It amazes me how fast a house can get messy. We clean the house up for company to come over, and shortly thereafter it’s a mess again.

Mostly that’s due to having three young children. Kids just love to play, and that means messes happen. It just takes a moment to forget to ask that they clean up after themselves and the mess just increases from there.

Keeping the house clean is one of the challenges work at home moms deal with. They’re at home, and that means that right or wrong there’s this expectation that they have the time for housework too, and so their house should be nearly spotless. If only it were that simple!

I don’t keep a perfect house. Matter of fact sometimes the mess comes close to driving me crazy because no one cleans without me reminding them, or so it seems much of the time. But I do have some tips to keep things up at least somewhat respectably.

1. Don’t Stress the Mess

Some mess isn’t so bad. If the house is clean enough that you won’t be too embarrassed to let the kids have a friend over, it’s probably not that bad. Depending on how easily you embarrass about house clutter and chaos, that is.

So often my oldest has had a friend over and I’ll feel a bit bad about how the house looks, but their mom comments that her house is about the same or doesn’t say anything. That many people don’t keep a perfect house is something you can learn by visiting your children’s friend’s parents when the kids go to play.

You want things clean enough to be healthy and safe. That doesn’t take perfect, dust free surfaces and constant scrubbing.

2. Get the Kids Cleaning

Kids can start cleaning pretty young. My oldest two are regularly assigned to empty the dishwasher, clear the table, sweep and mop the kitchen floor, clean two of the bathrooms and their own rooms. Plus toy general pickup, of course. Laundry assistance will soon be added to the oldest’s list

It takes time to teach kids to do a new chore correctly, and it’s harder than doing it yourself. I often have to help them get the sweeping or mopping done correctly, but they improve over time and eventually they won’t need help at all.

All other adults living in the home should be helping to clean as well.

3. Quick Cleaning Spurts

You may not have time to really get into the details of cleaning your home every day, but you can probably spare 5-15 minutes here and there to get some work done. That’s time enough to load and unload the dishwasher. Time to sweep or vacuum one room. Time to pick up some clutter.

4. Declutter

One of the biggest sources of messy homes after children is clutter. If you have a lot of stuff, it’s harder to keep it all clean. Simple as that. Take some time and get rid of the stuff you don’t need, and organize the rest.

5. Decide If You Can Afford a Cleaning Service

A cleaning service can work wonders for getting all the cleaning done that is so hard to get to. You still have to have your house generally tidy for them, but they’ll take care of cleaning surfaces, sweeping, mopping, dusting, vacuuming, stuff like that. It can be really nice to have someone else scrub down your bathroom for you.

You don’t need to keep your home absolutely perfect. Most of us don’t manage that. Clean enough to be healthy, messy enough to be happy is more fun than perfection.

One of my least favorite chores has to be mopping. In part, it’s a pain to do with kids around. Any parent knows how easy it’s not to keep them off damp floors no matter how many reminders you give.

Not to mention the immediate increase in sticky spills once the floor dries. How do kids do that anyhow?

For Christmas, my husband said he was going to get me a steam mop. I’ve been hearing a lot good about them, and even if the floor does stay damp, the job sounds easier. And no chemicals, which is a very nice bonus, although I mostly use homemade cleansers anyhow.

He hasn’t bought one yet. Didn’t get around to researching them in time. But at least he admits he still owes me one.

Late doesn’t bother me that much. It would have been nice if he had found the time, but his work hours suck, and he only has a little computer time in the mornings where I’m not at my computer right next to him.

I finally went to Amazon and emailed my results over to him. Started out with steam mops, but then I discovered more general steam cleaners! And if anything is more of a pain to do than mopping, it has to be scrubbing the bathtub, which these may be able to handle in addition!

They cost a bit more, but really not that much.

I suspect for mopping they will be more difficult than the plain steam mops. That’s just the feeling I get looking them over. But I really like the extra uses.

I have to admit, these first got my attention as housework started to fall behind as this pregnancy got moving and I started having severe hip pains. You try scrubbing and mopping when you don’t even want to walk, and see how quickly you get interested in tools that make it simpler!

I’m pretty much torn between the McCulloch MC-1275 and the Wagner Spray Tech 282004. Both look to be more powerful than I hope to need, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. My husband first thought the Wagner was just for wallpaper removal, until I pointed out the accessories. These things are just plain flexible for cleaning, and I like that.

