Not your housekeeper.

It really pisses me off how many articles about house cleaning and organization are geared towards women, specifically wives and mothers. While I will grant you, I do love a clean, organized house more than Braden does, I don’t think this has anything to do with our chromosomes or marital status. 

But what really upsets me is just how many blogs/magazine articles/books out there are geared towards housekeeping for the “godly” wife, tagged with misappropriated Scripture verses. 

How is MY ability to keep the house (THAT I SHARE WITH ANOTHER PERSON) clean a sign of my worth as a godly wife? HOW? And why is keeping a clean house so high up on the scale of “wifely” accomplishments? HOW DOES THIS “ACCOMPLISHMENT” HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH BEING MARRIED? Before I was married, I kept my house clean and no one praised me for being a godly single person because of it. And I don’t know about the mothers that you know, but the ones that I know (and the fathers) are STUPID busy, so making ANY connection between their worth as a parent and the cleanliness of their kitchen floor is ridiculous.

The other reason this pisses me off? A messy house is OFTEN a sign of depression. I’m not trying to make some sweeping generalization, because there are some people who—for reasons of insanity or upbringing or being CRAZY busy, etc.—either don’t care or don’t have time or choose not to make cleaning a priority, etc. But for others struggling to find the emotional energy, or finding themselves really apathetic to the huge pile of dishes in the sink and the dust bunnies that are attacking their cat, it’s quite possibly symptomatic of something bigger going on. So throw in the added guilt of “good Christian wives and mothers have a clean house” and you’ve got yourself a CHARMING little complex.

Woof. Okay. I am sorry to be ranting to you, interwebs. Well, except for the bloggers out there WHO KNOW WHO THEY ARE THAT PERPETUATE THESE ABSURD IDEAS ABOUT THE CONNECTION BETWEEN SELF-WORTH AND DUSTING.

Ahem. Have a nice day.