If doesn't matter if you are a stay-at-home-mom (SAHM) or a mother with two careers, ALL moms feel judged by how clean - or how messy - their house is.

[caption id="attachment_567" align="aligncenter" width="407" caption="Benjamin, Debi and Jonathan, in our breakfast room"]<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/BenDebiJon.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-567" title="BenDebiJon" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/BenDebiJon.jpg" alt="" width="407" height="323" /></a>[/caption]

A new survey, on 3,70 mothers across the nation, by <a title="All_moms_have_messy_houses" href="http://www.workingmother.com/research-institute/what-moms-choose-working-mother-report" target="_blank">Working Mother Research Institute and Ernst and Young</a>, shows that 55 percent of working moms and 44 percent of stay-at-home moms feel guilty about how messy their houses are.

And, most of us worry that other moms judge us for how dirty our houses are - 42 percent of working mothers and 35 percent of SAH moms.

Why are we so overwhelmed with the basics of housework?  And how did our mothers and grandmothers keep their houses as neat as we remember them? Mama Shaw, my paternal grandmother, was said to have kept her house so clean, "you could eat off the floor."

<em>Generations of women have kept their houses tidy</em>, we think, <em>why can't I?</em>  And that thought makes us feel inadequate as mothers.

When my children were small, while working on the book, <em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Motherhood Stress</span></em>, I came across the book, <a title="More_Work_For_Mother" href="http://www.amazon.com/More-Work-Mother-Household-Technology/dp/0465047327/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1321126184&amp;sr=1-1" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em>More Work for Mother</em></span></a>, by Ruth Schwartz Cowan. That book, reporting on an in-depth survey of housework since the 1600s, helped me change my view of the housework I faced each day.

As I wrote in <a title="Motherhood_Stress" href="http://www.amazon.com/Motherhood-Stress-Encouragement-Ultimate-Profession/dp/0849906717/ref=sr_1_sc_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1321126306&amp;sr=1-1-spell" target="_blank"><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Motherhood Stress</span></em></a>:

Long one are the days of cooking with wood fires, scrubbing floors with homemade lye soap, and laundering clothes by hand with washboards in tubs of water drawn by the bucketful from a well or spring. Most mother today find it nearly impossible to imagine how our grandmothers and great-grandmothers cope in the days before self-cleaning ovens, vacuum cleaners and permanent press clothing.  At least housework is simpler, faster and less stressful today, right?

[caption id="attachment_568" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Even now, with only Gregg and me at home, I struggle with the laundry."]<a href="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/laundryhamper.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-568" title="laundryhamper" src="http://motherhoodstress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/laundryhamper-300x245.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="245" /></a>[/caption]

Not necessarily. The vast majority of cultural changes and technological improvements in all three major areas of housework - cooking, cleaning and laundry - have had two results. They have either (1) raised expectations and standards to a level unimaginable to women of previous generations, or (2) shifted responsibilities from others onto mothers.

Take cooking for example. Where men hunted and helped raise the food for the family table in the past, women today purchase most food. At the same time, while kitchen appliances, frozen foods, and instant mixes have made meal preparation "simple." the recipes we attempt are more complicated and the food we serve is more varied than anything our grandmothers imagined.

According to the <a href="http://www.workingmother.com/special-reports/what-moms-choose-stay-home-or-work">survey by Working Mother Research Institute</a>:

<em>Working mothers feel most judged about:</em>
<ol>
	<li><strong>How clean my house is</strong></li>
	<li>Not taking care of myself</li>
	<li>The amount of time I spend with my children</li>
</ol>
<em>Stay-at-home mothers feel most judged about:</em>
<ol>
	<li>My contribution to family finances</li>
	<li><strong>How clean my house is</strong></li>
	<li>Not using my education</li>
</ol>