Normally my state of mind is like this:
But lately, not so much. Call it summer burnout, call it back to school busy schedules, call it that time of the month when everything feels overwhelmingly overwhelming, call it bad news that keeps trickling in, call it life currently.
If you've been reading here for awhile, you will know that our friend Jean passed away this summer. She was one of the holiest women I have ever known and I pray for/to her daily. One of our last conversations was on the night of the July 4th fireworks, as we were sitting on the deck at a friend's house and Jean was listening to me complain that my kids weren't really doing their share around the house, and I was wiped out.
My summer schedule was as follows:
6am: Wake up and walk the dog with Phil for four miles, mostly to get steps + time to talk, but also because the dog won't walk in the heat of day.
8am - 3pm: Work at my accounting job (normally 8 - 4 the rest of the year) which includes an hour lunch break on which I drive to the gym, run 3 miles or sometimes lift weights, shower and drive back.
3pm: Drive home and pick up little kids at camps, if it is a camp week.
3:30pm: Cook dinner. Yup, pretty much every night there is a home cooked, balanced, albeit simple meal made for all nine of us even though everyone eats at different times depending on their schedules. The night shift at the shop starts at 4:30 so it's a bonus if I can have it ready before then.
Evenings are for taking the kids to a pool/beach /park if they were stuck at home that day, loads of laundry, cleaning, prepping for the next day, doing work for the shop (ordering, bills, shopping, cooking) and eventually watching tv in bed until I fall asleep.
Phil worked at The Cottage six days a week and tried to take Sundays off so we can be together as a family. That means I am home with the kids on Saturdays alone and feel pressured to spend quality time with the kids plus clean the whole house and run errands, meal plan and get groceries so that Sunday can be a fun day when Phil's off work. Phil does more than his fair share around the house (no complaints there) but I want him not to have to do much on his one day off each week.
Let me point out - none of this makes me special. So many moms have a lot to juggle physically and mentally when it comes to raising a family and also being a breadwinner. So many dads have a lot of weight on their shoulders to provide for their family and also be present and available to their wife and kids. We're all busy. We're all burned out. And we keep thinking "Oh when summer's over or when this sport ends, it will get easier" but it never seems to get any easier, you know?
In our case, it feels like Phil and I are going at max capacity and we need the kids to help out more. I have a guilt that comes along with having a big family that was our choice, not their choice, and I never want them to feel like they had to be little moms and dads, raising their siblings. They always had chores to do because they are members of our household, but we are definitely slacking in enforcing the chores and consequences of not doing them with our last three kids. We also never really upped the ante for the big kids when it comes to helping out around the house. Nobody can cook a meal for the family, nobody cleans the house without being asked, nobody puts in an extra load of laundry on their own, etc. etc. Often times it takes me reaching a breaking point (aka mom's yelling so look busy!) before everyone starts running around picking things up.
It has become complicated since the ice cream shop opened last summer because our older kids who work there feel like they are helping us out, which they are since they can manage the store for us at night, but yet they are actually just employees who get paid. If they had a job anywhere else, they would be getting paid and not feel like they were doing US a favor somehow. So if I ask a big kid to throw in a laundry for me, I get pushback sometimes about "I work at the shop so much and then I have to come home and do chores" since we are their "supervisors" at home and work.
Last night, for example, Phil had a Back to School night and I went to watch Eamon's soccer game straight from work, then I had to bring Declan to his soccer practice, and when I came home at 7:30 there were dishes in the sink (from a dinner of chicken fajitas that Phil had cooked for everyone before he left) and crumbs on the table and the dog needed to go out and obviously nobody did a load of laundry and everyone has an excuse about why they can't help. JP is studying for MCATs and Andrew is in Austria and Eamon and Maggie had sports games/practices and are now doing homework, and Xander didn't know that he was supposed to do anything because nobody told him, and Brendan is only 8. But like how is a mom not supposed to lose her mind when she's been going, going, going all day and then comes home to that mess?
No really, I want to know.
How am I supposed to not lose my mind because it feels imminent.
Which brings us back to the night of chatting with Jean. She told me that one of her friends who was a mom got fed up and told her family that she QUIT for a week. For one whole week, she didn't cook or clean or run errands or do laundry until they all realized just how much she did on a daily basis and started helping out more.
I keep fantasizing about it.
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Could I do that? How disgusting would my house be after that week though? I would still have to be a chauffeur, no getting out of that. What is really making it seem impossible is that Phil would just be the one picking up all the slack, which isn't fair or the point I'm trying to make to the kids. So do we both quit? Then of course, that would feel like horrible parenting so we can't. But at what point is it okay for a mom and a dad to feel like they can take time for themselves without being selfish? Does anyone have any helpful advice? I'm open to anything since what we are doing now is not working.
