A Mother-Daughter Dynamic: Household Cleaning

MindSwarms | Household Cleaning
A Mother-Daughter Dynamic:
Housecleaning
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How daughters feel their mothers inﬂuence
household cleaning rituals and brands
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Research objective: to understand the emotions, pressures, and
motivations related to household cleaning.
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By gaining a deeper understanding of the the modern young woman’s
relationship to cleaning, we can better gauge what types of products
and concepts would appeal most.
Purpose
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While strongly inﬂuenced by their mothers’ housecleaning habits and attitudes, today’s
young women are often pressed for time, and are more open to getting housework done
in a new way. Our research shows that the next-gen woman is eager for product
innovations and time-saving strategies that make it easier to meet the housekeeping
standards her mother set.

• Two groups: one sticks to purchasing patterns of parents; the other embraces organic &
less-harsh chemicals. Both self identify as heavily inﬂuenced by their mothers.

• Falling short: all respondents felt strain of not living up to mothers' cleaning standards.

• Commodities vs. brands: cleaning by boomer moms is associated with commodities;
cleaning by next-gen moms is associated more with brands.

• Time crunch: next-gen moms feel the struggle to keep up with cleaning standards of
their parents.

• Online shopping: next-gen moms shop online, and their moms still prefer visiting the
store.
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Executive Summary


Methodology
Target Audience

Findings: Question 1







Summary
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5
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8-10

11-13
14-16
17-19
20-22
23-25
26-28
29, 30
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Table of Contents

Participant Proﬁle:
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• National US sample
• 12 states
• 14 cities
• Ages 25 - 40
• Female
• Mix of ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds
Target Sample
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Findings
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Question 1
1. Please show us a photo of your mother or parent(s), and tell us how
she/they inﬂuence the way you think about cleaning in the home.
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Question 1 Findings
Next-gen women say they take the “work” out of housework.
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Daughters say their mothers have a powerful influence over their cleaning
habits and attitudes.
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• Most daughters admit their mothers’ cleaning habits are more
rigorous and thorough than their own.
• Daughters who mentioned their fathers as influencers tended to have
very meticulous fathers (e.g. ex-Navy).
• Cleaning Day was part of the formative memories of many
daughters; cleaning for next-gen moms is more on-the-fly versus
devoting entire days to cleaning.
• Some rituals are carried over from generation-to-generation (e.g.
always making your bed in the morning).
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Mom inﬂuenced the way I clean because she taught me
everything I know. She was very particular about
cleaning and washing. Whenever I clean something, I
can only think back to everything that she taught us
growing up.
!
Zailenya, 29

Detroit
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Question 1 Verbatim
My dad was in the Navy, and he has always been really
meticulous about the way he keeps his cars and his
workshop, and even how he made the beds… My mom
was also really meticulous about deep cleaning her
house, and really instilled keeping a clean house in me
from a young age. She was a stay-at-home mom. It's
deﬁnitely hard to stack up to that, because I'm not a
stay-at-home mom.
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Julie, 40

Des Moines

Question 2
2. Show us your #1 favorite home cleaning product: tell us why it's your
favorite, and tell us why/how it's diﬀerent from your mother's/parents'.
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Question 2 Findings
Their favorite products are either a twist on the “basic” their parents used
(e.g. Clorox wipes) or they have moved on to more organic, less harmful
chemicals.
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• Home cleaning products next-gen women choose as their favorite tend
to be more modern in their minds: lots of wipes, scented products and
convenient gadgets like Swiﬀers.
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• Millennial women tend to associate their parents’ generation with old
school cleaning products like vinegar + water, baking soda, bleach, rags,
harsh detergents and chemicals (even the Fuller Brush Man).
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• Wipes of all varieties rank amongst the most favorite products for next-
gen women.
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This is the Clorox - the disinfectant bathroom cleaner (I
love, love, love that stuff!), the Lysol, the Power Green
all-purpose cleaner. [My mom] likes to clean up with just
vinegar and water or she'll use the bleach.
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Kiora, 25

