Aaaaahhhhh, our bathrooms are clean(er than they were yesterday)!!!
It’s Tuesday, which is bathroom-cleaning day, but we missed the last three Tuesdays due to vacation and VBS, both valid excuses.
But I didn’t want to clean bathrooms today. I mean, if they’ve gone that long without being cleaned, what’s one more week?
My sole motivation this morning was that I’m a mother. I began this summer with great visions of teaching my kids to clean, and although I was tempted to justify skipping today, I didn’t, because my passion to equip my children for life overrode my laziness.
I’ll take it.
I would like my motivation to be more noble.
I would like to clean the bathrooms because they need to be cleaned. I would like to be fulfilled by the lemon-ey smell replacing the pee-ey smell. I would like to view housekeeping as noble, and do it because I could never imagine not doing it.
Sometimes, I get hung up on what my motivation is. I think part of it is my generation. We’ve laughed all of our lives at the image of June Cleaver in her heels and make-up, vacuuming at home while Beaver is getting stuck in a coffee-cup-billboard. She just did it . . . because it needed to be done. Society expected that her house would be clean.
All the time.
I, like many others my age, have rebelled against these expectations. If my heart isn’t in something, it can feel I’m doing wrong if I go through the motions.
If I don’t have a passion for toilets, the noble thing would be to sit and ponder what ignites my passion, while letting the toilets develop layers of yellow spots and rings at the water lines.
Being true to myself is fantastic and all, but the reality is that my most brilliant ideas happen while in the bathroom. And my mostest brilliantest ones come when the bathroom is clean and I can truly relax.
Thankfully, my passion is for being a mother. This morning, that passion translated into going through the motions of prepping for the kids to clean bathrooms. I made sure their supply baskets were ready, and all materials they would need to gather were in places where they could be found.
Through cleaning bathrooms, which is something I avoid, I found teachable moments, which is something I crave.
I taught my kids that while vacation is fun, real life resumes immediately when it is over. I taught them that I really did mean it when I said we were going to do cleaning tasks this summer. I taught them that if we get our tasks done in the morning, we can do fun things the rest of the day.
And honestly, I did get fulfillment from it. I saw how well they picked back up, building on what they learned in the weeks before craziness hit. I was amazed again at the self-sufficiency of my 8yo, who loves the direction and independence that are provided with a laminated list of exact steps required to get the job done. I laughed again at the joy my 4yo gets from spraying down the entire half-bath with vinegar water. And I spent special one-on-one time with my 6yo as I helped him go through his list. We talked, laughed, and dreamed about how fun it would be to have our own pond and a great big swimming pool.
So even though I may not have the “correct” or “noble” motivation, I have to get over that. Some things need to be done just because they need to be done. They’re societal expectations for a reason.
And generally I am reminded, like I was today, that not experiencing passion before I start doesn’t mean that I won’t experience fulfillment when it’s over.
I dislike cleaning the bathroom. ugh. I'm a new reader..so I don't know yet if anyone's mentioned flylady? I use her method to keep up with the bathrooms…. swish 'n swipe. "soap is soap" she says, and the s & s is swishing some cleaner (old shampoo you don't like, etc.) into the toilet and running the toilet brush around the inside of the toilet. then use toilet paper and some windex to wipe down the toilet and base and top quickly. then for the sink..just wipe that out with a bit of paper towel and some windex and do the spots on the mirror as well. all of it takes less than one minute. and it's stuff kids can do too. I put off cleaning my bathroom, but when I do it, it's this method that makes me smack my forehead like "that's it?"
Ugh, I need to clean my bathrooms. My least favorite thing… Perhaps this is MY motivation? :>)
I cleaned the bathroom today too. I feel bad now. My son really wanted to help but I just wanted to get it done and over with. Maybe next time i'll let him help.
He loves using my vinegar water and "washing" the windows.
thanks for sharing this!
I think that doing it to teach your kids is a noble reason! I mean really, how much more noble can you get… you are teaching your children skills that will prepare them to live in a world that expects that their bathrooms will be clean and their homes presentable. And if the world in general doesn't their college roommates will! To me, that is why I do many things. To make my husband happy (also a noble reason) and to teach my daughter what is expected of her so she can succeed at life!
Thank you for this post. I returned from vacation on Sunday to a dirty house. My motivation has been zero the past few days. I have always waited for the urge to clean and then busted my rear until the urge was gone. Thus resulting in the house being clean one week and dirty another. I just need to suck it up and do it. One of my worst qualities. I also want to do some major decluttering. How can you clean something if you can't get to it?
Thank you so much for sharing this struggle as I am sure many of us have the same difficulty.
I think cleaning the bathrooms to stay true to what you're trying to teach your kids is the most noble reason of all.
Good job!
Take what motivation and smiles you can. Dreaming of ponds while cleaning the bathroom could inspire me as well as the S&S method. Love it!
Thanks so much for this post! I've been putting off cleaning out of pure laziness today and needed some motivation!
Oh motivation! Where are you every minute? I am trying to motivate by reading some posts. I seem to be able to coast on an excuse for days and really wring it dry! “Real life resumes immediately when it is over”, is a hard one for me. I am too extreme. As soon as the last present was opened I wanted to take down the tree and every decoration immediately and put it away because I hate the disccomort of “in between”. Now I am in super lazy distracted mode with one half of a Christmas disaster and a trip out of state in 1.5 days.
Both times I bought a house I made the decision and found the house within 7 days and moved within the month. As soon as I am done with my house I have NO motivation to do anything except pack it up immediatley and get out!
discomfort
Dear Nony,
I thank God that I found your blog after trying to do FlyLady and so many other systems from other blogs. They all made me feel so bad about myself. I began to believe that I just cannot do this, that it will never happen that my house is “perfect” enough. Decluttered, clean and above all: easy to clean.
We moved six months ago and there are still huge piles of boxes everywhere. It would not be too complicated just to open them one by one and put things where they belong. But (and that is a big but): maybe at least half of the stuff in them is something we really dont need. Useless stuff that was all around our home (well, mostly not all around but in closets and dressers etc. and some of it “might” have been in places like over the guest bed and office table…) and should have been purged before we moved. It was just too overwhelming even to think about doing that, so I packed everything and here we are.
Because of the boxes and all the stuff it is so hard to keep the kitchen clean. Why bother, when everything else is still a huge mess?
I’ve been reading your blog a few weeks now. I started in the very beginning and every day I’m so exited to start my computer and read this. In my mind I call your blog “Joy and Hope”, because that is what you give. You spread joy around you even if you write about dirty laundry. And you give me a lot of hope, because I’m beginning to believe that it is possible. There is a possibility that I can fight the boxes and all the stuff and win!
May God bless you Nony (and forgive me my writing mistakes. I’m not a native English speaker).
Martha
This is such a sweet comment, Martha! I appreciate it so much!!! You can do this!
Nony (Dana), this is such a wonderful expression of noble and loving motherhood that it almost brought tears to my eyes, and I’m not a mother. You are a pearl beyond price!
Honestly forcing yourself to do things that you don’t like because you want to teach your kids seems much more noble that just cleaning because you’re enjoying it!