complain I would tell Paul to close the door so he didn't have to look at it. It would get cleaned in due time and when it was his room looked super good. Bless my son - he was my right hand man. He still is.......

As you can see, housecleaning was a bone of contention at times between Paul and I. I was of the opinion that spending time with family and friends outweighed having a spotless home that did not look like it had a family living in it. I liked the lived in look - guess who won. There were no white gloves in my house.....he soon learned that it wasn't worth the hassle to try and change me. He learned to live with the dustbunnies.