NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Lifestyle

The pigsty chronicles

Herald online
5 Mar, 2009 11:42 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Mountains of toys do not a tidy home make. Photo / AP

Mountains of toys do not a tidy home make. Photo / AP

I remember - like it was yesterday - the day I read about J-Lo and Marc Anthony's new twins.

The little bubs are wearing dinner jackets and pearls now, so this must have been a while ago, but I vividly remember J-Lo looking beautiful and impeccably groomed just days after
the birth. She had two full time nurses who worked through the night giving the newborns their bottles. More nurses came through the day.

I also remember that the house looked more like a show home than an actual house where actual people and newborn babies live.

Of course I know the superstar couple has housekeepers, gardeners and all sorts of other staff on hand, but strangely, this spotless house had almost nothing baby-related except some very expensive looking baby cribs and antique porcelain tea sets.

By comparison, a new relative of mine who visited me the other week looked around my house and said - diplomatically, I thought - that I lived in a very "child-centred" house.

If by that he meant that there are toys strewn from one end of the house to the other, he'd be right.

I used to be so house proud but now I find myself barely able to make one room habitable at a time.

I usually start from the back of the house, cleaning as I go, but am diverted off my course by the time I reach the middle of the house. Next time I start from the front and work backwards.

It seems to me there is never a time when more than two rooms of the house are looking decent. This would have driven the old me mad. But I have - sadly - become accustomed to stepping over toy trains, sliding on soft toys and piling CDs in a haphazard pile in the corner of the living room, knowing full well they'll be all over the floor again within seconds.

At one point I took pride in keeping the wooden floor in the kitchen spik and span. That was before two children threw three meals a day over it.

Now, it really should be cleaner for hygiene purposes, and yet it is constantly covered in a grimy film of food that I find almost impossible to remove.

Unfortunately for me, my kids seem to like the kinds of toys that have about 45 parts to them. No single trucks, big Raggedy Annes or plastic cars for them.

My son likes card puzzles - the kind that have 20 number cards and 20 picture cards and they need slotting together.

My daughter's favourite thing for a while was rummaging round in a 40-piece Barbie tea set from the toy library. (When it came to be returned my husband and I spent about two hours combing the house - swearing profusely - for the set's missing pink plastic fork. We knew then our transformation to sad-arses was complete!).

The other unfortunate side-effect of multi-part toys is that they are damned painful to step on when one isn't paying attention.

The other night my husband was preoccupied and, in mid-stream, stepped on Thomas the Tank Engine's green plastic railway tunnel and went flying halfway across the room.

I laughed so hard I stepped back onto Thomas the Tank Engine's plastic Wellsworth station house and narrowly avoided landing on my rump with the two bags of rubbish I was carrying landing on top of me.

While all this may sound amusing, it really isn't when it's the 40th time your little toe has caught the corner of the high chair or you've stepped on a very pointy plastic hexagon while stumbling for water in the middle of the night.

And it is not amusing when you realise that the very thing you once despised - a really horrible looking house - is what greets every visitor.

It may seem like a small thing, but for most women, living in a pigsty leads to the blues, especially when you are home all day staring at the mess, feeling helpless to do anything about it.

And yet, whether at home all day with kids or a working mum, it seems to me the housework is almost always the first thing to go by the wayside.

Clever mums hire a house cleaner and consider the $40 a week spent an investment in their sanity. Others, like myself, are convinced we'll get round to it ourselves one day.

Perhaps when our youngest starts primary school??!

- Dita De Boni

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Save

    Share this article

Latest from Lifestyle

New Zealand

Noel Edmonds to marry again: British TV star proposes in hot tub in NZ

05 Jul 09:00 PM
Lifestyle

Why fatherhood is Joseph Parker's secret weapon in the ring

05 Jul 09:00 PM
Lifestyle

On The Up: Miniature backyard pubs a hit for Christchurch family business

05 Jul 09:00 PM

Sponsored: Get your kids involved in your reno

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Lifestyle

Noel Edmonds to marry again: British TV star proposes in hot tub in NZ

Noel Edmonds to marry again: British TV star proposes in hot tub in NZ

05 Jul 09:00 PM

The Deal or No Deal host has plans to do up a chapel on his Tasman estate.

Why fatherhood is Joseph Parker's secret weapon in the ring

Why fatherhood is Joseph Parker's secret weapon in the ring

05 Jul 09:00 PM
On The Up: Miniature backyard pubs a hit for Christchurch family business

On The Up: Miniature backyard pubs a hit for Christchurch family business

05 Jul 09:00 PM
Premium
How the risks of drinking increase in older age

How the risks of drinking increase in older age

05 Jul 07:00 PM
Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper
sponsored

Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP