A Connecticut mom of two decided to do something after her husband made a snide comment suggesting she does nothing to clean up the house.
And by something, she did nothing — Lindsay Donnelly, 33, says a “totally spontaneous” complaint from her husband, Brian, led her to pump the brakes on cleaning their home.
“It wasn’t an ongoing fight. It’s more of the day-to-day ‘keeping a house in order with two working parents and two little kids’ conversation,” she tells PEOPLE.
With a 4-year-old and a 7-year-old, the family’s home isn’t always spotless. So when Brian suggested that his wife “never” does anything to clean up, she decided to show him what that would really look like.
When she first went on “strike,” she was doing it to make a point but quickly, Donnelly found the humour in the situation.
“I went out with my girlfriends the night before I made the TikTok and I was telling them how I was literally doing nothing around the house and we were all kind of laughing about it,” she recalls.
“And then the next day, I’m getting ready to head out to a girl’s trip and the thought crossed my mind like, ‘I’m really just gonna leave the house like this.’ I felt so bad and it hit me that, wait, this is funny. This is a moment. And that’s when I made the TikTok.”
Donnelly’s kids were busy being kids and didn’t notice a lot of the mess, but her daughter did get to witness Mommy unmake a bed.
As far as her husband, he was still none the wiser as the video racked up views and moms around the world related to the issue.
“I don’t know if he even realized until I told him,” she laughs. “He was just annoyed the house is messy.”
Donnelly later shared a video where she reveals that her household argument went viral with her husband and jokes there’s “more to that video” she may share in the future.
Lindsay Donnelly added: “I was shocked no one had said anything to him, any of his friends, at that point. But then over the week, his friends started screenshoting and chiming in.”