The plan for now is that Phil wants to call a family meeting and instill a chore chart that has daily and weekly chores for everyone. He says if the kids don't do the chores than they can pay us rent. I have no idea how wee Brendan will come up with rent money so chores it is :)
I actually feel better just getting this off my chest, so thanks for reading, you guys are cheaper than therapy!
I hear you loud and clear. Mothering many is no joke, my mind is constantly racing about what I have to do next. I was actually just working this morning on a list of fun quality time activities to do with the twins this year and hoping with them written down they will trump my never ending housework list.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, the list is so helpful to get it off your mind, but then overwhelming to look at! SOmetimes I think moving would be easier than cleaning the house :)
DeleteWe aren't at the same stage and don't have a small business and this is still incredibly relatable. I hope others have some great solutions for you!
ReplyDeleteYou're a working mom so we are the same! I long for the days when families could survive off of one income and moms could stay home if they wanted. But I also know this is what I'm supposed to be doing right now, I think I just need to schedule more down time somehow.
DeleteIt's hard, especially at the start of the school year when all the activities start up again, and you have the ice cream shop too!
ReplyDeleteI just lowered my standards when it got too crazy. Clean laundry can live in a basket for a few days, dinners can be grilled cheese and apples, pasta every other night, .
Do let your children suffer natural consequences, though. Tram uniform dirty? I guess they didn't wash it. No ride to fun activity? Oh too bad, so sad, but that's what you get for not planning ahead. Make sure they're picking up the load for their stuff.
Lowering my standards when it comes to dinners is something I should be doing. Do you read Simcha's blog about their weekly meals? When I see she makes sandwiches for dinner often, I'm always like "Is that an option?" because I think of a warm protein/starch/veggie is what dinner means. And yes they do suffer consequences, that's why the older kids do their own laundry now :)
DeleteOh goodness, Colleen, I can *kind of* relate but on half the scale given that I only have 4 kids and work 3 days a week! I don't know how I would function if I didn't have those two weekdays off to semi-catch up on stuff. First of all I want to say how much I admire you as a mom and a Catholic woman -- your faith and love for your family is so evident. I don't think there is any place where you "went wrong". Life with a lot of people in the same house is just MESSY and it quickly gets out of hand when only one or two people are picking up the slack.
ReplyDeleteObviously take this with a grain of salt since I don't have teens yet but I think Phil's idea is good about having more clearly delineated chores and tasks that are specifically delegated to others. Yes, it's more mental labor to come up with the list/assign it/enforce it, but ultimately I think the house will run more smoothly and I bet everyone will be happier when expectations are clearly communicated (even if they initially grumble). This may be a season for paper plates and easy dinners at least on weeknights.
Again with a grain of salt, as I may feel differently when my own kids are teens, but I do think your older kids shoulder a lot of responsibility incredibly well, between school, sports, work, and their own relationships with friends. Not that that means they shouldn't help out around the house, but I wouldn't expect them to have those Mom Eyes that look at a room and see all the things that need to be done and then do them. Expecting them to clean up after themselves and do their own laundry, in addition to whatever other household tasks you mutually agree on, definitely. And they are old enough that maybe you can make each of them Cleaning Captain for a specific night that works with their schedule and then they do take ownership of making sure the kitchen is clean, and delegating to their siblings if necessary. Maybe don't call it a Cleaning Captain ;) or maybe do!
sorry for writing a novel here but just thinking that you might really like Kendra Adachi's Lazy Genius philosophies to figure out a good solution for this. Part of her approach is to figure out 2 or 3 basic things that are essential for you to feel like the house is clean -- it isn't going to be spotless all the time, but if you can identify a few things that drive you nuts, you can target those specifically (so maybe you want to have the dinner table wiped clean of crumbs, sink empty of dishes, stuff picked up off of the ground, etc).
Anyway, please keep us updated as to how it all pans out! And in the meantime, you should totally order delivery tonight and then go sit outside with a glass of wine while the kids clean up. ;)
Three days a week of work sounds just right honestly, especially since my kids are all in school. You are so right about the teens not having Mom Eyes and being very busy. The chore talk will help tremendously because they are good kids who will do what we ask, they just can't see it on their own. And Phil and I took your advice and went out to dinner while the kids had chicken patties :)
DeleteMy joking/maybe not joking suggestion is that the ones who work have to chip in money for a housecleaner!!! I bet they'd quickly decide helping out is worth their while! Hang in there!
ReplyDeleteHow amazing would that be? We know a family that had a rule where everybody had chores, but once you were working, you could choose to give 10% of your earnings to the family and get out of doing chores. I don't think I could make my kids do that, but it is an interesting solution!
