TikTok creator Ann Russell has advised parents not to punish children with cleaning chores unless they want them to become messy adults.
Ms Russell is famous on social media as "that English cleaner lady," posting housework tips alongside her own reasoned musings on current affairs. A professional cleaner for more than 20 years and the mother of four adult children, she has amassed three million followers and 100 million likes on TikTok alone. Described in the Washington Post as "a TikTok cleaning queen," her largely young fan base frequently compliments her non-judgemental style of issuing advice.
Speaking to the Mail this week, Ms Russell explained: "Cleaning is not a moral thing, and a lot of people, an awful lot of girls, have spent their childhood [believing otherwise]." She recalled that her grandmother, who raised her, spent her time saying: "Oh, child, look at this mess! I don't know how I'm going to tidy it."
"And I felt awful, but I didn't know how to do it," Ms Russell said. "I didn't understand what she wanted, and I had to teach myself. And I think there are so many people that walk into a room and they can just hear the voice of their mother or somebody in their background telling them that they're useless."
Cleaning advice for parents
The social media sensation stressed that parents should not punish children by making them do something they want them to do, such as cleaning. She noted that housework can instead be turned into a game or activity with younger children.
"If my grandmother had said, 'Oh look darling, all your toys are out. Can we put them in there?' I could have said, 'No, I can't make them fit,'" Ms Russell said. "She could have showed me and I could have done it. You can encourage them and make them feel all warm and fuzzy when they've done it, because if you know that cleaning makes you feel all warm and fuzzy because your mummy made you feel all warm and fuzzy, then you're going to want to do it."
"But if they made you feel awful and they made you cry, why would you do something when in the back of your head is the memory that when you tried to do it, somebody shouted at you? It was a punishment," she added. "That's a really, really bad idea. I mean, you don't train dogs by beating them when they do something; you train them by rewarding them when they do something good."
Realistic standards for home cleanliness
Ms Russell's videos are unusually unpolished for an influencer with her number of followers, and she insists that a house does not need to be immaculate. "As long as you are clean enough to be healthy and dirty enough to be happy, it does not matter," Ms Russell said.
"You deserve to live in a clean and tidy house. You deserve to be able to find your stuff," she stated. "But ultimately, I find that so many people now are judging themselves by things they see online, and what they see online is not necessarily the reality."
Television appearance and family reaction
The cleaning guru was in Ireland for the first time recently as a guest on the debut episode of Lucy Kennedy's new chat show on Virgin Media, alongside Kerry Katona and comedian Shane Daniel Byrne. She described host Kennedy as an "absolute sweetheart."
"It was a bit like [when] you turn up at a dinner party and you don't know people, and you're just idly chatting," Ms Russell said of the pre-recorded interview. She shared that her friends and family think her belatedly acquired fame is "the funniest thing," with reactions being "a blend of incredulity and complete disbelief that somebody quite as boring and slightly shambolic as myself could be known by other people."
She insisted her life has not really changed despite her newfound international profile. "I get to do cool things like going to Ireland and being on Lucy's show, but my daily life hasn't changed at all," Ms Russell said. "I still live in the same house. I still work. I still see the same people, and then every now and again, I go and do something that's kind of cool and interesting. I mean, there's absolutely no chance of me ever getting too big for my britches."
Episode one of Unfiltered With Lucy Kennedy airs tonight at 9pm on Virgin Media One and Virgin Media Play.