Fayetteville

The Swiffer Dust and Shine with Febreze Lavender and
Vanilla is my favorite cleaning product. It definitely
differs from my parents, because they never had these
things back in the day growing up. When cleaning, I
think things were much more old-school. My mom
probably just uses soap and water. She still mops the
floor the old-fashioned way.
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Shaun, 32

Pompano Beach 12
Question 2 Verbatims

Question 3
3. What are some of the cleaning rituals you learned from your mother/
parent, and what are some new ones you have learned? Please explain
in detail.
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Question 3 Findings
Next-gen women tend to embrace new cleaning habits and rituals.
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• There was a lot of talk about how boomer moms “got down on their hands and
knees” - household cleaning in their parents generation tends to be associated
with hard, manual labor.
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• Next-gen moms think their cleaning products are easier to use, and that the old
school way of cleaning in their parents generation was just plain hard
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• The next-gen mom embraces innovations like Swiffer - to the point where
“Swiffering” has become part of their lexicon.
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• Next-gen women use music to make household cleaning more enjoyable: one
big differentiator between next-gen women and their moms.
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• A number of women interviewed mentioned that their moms didn’t trust
dishwashers the way they themselves do. Boomer moms are more likely to
choose to wash by hand.
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A new cleaning ritual that I have is I like to turn on
music. I like to listen to music while I do my cleaning,
because nobody really likes cleaning, or at least I don't.
While I'm listening to music while doing my chores or
cleaning the house, it makes everything go faster.
!
Susan, 28

Houston
My parents clean almost everything by hand because
they think that's the good way to clean, as you get all
the dirty stuﬀ. I use a dishwasher because it's quicker,
but my parents don't like using a dishwasher as they
don't think that the dishwasher itself gets rid of all the
food and the grime. But sometimes I use it because it's
faster and it's more convenient.
!
Tracey, 25

Quincy 15

Question 4
4. Compare the home cleaning products you buy with the home
cleaning products your mother/parents buy? Why are they similar or
diﬀerent?
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Question 4 Findings
There appears to be a dramatic generational difference between what next-
gen women buy and what they say their moms buy:
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• Definitely a shift towards greener, less harsh, and fewer chemical-filled
products.
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• They say their moms still buy the basics: newspaper to clean windows,
vinegar + water to clean floors, rags v paper towels to wipe down surfaces,
mops v Swiffers for cleaning floors.
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• Bleach is something next-gen women say they buy less of v their parents.
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My dad always used to buy a big jug of disinfectant and
just used that for everything, and I tend to buy different
cleaning products for different things. My dad always
used to use newspaper and spray it to clean windows
and mirrors, whereas I don't do that. I don't want black
all over my fingers. I use the wipes.
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Donna, 32

North Kingstown
The cleaning supplies I buy today tend to be green
cleaning supplies, cleaning supplies that will clean but
aren't harsh on my senses. The cleaning supplies that
my mother uses and the ones that are marketed today
tend to be really harsh chemicals. That's the major
difference between the two products. My mom tends to
buy Clorox products and I am buying Basic H today.
!
Angela, 32

Kansas City 18

Question 5
5. Compare how and where you shop for home cleaning products from
how and where your mother or parent(s) shops for home cleaning
products. Please explain in detail.
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Question 5 Findings
Generational diﬀerences are quite stark: online is playing a bigger and bigger
role in the way next-gen women buy household cleaning products:
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• Boomer moms typically don’t consider buying online - next-gen women
do buy household cleaning products online.
• Next-gen women will spontaneously buy online v their parents who
typically prepare in advance to buy in-store.
• Next-gen women are enthusiastic about the convenience of home
delivery.
• Time is the key factor driving purchasing online for next-gen women.
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I think the biggest difference with how and where I shop
for my cleaning products today versus how my parents
did it, is basically everything is deliverable now. I think
back in the day my parents only had accessibility to a
grocery store. They certainly couldn't just get on Google
and go to Swiffer.com and order right off the website
and have it delivered to the door.
!
Shaun, 32

