Chores, chores, and more chores.
The very word has made me shudder for much of the last 30 years and has even at times left me wondering, “What’s the point?”
Well this is my journey into that dark, seemingly endless hole. And although I share it with joy, please remember your journey will likely look completely different. That’s okay. It’s your journey and this just happens to be mine.
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So after 30 years of trying every chore list idea known to man and having not much success with any of them…and being extremely tired of showing another therapist person to our little bathroom and finding it less than presentable….I knew I needed something that would finally work.
We’ve only been doing this new chore system for just over 3 weeks, but I know it’s the best system we’ve had in our home because it has never looked so clean – and this is with nine treasures still living at home!
First off though, there are a couple things that we’ve learned over the last 30 years of parenting, which have helped me refocus and come back to the basics – at least a zillion times.
One is that we strongly believe that hard work helps to create a strong work ethic for our kids.
How many adults have we met who think that life owes them something and they are not about to work for anything? Uh-huh. That’s what I’m talking about.
Over the years we’ve also found that a grateful spirit is fostered more readily as we all work hard together. If we work together, we can also play hard together.
No surprise, the scriptures are chock full of verses that lend to hard work being good for all of us.
And frankly, over the last 30 years parenting we have tried many, many chore systems. Most have been hard to incorporate or to diligently continue with any semblance of enthusiasm.
Not to mention when you’re the mother hen and you’ve basically lost all of your energy, there is nothing left to put into ‘little things’ like chore lists for your little peeps.
On a quiet and slow day my life is noisy, chaotic, rowdy and crowded….the last thing I personally need is to have to run over to a chart to see who isn’t doing what – that’s the definition of “stressful” for this mom of many.
And as my energy was gone, even just making the chart was a bigger ‘chore’ than I had the ‘want to’ for.
So for the last few years, probably since the fire, we have just had what we termed ‘clean-up’ days, done in a variety of ways. But the basic premise was we put the timer on for 1/2 hour or so and go to town assigning this and that to each one. Even that took a ton of effort for me.
And there was one major flaw with this type of system – just how yukky our home became during the ‘in between’ days of the ‘clean-up days’.
Not to mention, Ruby’s wheelchair and stander and other equipment is always being moved about and it takes a clear path to do it easily.
Many, many, many years ago, long before I even had children, I decided I wanted my kids to remember a happy mommy who spent vast amounts of time with them. If I was grumping out about things out of place, the ‘happy mommy’ would get lost in the grumpiness.
Who wants to stand back at the
end of their life and say,
“Wow, I had such a beautiful home”
when you can invest in gathering,
nurturing and enjoying our
treasures…
So the bottom line:
What did I want my kids to remember most?
Hard work. Yes.
Perfection. Nope, not at all.
But face it, there are some areas that just must be regularly tended to or the house goes downhill at 90 mph and is impossible to maneuver with even the most generous amounts of grace.
So here’s what we did:
Many, many, many years ago I had heard about a system of assigning an area to each child to be in charge of.
It would be their responsibility to keep it maintained,
cleaned, and organized.
I sat down and explained the entire idea to our kids.
We assigned each and named them their “domain”.
We have had great discussions about how we treat others
if they are not doing what they are supposed to be doing
within their domain. For instance, a sibling who comes
home and leaves their shoes flopped in the middle
of the foyer that is your domain to maintain.
How would we want to be treated if it was us?
How do we help each other keep our domain in order?
Elijah’s domain is the front foyer and the little bathroom….and I’m happy to say that I no longer dread leading some unsuspecting visitor to that little bathroom.
We've used this system in our home for a couple of years now and have been very pleased with it. We switch it up once in a while and trade domains. Hope it keeps working for you!
Why didn't you tell me?? haha.
Our chores are similar in that each child has the same chore. If the porch hasn't been swept of leaves, I know who it was. I don't have to look back and see whose turn it was that day/week. And let me tell ya, I completely understand the bathroom thing, and I only have three at home right now! 🙂
amy in ga
If you have a porch that needs sweeping, I want to come have coffee on it.
I would love that!!!
We have a similar system in our home and it has worked very well for years. Each child has an area that is their responsibility. It is such a flexible system. For example, my oldest daughter is out of the house often with work and school, so her area is laundry. The older kids do their own laundry, but she makes sure that household things like dishtowels and baby clothes get done, she keeps the laundry room neat and she lets me know when we need laundry supplies. These are things she can do any day that she is home instead of every day. My littlest girl is in charge of the entryway, which mostly means keeping shoes in baskets and jackets hung up. Everyone hates kitchen work, so we rotate from the oldest down to the 10 yr. old. After every meal someone washes dishes and cleans up, then they go tell the next person that their turn is up, if someone isn't home then we skip them and keep going, it all evens out in the end. The kitchen stays clean all day and no one has kitchen duty more than once every 3 days or so. My favorite thing is that if a room is messy I can just go to a child and tell them that their area needs attention and they take care of it from there. I though we would have a lot of fighting about siblings telling each other to pick up but they really respect one another's authority over "their" area. Recently I heard one of my daughters ask her younger brother if he minded her friends having popcorn in "his" living room as long as they promised to clean up. Many hands really do make light work!
YOu are so right – many hands really do make light work! And keeping the house presentable is wonderful, isn't it?
I love that idea. That's what the Duggar's do, too.
Ha ha! We *just* started this kind of system, too. I have had detailed charts ad nauseum. We're still working out some kinks but I like it. I do like a neat home, not perfect, not spotless, just neat. Though I do know that Legos on the floor also serve as a great, cheap security system! Yeow!!
I laughed out loud at your "ad nauseum" comment.
I like this idea A LOT!!! I may have to add that to my things to do!! 🙂 I am a procrastinator at heart and not a house keeper either!! 🙂 What we do in our home is this: Each Aug. I make a long list of all the chores I need done around the house i.e.: dish washer emptied each morning, sweeping, dusting, bathrooms, vacuuming, etc…..We then sit down around the table and I let the kids choose what chore they want to do and what day of the week they want to do it. After the list if full, I put them on my computer. Each Sunday I print out their weekly schedule (individually – I live in PA and the homeschool laws are CRAZY! This keeps me in check). Their chores have a space on their weekly calendar and once I put them in the computer, they are there to stay. Each year they get to choose again. Letting them pick is also a great thing when the complaining starts to happen……you chose that chore honey!!! 🙂 Thanks for sharing!