One rule that my friends and I abide by is to not clean our houses before having friends over. I know, having people over used to be my motivation to get the house cleaned. But let me tell you why we have this rule.
In a Perfect World…
Fantasize with me: you’ve just finished cleaning your house for a play date. The cleaning went peacefully, your children helped with smiles on their faces, and every toy is sorted into beautifully labeled bins. Ahh… It’s so peaceful in fantasy land.
Reality is… Different
Real talk: whether your house is a disaster or just mildly untidy, you want it picked up for your play date. The problem is the kids are awake. And they are children.
They play with things, cut up paper into tiny little bits, change their clothes 4 times, and make a pile of mixed toys to get to the smallest animals at the bottom. Their friends are coming over and they want to show them all the toys.
The children are not interested in having a clean space because that isn’t fun for them.
They fight with you about cleaning the house. You try to reason with them that they’ll enjoy their friends being there more, if there’s a clean space to play in. They whine, ignore, and try to hide from the cleaning. Which causes you to stomp, fester, and fume. After 10 minutes of no progress you’re past your point of patience. Enter Rage Cleaning.
Now, you run around, shoving toys and garbage and shoes into any empty cube, while fuming about how no one helps clean and you’re the only one who cares about the house and how you might as well give up because it doesn’t seem to make a difference but the thought of giving up sounds so horribly awful so don’t stop and you either push through and finish tidying or you sit down and cry in defeat at the state of your house and how your children never seem to listen to you. Then the doorbell rings.
…
… I need a minute. Too real.
How this Leads to Authenticity
Now, while getting up from crying on the floor to usher in a play date can bring authentic connection, I’m sure it isn’t the welcome face you wanted to greet your friend with. And even if you didn’t hit the crying-on the floor stage, your children are still operating in the aftershock of a rage clean.
I know this isn’t how every person operates while getting their house ready for guests, but it has happened to me enough times that I know I can’t be the only one. (Right? Please, tell me I’m not the only one who rage cleans and ends up crying and apologizing to her kids afterward.)
There is an easy low-risk solution to this problem of presenting our houses as perfectly tidy, perfectly peaceful homes: don’t clean before friends come over.
It might feel weird to leave the dishes in the sink and have a crooked hand towel in the bathroom. To leave the pile of toys on the floor and the throw pillows, well, thrown! But do you know who doesn’t care about those things? A friend.
A Real Friend
A real friend doesn’t care if your kids shoes are tucked away or crowding the door, if the dishes are clean and put away in a spotless kitchen or if you still have yesterday’s dishes in the sink. A friend cares about one thing when they come into your house: connecting with you. (And, if they use the bathroom, about there being toilet paper on the roll; but that’s not on their mind as they walk in.)
Besides, the kids are going to dump out and play with all the toys anyway. May as well skip the stress of tidying and organizing beforehand so it’s not a mental jolt seeing kids out away toys in other places, when the play date is over. Trust me, it’s worth it to not stress about it in the first place.
So I’m going to challenge you: the next time you invite someone over (which I recommend you do often in your little-kid years), don’t clean your house before they get there. Welcome them in with a warm embrace and let them be part of your life, mess and all. It might inspire them to do the same with you.