Pompano Beach
My parents always had to go to the store, and it was
usually a little bit of a drive for them. Now, it's really easy.
You just go online and order whatever you need and it's
shipped directly to your door. So, it's much more
convenient, less cumbersome.
!
Jennifer, 32

Columbus
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Question 6
6. What do you think your mother would say about your style of home
cleaning and your choice of products?
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Question 6 Findings
Next-gen women almost universally feel they aren’t living up to their
mothers’ standards of home cleaning.
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• Next-gen women say things like, “my mom would say I could still
improve,” implying they feel latent guilt about their cleaning standards.
• This generation of women say they think their mothers still feel they do it
best when it comes to cleaning.
• However, next-gen women say their moms would approve of the more
natural products they use.
• “Never good enough for Mom” was a recurring theme.
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As far as my style of cleaning, my mom would probably
prefer a little bit cleaner, but I think it's an unrealistic
expectation, and she has forgotten what it's like to have
a bunch of little kids running around, ruining everything
that you ﬁx or clean. She knows that I take pride in the
cleanliness of my home, and its organization, but it's
just never good enough for mom.
!
Miriam, 32

Delaware 24
I think my mom wouldn't be too happy with my home
cleaning style because I sometimes skip the Sundays of
weekly cleaning like my mom always does (and she still
does). I don't really clean too much in the bathroom/
scrub everything down like she does. I think she [would]
be a little bit disappointed seeing how I clean.

!
Susan, 28

Houston

Question 7
7. Show us the area where you store your home cleaning products and
tell us how you organize everything. Also, tell us how/why it's organized
diﬀerently from your mom's.
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Question 7 Findings
Regarding storage, space is the driving factor between the two generations.
Boomer moms generally have bigger homes while their daughters live in
smaller spaces. This impacts how and where they store their home cleaning
supplies.
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• Smaller spaces means more singular storage spaces. Nex-gen women
tend to keep their cleaning supplies in one place (under the sink).
• Boomer moms tend to have larger homes with multiple storage areas for
cleaning supplies.
• Next-gen women admit they feel their mothers’ storage areas are more
organized than their own.
26

All of my cleaners are just mixed in together, because I
don't have a lot of room for them, so I just put them all
up here on the shelf. And my mom would've had them
organized based on everything that she uses them for.
They would have been in different sections. But I didn't
do that, I just have them all up there, mixed in together.
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Brickell, 26

Smyrna
27
The difference between my mother and myself is that
she lives in a house and I live in an apartment. I have
one area where I keep all my supplies whereas she has
multiple rooms where she can keep supplies in areas
that are as needed for their particular topic, like laundry-
laundry stuff in laundry room. I don’t.
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Angela, 32

Kansas City

Summary
There are two types of next-gen women as it relates to home cleaning: both
say they are heavily inﬂuenced by their mothers (and/or fathers) but one
segment sticks to the identical purchasing patterns of their parents while the
other embraces green products and buys less harsh chemicals.
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Most feel like they aren’t living up to their mothers’ standards of cleaning;
they have legitimate reasons (e.g. they are working moms), but still feel they
are falling short of what their mothers taught them.
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The boomer generation is still associated with old fashioned COMMODITIES
of cleaning: vinegar, baking soda, bleach, rags, mops, while next-gen women
identify more with modern BRANDS.
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Summary (cont.)
Time is the biggest diﬀerence between generations: working moms struggle
to keep up with the household cleaning standards their mothers set for
them.
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Online shopping could be transformative for the home cleaning category,
especially for next-gen moms. This generation of moms say they are very
comfortable with shopping online for home cleaning products v their own
moms who still go to a local store to buy theirs.
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MindSwarms | Household Cleaning 30
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Thank You.
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A Mother-Daughter Dynamic: Household Cleaning

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