In article ,
"Sophie" wrote:

"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
...
Ian wrote:


My buddies house (with 5 kids) looks
like a bomb has hit it. I could not live that way.


This is also a choice. You don't have to live
in a pig sty with multiple kids. As you say, if your friend
and his wife can spend all that time gaming, they could
instead devote a small portion of that time to tidying
the house (and teaching the kids to pick up after
themselves). Several of the large families I know
have the neatest homes you'll see.

Best wishes,
Ericka


I can not stand clutter. We have 2 times in the day we tidy up. I go to bed
with a neat house cos I could not stand to wake up to a messy one.
Obviously that's not a priority to Ian's friends, but probably not cos they
have 5 kids.



Or possibly because a neat and tidy house is not a high value for them.

One of the things I liked when my twins were small is that people seemed
to think my house was always close to the verge of disaster because I
had 3 little kids (I had a 3 yo when the twins were born). After all,
they'd say, I couldn't expect to keep the floor shiney while taking care
of that many kids!

What they didn't know is that my house didn't look all that much worse
than BEFORE I had kids. It's reasonably clean under the clutter, and we
still sit down to a set dinner table for a meal together most evenings
(I say most because with 3 different schools, 5 different jobs, and,
right now, 2 different plays, there are increasingly fewer evenings
when we're all home!) -- I just don't value non-clutter all that much.

meh

meh
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care