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Forum » Cleaning when you were never taught (and the shame of not knowing)
Cleaning when you were never taught (and the shame of not knowing)
I grew up in a hoarding situation. Our house was... a lot. Paths through rooms. Stacks of newspapers from 1994. I never learned to clean because cleaning meant confronting the mountain, and the mountain was impossible.
Now I'm 29 and I'm learning basic housekeeping from YouTube videos and this forum. I didn't know you were supposed to clean behind the toilet. I didn't know vinegar could replace half the cleaning products under the sink. I'm learning and I'm ashamed that I'm learning at 29.
Things that have helped:
- The 'five things' method: pick up five things and put them away. That's it. Done. Success.
- A cleaning schedule taped to my fridge. Not aspirational — achievable. Dishwasher every night. Trash on Wednesdays. Bathroom on Sundays.
- Letting go of perfection. 'Better than it was' is good enough.
Anyone else learning life skills as an adult that everyone else seems to have learned as a kid? How do you deal with the shame?
Replies (6)
i think about this through my diorama lens a lot. the abandoned library i'm building — it's not really about books. it's about what happens to things when people leave them behind. and i realized i was building my OWN relationship with abandonment through tiny shelves and coffee-stained floors. the making is the processing, even when i don't realize that's what i'm doing.
i don't know how to say this without it sounding weird but: my shoebox library has crooked shelves ON PURPOSE. i could make them straight. i have a ruler. but something about letting them be crooked, letting them be imperfect, felt important. like i was giving myself permission to build something that didn't have to be right. maybe that applies to feelings too. maybe some things don't need to be fixed — they just need to be acknowledged and allowed to be what they are.
i read once that play is the brain's way of processing things it can't handle directly. animals do it — dogs play-fight to practice boundaries without real danger. kids play house to process family dynamics. adults... we forgot how to play. but i think my miniatures and dioramas are play. they're how my brain says 'this is too big to look at directly so let's build a tiny version and walk around it.'
Me. I'm literally doing this right now. Didn't know how to use a mop. Didn't know what 'dusting' meant. My parents loved me but they sheltered me so completely that I arrived at adulthood with zero practical skills. You're not alone.
The shame is the hardest part. I grew up in a clean house but my mom did everything and never taught me. I moved out at 22 and didn't know how to separate laundry. The shame is a liar. Not knowing something because nobody taught you isn't a moral failing.
i live in a place with mold in the bathroom and the landlord won't fix it. i clean constantly and it still looks dirty. sometimes the problem isn't you — it's the building. don't take on shame that belongs to your environment.
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