People who say ‘let’s normalize messy homes and cars’ are lazy.
I said what I said.
Let me just start with this:
Your house does not have to look like a Restoration Hardware showroom.
It does not need to be perfect, or even large, or even a luxury home. You don’t have to drive a $100k SUV or a luxury sedan. No one expects – or even cares – if your life looks like a Pinterest board.
Kids make messes. Dogs shed. Laundry is an actual bitch. Life gets busy. I have four kids. I know that. Trust me when I say that I understand not having much free time and existing in what feels like a world of chaos.
But somewhere along the way, we went from normalizing the fact that life can be messy to acting like having a filthy house with completely covered counters, laundry piled on every surface, toys all over the floor, and a car filled with trash, old food, spilled bottles, and garbage as some sort of…flex?
And I’m not sorry, but…no.
There’s a difference between messy and filthy. There is a difference between having dishes in the sink after dinner and having no counter space in your kitchen because you never clean it. There is a difference between having some crumbs on the floor of your car and not seeing floorboards because there’s so much trash. A few water bottles and a pair of cleats is one thing in the car…your child’s teachers needing a tetanus shot when they let your child out at school drop-off is another.
I’m fully prepared for the comments I know this will elicit, but being busy and having kids is not an excuse for refusing to manage your home, your vehicle, or your kids’ ability to pick up after themselves.
Because this is not about having unlimited free time to clean up. We don’t have a lot of free time either, but we also have a clean house, clean cars, and an organized life. We have four kids. We have multiple sports five nights a week. Games, practices, matches, clubs, friends, a social life, a busy travel schedule, grocery shopping, hosting, laundry, appointments. All the things.
And yet…we still pick up after ourselves.
Dishes are put in the dishwasher the moment we are done with them. Laundry doesn’t pile up. Even when the kids were toddlers and pulled out every single toy they own, we picked them up with the kids and put them away at the end of the day. When someone takes something out, they put it back. When someone makes a mess, they clean it up. And it’s as simple as teaching your kids when they are young to pick up after themselves.
When our kids have trash in the car, they take it to the trash can as soon as we get home. They don’t throw trash on the floor. They know that trash goes in the trash, laundry goes in the baskets, and dishes go in the sink. Their belongings have a place, and they go in that place. And they know that their mother is not an unpaid housekeeper for everyone who lives in this house.
Imagine that.
But here’s the good news: It does not take that much time.
For example, I run the vacuum through my car every single day.
Every. Single. Day.
Why? Because it takes me 60 seconds. One minute of my day to keep dirt, crumbs, grass, and anything else the kids drag into the car can be gone. I keep the shop vac plugged into the garage, and it’s right there. Sixty seconds. I kid you not.
Here’s my philosophy: It takes far less time to maintain cleanliness than it does to rescue it once you’ve let it go. Pick up for five minutes today, and save yourself hours another day. Here are a few things we do to make sure our home and vehicles are maintained and clean on a daily basis:
- Laundry every day (and the person whose laundry is washed is required to put it away that day) (5 minutes to put away, 2 minutes to put it in the wash, switch it to the dryer, and put it in a basket in the bedroom of the person it belongs to) 7 minutes
- Dishes in the dishwasher after use and run the dishwasher overnight – 5 minutes (to put dishes away in the morning) 10 seconds to load the dishwasher with the dishes you used
- Clean the kitchen after dinner (dishes, wipe counters, sweep floor, mop) – 10 minutes
- Put items away (kids put their own items away and you put yours away; keys and bags and wallets go in their designated space the second you walk through the door) – 5 minutes
- Throw your trash away when you’re done with it – 10 seconds
- Make your bed every morning before you leave – 5 minutes
Those are the everyday things we do to keep our house neat and tidy. Throughout the week, I’ll take the time to clean the bathrooms by wiping down counters and cleaning floors and running the cleaning supplies through the showers at toilets, and it takes me approximately 20 minutes to do all the bathrooms both downstairs and upstairs because I never let them get filthy.
Every few days, I dust all the furniture in the main areas of the home and the bedrooms. Again, this takes less than 10 minutes because I don’t give anything a chance to get too dusty.
The kids are required to get their belongings out of the car when they exit the car. It takes them a second to grab it. While one of us spends 10 minutes cleaning the kitchen after dinner, the other runs the vacuum over all the rugs and mops the hardwood. It takes minutes.
None of this is revolutionary. It’s just maintenance. It’s simple time management. If you just do it now and spend a few minutes on it, you save yourself hours by never allowing anything to become truly messy. Deep cleaning the bathrooms takes me no time because I never let them get to a point where they need to be scrubbed from top to bottom.
People confuse ‘I don’t have time’ with ‘I don’t prioritize spending a few minutes doing things that need to be done.’ And that’s where filth and mess come into play. I can promise you, I don’t have hours a day to spend cleaning and organizing. We clean as we go. We always have. Even when I had a 6-year-old, a 3-year-old, and 2 newborn babies at home while working from home full-time, running my business writing and editing over 30,000 words per day for my clients, I was able to clean as I went. Because I taught my kids to respect our home, my car, and their belongings. You make a mess, you clean it. You use it, you put it away.
And while I’m being honest, can I talk about the kids?
Because kids need to learn how to take care of things and the spaces they occupy. Not because they’re little housekeepers but because they are human beings who need to learn how to live in a house and ride in a car while respecting both.
Teaching your kids to pick up after themselves is not mean and it’s not child labor. Making them throw their trash away instead of tossing it on your car floorboards is not bad parenting. It’s responsible parenting. It’s teaching them to respect people’s space and belongings, and it’s teaching them basic etiquette, manners, and a way of living. They’re not allowed to leave their trash on the floor of their classroom when they’re done, so why let them leave it on the floor of your car?
It teaches kids that they are responsible for their own actions, and that others are not responsible for cleaning up after every single mess they make. And here’s another thing nobody likes to say…
Kids notice.
When you teach your kids that living in a filthy house or riding in a disgusting car is ‘normal,’ they don’t know any different…until they do. Until they make a friend whose home is clean and organized and whose parents drive clean cars. They notice when their own house and car are ones that they don’t want their friends to see. You can pretend all you want that they don’t notice, but they do.
Kids get embarrassed.
I am genuinely sad for kids who don’t want anyone coming to their home or riding in their parents’ vehicles because they are embarrassed by the mess. And worse than that? Parents…the teachers in the car line see your mess of a car, and they judge you hard. They make snap judgements about your parenting, your kids, and your life, and your kids know this.
No one is expecting you to pull up in a perfect luxury car, but they are absolutely wrinkling their nose at the condition of your car when your floor is covered in trash, and you don’t maintain any semblance of cleanliness. It’s embarrassing for your child.
Maybe it’s time to stop the TikTok videos showing cars and homes that are absolutely filthy and trying to normalize ‘this is what being a busy mom looks like,’ because it’s giving, ‘this is what being a lazy mom who looks for excuses looks like.’
Being a busy mom looks like being busy. Not living in squalor.
Your home doesn’t need to be perfect. Your car doesn’t need to be perfect.
But I am saying a few minutes a day picking up after yourself and having your kids do the same is a game changer.
It’s not ‘mom life.’
It’s laziness, lack of routine, and lack of time management skills. It tells the world you don’t respect your home or car, and that you failed to teach your children basic cleanliness rules and etiquette. Not every bad habit needs to be normalized. You can be the busiest person in the world and still clean up after yourself without spending ample time doing so.
Tiffany Raiford 