Q: I was living with my in-laws, husband, and I just had a baby. They were absolute pigs, so bad that my baby hasn't been to their house since Easter. She can crawl now and I guess that's why they haven't had us over, their house is unfit. Now I feel like I need to have my house very clean for when they visit so they know that I'm not a hypocrite. I didn't mean to offend them about their house, but while I was living there I was struggling to clean their house for them. They are all girls, ages 8,9,16 and 38. My husband and I were 19 at the time. He helped me clean more than they did. I just felt very angry and frustrated that I had a newborn baby that I was living with in a dirty unfit house. Now I'm a bit paranoid that someone might think I'm dirty like them, so whenever we have company, the house has to be clean. I get so scared that when my daughter puts finger prints on the t.v. or windows that someone will think I'm gross like them... even if it's they who are coming over. My baby is 9 months old by the way, and very messy. So how can I over come this fear of being seen as a messy person? P.S. I didn't mooch off my in-laws. My MIL asked we move in so my husband could fix up her house (remodel since he's a contractor) and she never footed the money and he never remodeled anything other than our bedroom. We left with a beautiful bedroom that she paid $0 for. We gave her money for the bills and bought our own food. I babysat every night while she went out or when she worked. I did all of the cooking and cleaning. Please, tell me that I owe her something. I'll have you removed!
A: I think you are doing the best you can to keep a clean house, and people that are visiting you know you have a small child so they should expect a few messes here and there around the house and if they don't realize that I think that's rude. And "messy" isn't "dirty", there's a difference. I guess I don't really know what you can do to get over it, though. When my baby was born I felt really bad when we went to visit my in-laws because they had dogs that used the living room carpet as a bathroom and my mother-in-law would just dab it with paper towel and that was it, and when you walked on the carpet it was so sticky, so I never let the baby off my lap. I felt like they thought I was a horribly rude person, though I never had the guts to tell her that her house was too gross to let the baby down. I guess she kinda knew, though. But I still feel bad because I don't keep the cleanest house, either, but it's nothing like that was.