Tonight as I wondered what I would write about, I was talking with my friend J on the phone who heard the smoke detector go off when too much shower steam was filling the hallway and we got to talking about how my kids shower nightly, go to bed clean, and then rolled into a dominoing conversation of my clean house, clean laundry, clean dishes, clean everything, and she told me I had to come clean with my borderline obsessive cleanliness “problem.”
Many people have told me that I remind them of a famous blonde haired woman with eight children who has a popular reality tv show…a little obsessive about cleanliness, neat and tidiness, and even with eight children sticks to certain rules like washing hands before and after eating, bathing nightly before bed, and sometimes more if needed, never wearing the same thing twice without washing it, clean feet as much as possible, really running a tight ship on how to keep her family and house clean. I can barely do that with three kids, let alone trying to keep eight kids clean and germ-free. But I have been sarcastically compared to this “Great Mom of Eight” over and over again.
I grew up in a very clean, very neat and tidy household, where trash was really not allowed in the wastebaskets, bathrooms and the kitchen were cleaned daily, and you could basically eat off of the floor. Clothes, toys, any and all items, were always promptly put in their proper locations after use or by the end of the day. Beds were made every morning no matter what. There were no stacks of papers, no piles of shoes, the house was dusted weekly, everything was organized, color-coded, arranged by size and shape.
I thought I would grow up and be a little less stringent on being neat and tidy, but sadly did not. In fact, I continued on the path of the perfect presentation, and came to recognize the pattern fairly quickly, but didn’t do anything to stop myself from being Mrs. Clean. I almost prided myself on it, people always commented on how clean and organized everything always was in my home. Eventually I realized that this was my way of controlling things, the only way I could feel in control was to have my surroundings clean and in order. Less chaos in my environment=less chaos in my mind.
Then I had children. Messes got messier, time moved more quickly, there wasn’t enough energy or time in the day to keep the house and the children clean, cleaned up and organized, but somehow I managed to figure it out, regardless of how worn down I was. I was one of those moms that never let her kids play in the dirt. Sandboxes, sure, dirt and mud? Not so much. I had sparkling clean kids from head to toe. Family members used to say that the reason my kids eventually became easily susceptible to sickness was because I never exposed them to regular old dirt and germs so they never built up their immune systems. (I don’t disagree with that now.) If I had purchased stock in baby wipes, which I quickly learned cleaned a lot more than diaper areas, we would be very very wealthy. I buy enough of them to this very day, and use them on everything, they make keeping people and things clean a lot easier, and then they go right into the trash. Brilliant concept!
A couple of years ago I got very sick, worse than I ever had in my entire life, and I became quite afraid of germs because of it. It was a virus that has taken years to recover from, and I’m not even there yet, so I’m still working on not cleaning my family and house in disinfectant wipes anti-bacterial soaps and gel on an hourly basis. I think having that illness was the only time in my life I was too sick to worry about whether things were clean or not. It was almost a little free-ing, it was a relief to not think about it, but I had to get so sick that I was hospitalized to not care. It didn’t last long, as soon as I could put my feet back on the floor I reverted to my old ways. But my wonderful family did do everything they could to try to maintain themselves and the house in their cleanest states as best as they could while I was unable. God love them for trying.
When our house went on the market I had an excuse to perpetuate the perfectionist nature of my personality. I didn’t have to pretend that I wanted to keep the house cleaned up, but I truly had to. Actually it was even a little pressureful for me, when keeping it like that was on my terms that was fine, but now I had to do it on other terms. Well, I supposed I didn’t really have to, but that old pride kicked in and I needed to have the cleanest, most presentable, magazine-perfect house on the market. And I did. A year into that it got very hard to keep up, but I forced myself to do it day in and day out. It was exhausting.
It’s not OCD, it’s just habitual. It doesn’t really affect all aspects of my life, other than the fact that my children mock me continuously but have caught themselves doing things and then under their breath say, “Thanks to my mother I am now a little germaphobic.” I even heard my oldest son offering to go clean up and clean my friend J’s house, she is the opposite of me (in a good way,) and he said, “My mom and I would have your house cleaned in no time. I think I her OCD ways have rubbed off on me.” Oops.
I vowed to never do that to my kids, but I have, indirectly. I know that it is a learned behavior, I got it from my mother, who ironically at some point just past midlife gave up cleaning. It was a shocking and disturbing thing to see happen after growing up with white glove tests and having perfect presentation be everything. Now when I go to her house I clean it, I’m not sure if she doesn’t see it or doesn’t care, but it’s definitely not the kind of clean environment I grew up in. Can’t wait for that gene to kick in on me so that I can stop wanting everything to be clean and picture-perfect. I also noticed that my Mom of eight role model has eased up off of her semi-obsessive, clean and germ-free living.
A very famous comedian has a book coming out next week on this exact topic—germophobia and what it’s like living with that, for many years secretly, and now in the public eye. He referred to his “meet and greets” of his fans after his shows as “germ and squirms.” Sadly I get that. I carry antibacterial gel in my purse, have it in the car, all over the house, in the kids’ backpacks…you get the picture. I am looking forward to reading the book so that I can have a little insight into how I might be able to learn to let go of clean, learn to love dirt, and be able to not care so much about germs.
In the meantime I have vowed to let it all go when we move. (Yes, that’s procrastinating letting go of control.) It is my quest to give up the need to live in a completely clean and organized environment. Wonder if I can do it. Doubt it. But I’ll give it the old college try, and I’ll name my future book, “Desiring Dirt.”
Ps—For all of my friends, partners, cohorts who lovingly tease me—ok so I admitted it. Outloud. In writing. For my mother–it’s great that you taught me how to have that perfect presentation, even if we both took it a little overboard (ok a lot overboard.) I hope I can learn to live not worrying so much about it like you have. For my children–sorry. Really, I’m sorry. And for my future grandchildren–we’ll play in the mud, splash in puddles, roll in the leaves, have food fights, and then I’ll send you home to your mother, who hopefully will fully embrace messiness…and my conscience will be clean.