My one concern is of course durability. They aren’t worth it to me if they don’t last years and years. I hate replacing appliances of any sort.

Have any of you tried any sort of steam cleaner or steam mop? How do you like them?

There are a lot of challenges to working at home. You have a lot to get accomplished in the day and many distractions. It’s easy to have very high expectations of what you will accomplish on a particular day, and it’s not always realistic.

Worse, you probably feel guilty at times for focusing on work rather than on keeping a clean house. You’re home and you may feel like it’s a part of your job to keep that house clean. Traditional duty of the stay at home parent (especially moms) and all that.

But being at home should not mean that it all falls onto your shoulders. You need to look at what the appropriate divisions are.

The struggle often comes from it being unclear how you should divide the work up. If you feel like you aren’t contributing because your home business isn’t bringing in much money yet, you’re going to feel bad if the hours you work keep you away from keeping a perfect house. Yet you can be working long hours trying your best to make it work, and simply not have the time or the energy to do it all yourself.

I know I’m good at giving myself a guilt trip every time the house is a mess and I feel that I’m too busy to clean it up. Sometimes I think feeling guilty is simpler than feeling good about what I’ve achieved. After all, I can always compare myself to people who are doing better.

Somehow it seems to be easier for most of us to compare ourselves to those who do better than to recognize what we have achieved. There are all the things we dream about accomplishing, after all. Looking at what others have managed to do as we struggle along is just the way things go.

One thing all families should do is figure out who will be responsible for what. Working in or out of the home shouldn’t matter so much as the fact that one is working. That’s not always the reality of people’s expectations, but it’s a nice goal.

Get your spouse involved. Get the kids involved. Don’t let all the housework fall on one pair of shoulders.

Figure out what you will do at which times. Housework that needs to be done can be scheduled just like anything in your home business.

How well all of this works can tell you a lot about how supportive your spouse is of your working at home. If you both work a similar number of hours, yet you’re at home and expected to do a significantly larger chunk of the housework, you may need to have a talk to make sure that what you do is being taken seriously. Sometimes it’s not. Other times it will just be that your spouse hasn’t quite realized how much work you’re doing.

And if you’re earning enough and feel so inclined, hire a maid service to come once a week or so to do some of the heavy duty cleaning for you. This can be really helpful. If you’re earning enough it will be well worth the money. Sometimes it’s worth it even if you aren’t earning that much but need a break from feeling like you need to get that housework done.

That’s right, male pattern blindness. It’s the only explanation I can come up with.

Don’t get me wrong. My husband’s wonderful. But if something doesn’t particularly interest him, he just won’t see it. On the other hand he’s a wonderful husband and excellent father.

Then there are times like this morning. He decided to go to the grocery store after taking our son to speech therapy. I mentioned he’s a good husband and father, right? He wanted to get a couple things there and I told him we were out of milk.

He couldn’t find the milk I usually get, which has a discount if you buy two gallons. He’s quite certain it wasn’t there, even though I’ve shown him it before, and it’s always in the same place. But hey, he bought milk, so the complaint is minimal.

He also decided to clean the kitchen today. Well, more precisely he loaded the dishwasher. I don’t think he has wiped down the countertops ever without being asked. Honestly. Not once.

Yes, I know it can be impressive that he sees the dishes in the sink, since some don’t even do that much. My tactic is simple. I let them pile up. Eventually he will want to use the sink, realize he can’t, and voila! I have a dishwasher being loaded by my husband.

I try not to let things get that bad too often. It’s not a situation I like. Good thing I know how to ask him to help out too.

I think he does better than average in some areas. He doesn’t too often ask me where something is when it’s right where it belongs, where it always is. But then it’s generally something he wants.

If it doesn’t particularly interest him, on comes the blindness! It ensures that I do most of the shopping so I know we’ll have enough food (and that it’s healthy!) and handle most of the cleaning unless I ask otherwise or company’s coming. Dirt and clutter are all but invisible any other time.

We’re fortunate in that I’ve always been good at finding things. It probably helps that I look behind and under stuff as necessary. If neither of us can find it, well, it’s time to blame the house gnomes.

As of yet, there is no cure for male pattern blindness, but any researchers out there would have the encouragement of millions of wives.