Don't walk on my clean floor!

For my status update on Facebook the other day, I wrote: By up-ending all the chairs on the dining table in order to clean "properly" underneath, I have proved irrefutably that I have in fact, turned into my mother.
The response from my friends was amusing and showed that I'm not the only one who is house proud.
It got me thinking why we get annoyed at our kids (and partners) for messing up our freshly mopped lino or leaving clothes all over the floordrobe.
These are, in the scheme of things, unimportant. We all work - both paid and caregiving - and these tasks are menial and they'd be jobs we'd pay someone else to do if it was practical and affordable.
And it finally dawned on me that the reason I and my peers take these things seriously is because it's the only validation we get sometimes.
Having kids requires, for most working women, the inevitable compromise of leaving a fulfilling career for the less cerebral tasks of cleaning up spew and poo and being the primary carer.
These are tasks which society doesn't place much value on - as evidenced by the lack of statutory paid maternity leave - and often goes unnoticed by those we're caring for, so if we don't place any importance in it either, then why bother.
If we don't take it seriously, then we're reinforcing the view that being a carer isn't real work and doesn't have value in the same way as paid work does.
And that's today's amateur psychology lesson.