DeleteOh, Colleen. You never cease to amaze me. You clean your house? Was I supposed to be doing that? Hee hee. Sort of. Housework is the first thing to go when life is nutty over here. If I can clear the kitchen counter of the clutter once a month or so, I feel like I'm winning. We do have a chore chart. I made it over the summer, but I left the big kid chores as Drive someone, or Run to the grocery store for whatever I want - a lot of the time. The jobs assigned on our chore chart are the things that only take minutes to do, but 1. I don't want to be bothered, and 2. kids can handle it and have no room to complain because it takes minutes. I assigned clean out microwave, scrub kitchen sink, sweep kitchen, and vacuum family room to different people so that if all goes well, those things get done 2x a week. But -if those things got done once a week- great. I do the laundry for everyone who isn't in college, but I have laundry folding as a job once or twice a week. I was not as demanding of my caddies who also play a sport or are prepping interview stuff for internships, but that way I could ask them to spend some time with a foster girl in the yard playing volleyball, etc. as needed. Each kid had a night to do the kitchen and no one wants to have their father come home from a long day of being on his feet treating patients and grumble WHY AM I DOING THIS? and start slamming dishes into the dishwasher. I've never seen kids move so fast.
ReplyDeleteNow, we're back at school and the chore chart still includes the names of college kids who aren't here to do their kitchen duty. Rae will call out, It's Tank's turn to do kitchen. And we all laugh. I've been making HUGE batches of dinners that get alternated every other night till they're gone, everyone heats up a plate or I plug the crockpot back in, and they all thank me for dinner. Our meals are yummy, but nothing is over the top fancy. Coach grills whenever he's able.
Sheesh it sounds like our place is running like a well oiled machine. Far from it. I OFTEN wake up in the morning and the kitchen counters never got washed after dinner, because some kids don't bother to wipe anything down. I hate that SO MUCH. But if the dishwasher was loaded and run, I'll take it. We live like savages over here, you know? wink, wink. There are currently four baskets of laundry that need to be folded on the family room couches. Eek. It'll get done eventually. *also, Curly got home from an away volleyball game at 9 pm. I hate how they have to sit and watch the lower levels play. I get why they do that, but a kid with AP classes needs time to study. I don't make Curly do much around the house during the week.
You are not alone and your kids are amazing. You're an inspiration with what you juggle, how you practice your faith in action, and you probably don't even say bad words. ;) I like Phil's idea of the family meeting. Maybe tell the kids If you See something, Clean something, so mom and dad don't have to do EVERYTHING. Maybe point out that you want to have fun and relax after work too, so all the pitching in can help the overall family good vibe. Good luck. I hope everyone falls into a great fall routine.
I only say bad words in my head - ha! I love that your kids get moving when Dad has to start cleaning - that's the respect I want! Phil is known to say "There is no maid that lives here!" when he sees me rage cleaning and the kids jump up to help. I think they just assume that moms should be the ones cleaning and cooking, but don't realize I've also been working all day while they are at school. I'll find a balance. We are talking about seeing if we can swing having me work one less day a week, which always seems crazy to me to make less money if I can be making more when we will have four kids in med school and college in two years. I feel like these are our hustling years and eventually we can calm down, but now doesn't make sense.
DeleteThank you so much for this encouragement!! It's funny because when I see moms with little babies and toddlers, I think "Oh boy, you are in the trenches and it gets easier!" but then I don't give myself that same grace with the stage I'm at, so seriously, thank you for your perspective!
ReplyDeleteWe homeschool our ten and they're in lots of sports, music, general activities. I tell them that if they can't help out, we can't do those things. It's just not feasible and I'm willing to drop activities if they don't help. Of course, being home gives me more time to nag them, lol. I do have chore charts hung up...chores done as part of being a family, not for allowance. They're hung up right next to my "command center" so I can check them every evening. My teens don't have as many chores because I do ask them to babysit or drive the others sometimes. I've also tried to make everything as routine as possible so there's not as much question about what to do (the after dinner chores are the same, the weekly chores like washing sheets and cleaning bedrooms is always the same day, etc). You're so organized, I imagine you have all that in place, it just maybe needs some tweaking and some making sure everyone's on the same page (aka Phil's family meeting!). But I'm like you....young adults down to a two year old....each age/stage has its difficulties much less mixing all of the ages! Offer up the difficulties (I always feel sarcastic saying it but I mean it sincerely). Also give yourself lots of grace because the start of the school year is always rough.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the reminder that this time of year is always rough! We still haven't had the family meeting because we are never all at home (or all awake) at the same time, it's crazy!
DeleteI think they most important thing is make sure you assign chores in a way that makes it clear who didn't do it, so no one can escape.
ReplyDeleteSo, I would assign each kid 13 and up a day of the week when it would be their job to make dinner for the whole family. They would be able to cook anything they like, as long as there was at least one vegetable. It could be as simple as rice, sausages and salad, or homemade burgers, or pasta and veggie sauce. Their idea, their execution.
