flea, mine are 15 and 12 and they haven't learned to mop. I so fail as a mother.

I'm twenty-nine and the first mother-child spat of my recent visit home (hey, there were only two total) was over floor-mopping, which I did not do adequately.

MOM, LATER: I never taught you to mop a floor, did I?
ME: Not really. I did attend an Ivy League college, though.
MOM, SADLY: Well, there's that.

My mom and I have had that same discussion- not really a spat, but I was telling her that I bought a book on housekeeping. She was all apologetic that she hadn't taught me that, and I told her that she taught me how to read and look something up when I didn't know it, so it all worked out.

Timelies all!

I don't want to think about how my cat would react to either a Roomba or a Sccoba. Oh, wait. She'd just hide under the bed, since that's her default reaction to new stuff.

I really would rather not be doing the barcoding I'm doing.

People should entertain me instead.

She was all apologetic that she hadn't taught me that, and I told her that she taught me how to read and look something up when I didn't know it, so it all worked out.

That's awesome.

I'm twenty-nine and the first mother-child spat of my recent visit home (hey, there were only two total) was over floor-mopping, which I did not do adequately.

My dad has to stop us and re-instruct us on how to sweep properly every time he stuck a broom in our hands.

My mother never tried to teach me that stuff. But the woman we had to do the cooking and the cleaning also had childminding as her responsibility, so you pick stuff up. It's not like we had TV to watch, or anything.

I spent my formative years with a single dad who's an academic. I didn't ever learn housekeeping, but I had shelving down.

I think my parents expected me to osmotically acquire knowledge of how to do stuff--or, what actually happened, that we'd turn around and find we had the same standards they had, and would have to take more mundane, hands-on, steps to maintaining them. I mean, my mother kept as tidy a house when she had staff as when she didn't. It was a thing.

She still mops my kitchen every now and again. And then we argue.

I love this celeb-rampage story:

At 2am bar staff refused to serve any more alcohol. Undaunted, Kiefer persuaded management to let them loose in the lobby.

He ordered yet more booze on room service, then staggered around the entrance hall, entertaining pals with a bizarre, flailing breakdancing routine.

It was then that a huge Christmas tree caught his eye.

"I hate that f***ing Christmas tree," he declared. "The tree HAS to come down."

Kiefer warned staff: "I'm smashing it - can I pay for it?"

A staff member replied: "I'm absolutely sure you can, sir."

The Lost Boys star - famously ditched by Julia Roberts five days before their wedding in 1991 - then hurled himself into the Norwegian Spruce, sending baubles and lights crashing to the ground. Pulling pine needles out of his hair and t-shirt, he said to a hotel employee: "Ooh sorry about that...you're so cool. This f***ing hotel rocks."

A staff member replied: "I'm absolutely sure you can, sir."

I am now imagining Stephen Fry as Jeeves saying this.