Teaching kids to be neat adults- are you neat/messy?

I'm very very messy, and my husband is rather messy too. Less than me though. I'll always remember the first thing he did when he entered in my room for the first time: he took clothes that I had dumped (after my mom folded them) on a chair and started putting them in a closet. LOL! (he grew up with maids and cleaning ladies, I didn't but my mom cleaned up my room)

Anyway. I won't scold my dd if she's messy in her room. Her room, her choice, as long as it's not unhalachic or dangerous. I will expect everyone to pitch in when we need to clean up a shared area though. It's not about teaching, it's about respect.
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"You will have many many children and make successful shidduchim beh", rebbetzin Esther Jungreis
"It's all cultural, disagree respectfully", me

Platinum Member Joined: Sep 11 2004 Posts: 19241

Just be careful! It's important to view cleanliness as a preference, or a bias, or what you are accustomed to, NOT as a moral issue. My dh has an moral obsession with cleanliness,which he got from his domineering, critical mother, and a perfectionist view of life in general. All of this combined with my own insecurity practically destroyed our marriage, with the kids watching and absorbing who-knows-what. I'm sorry to make this nice topic take such a depressing turn, but it's important not to take a holier than thou attitude about cleanliness, and impress it on your children. The results could be disastrous.

and your dh is south african right? I think people who grow up with full time help have much much higher standards of cleanliness then people who didn't.

Gold Member Joined: May 09 2007 Posts: 1360

I haven't had time to read all the responses, but in my experience, more important than who did the cleaning was how clean the house was growing up. If your children grow up in a clean, orderly house, that's the way they're going to want to live, and it's just going to feel wrong if it's not that way. Whether they clean, you clean, or a maid cleans. If you're constantly nagging at them to clean up but the house is always flying, then while they may not like it, chances are their houses will be flying too.