Picture it: Monday morning, clean washing strewn over the bed. The toilet is a hazard zone following an unfortunate toilet training incident. Breakfast on the table, on the chair, on the floor. Dishes piled in the sink, on bench tops, on the stove. Me huddled over a cup of coffee, another late night behind me, getting ‘set up’ for the week ahead, full of deadlines and meetings and presentations. This is the ‘glamorous’ life of a working mother.

Suddenly, a lightbulb flickers in the dark recesses of my mind… something… about… to happen? ‘Oh my goodness!’ I jump to my feet. Then sit down, light-headed. ‘The cleaner’s coming this morning. We can’t let him see that we live like this!’

Now, we can’t afford a cleaner. Are you kidding? We have children! My hair colour comes from a bottle. No, we can’t afford a cleaner.

But recently, by some miraculous twist of fate, we signed on a new client… a cleaning company in need of consulting, and so, in a contra deal made in heaven, my dreams came true. We have a cleaner!

Brave Face

Now, the life of a working mother may appear glamorous from the outside. I dress to the nines for meetings because, heck, it’s the only time I get out of the house sans children. But take a peak behind the thin veneer, and you’ll discover the cracks… oh, the cracks you’ll discover.

As we scurried through the house, flinging items into bins and shoving clothes into cupboards, the ridiculousness of the situation gradually hit me. This guy is a cleaner. This is the thing that he does. Surely the chaos in our house wouldn’t come as a surprise to him? Would it?

Please tell me I’m not the only one living in a constant state of chaos.

Why do we all feel (and especially mothers) as though we have to give the impression we have it all together?

It’s time to stop the charade, loosen our proverbial corsets and let it all hang out.

My house is a mess (well, actually it isn’t any more because this cleaner is really, really good!), I meet most deadlines at 12.01 a.m. and my kids are just plain exhausting, but they know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I love them. Oh, how I love them. So, pick a hankie out of the laundry pile and have a good cry if you need to, and then tell someone about it. And don’t hide your dirty laundry from the cleaner… he’ll find it anyway, and fold it for you.

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Originally published at Mum Daily. Photo by Tatiana Syrikova.