As for the little kids, one could be assigned loading the dishwasher, and the other would unload. That way, they can't say they did their fair share, when they didn't. It would be clear who was at fault.
Also, I would stop doing laundry for the high school kids. In a short time they will be on their on, so it's good training for their future.
Loving the dinner idea!! I should clarify, the teens do their own laundry. The problem is that they won't move along the rest of the laundry as they need to do theirs. Like if our clothes are in the dryer, and they put theirs in the washer, they won't just fold ours when it's time to put theirs in the dryer because it's not "their laundry". But then when it's in reverse, and I need to move our clothes to the dryer but the teens clothes are in there, I fold their clothes to get them out of the way.
DeleteOhhh, I feel this. I think we might have a lot in common (minus the fact that I only have 2 kids :)), in the sense that I think we both are trying to do ALL the things. I have had these same exact feelings and thoughts so many times. You, like I am, are trying to work full time, manage a dog, exercise daily, provide home cooked meals, keep up the house, manage kids in lots of activities... same, same, same, same! But what I have realized is that often when I look at "other people" who I compare myself to, who seem to be "doing at all" more effortlessly than it feels to me, is that there is usuall some kind of important catch. Like, they have a full time nanny who does all the laundry and meal preps. Or they have a spouse who works very part time, or household help who cooks dinner every night, or they have kids who just really aren't in many activities... it's pretty rare to ACTUALLY find someone who is truly "doing it all". Probably because it's darn near impossible! We also do not have any household help, the boys are busy (slightly alleviated now that my oldest just got his driver's license, #gamechanger!), and I put pressure on myself to exercise basically daily (I just really love to lift weights, but also try to do some cardio and then on top of that we have a 1 year old young dog who I ended up being the one to walk almost an hour a day total...).
ReplyDeleteOur boys (14 and 16) also have part-time jobs, so I hear you about it feeling hard to ask for TOO much help when already doing school and sports and jobs! (That said, summer just ended, and I assure you they had PLENTY of downtime/ video games, etc, so I don't feel too bad for them.) They also do not seem capable to seeing a room and noticing anything that needs to me. Drives me nuts, yep. What we do is have some set chores at least, to keep a baseline. They each have to "deep clean" (er, sort of.. mileage may vary...) their bedrooms every weekend. Every other week they have to each clean a bathroom. They rotate turns cutting the grass when needed and they alternate months being in charge of garbage/recycle bin take out. For day to day stuff, I ask them to make their beds and pick up room- this is maybe an 80% completion type thing.
Definitely no one is helping cook. This is a concern of mine.... but currently they aren't home until later from practice anyway. I do worry that they're turning into men who will be useless in the kitchen!! Need to figure this out. They unload dishwasher etc when we ask them to. Same for any other random chores. But yeah, it is frustrating that no one just "pitches in" more automatically!!!!
Also, wonder if you feel the same I do in that when the weekend comes, it feels like you have to spend so much time just doing basic household cleaning, etc., that there's never any time to get to the "household projects"?? Like, cleaning out closets, storage areas, decluttering, etc.? And then those things start to drive you nuts because you never get to them, but by the time you finish the more "basic" chores, now you're too tired to also clean out closets and are just wishing you had more free time to just relax and enjoy the weekend like it seems everyone else does? (and/or go off to kids/family events...) That's my biggest pet peeve about housework and why I have been debating if maybe we should just bite the bullet and hire cleaners. But it feels like a chunk of money that is "avoidable" and our house isn't even that big! So we waver on it.
Ugh yes about the big chores not getting done! Whenever we have an unexpected day off (like a snow day or sick day) we clean closets or something big like that. Or I make it a Lent thing. And I agree so much on comparing to other families and figuring out that they don't do it all. It is near impossible! And it's certainly not fun. Trying to figure out some system that will help :)
DeleteI don't know if anyone has mentioned anything like this yet, but... we moved around a lot (every two years, Navy family) and I homeschooled our nine kids for over twenty years (bc of all the moves and we couldn't afford Catholic schools). We taught our kids to do their own laundry, beginning at ten years old. So I only did the little kids' laundry and I think my husband's too. We didn't do 'chore charts' or lists or anything fussy like that- it would have been one more thing for me to keep up with. My husband is a naturally-organized Naval officer, so he devised a rotation system that worked perfectly for us. Starting at age eight or so, on every Sunday each kid got one room to clean on the main floor- family room, kitchen, bathroom, breakfast nook, etc. He or she would be responsible for cleaning that room for the next week. The following Sunday, they'd rotate to the next adjacent room and keep that up for a week. No lists, stickers, stars or anything. I couldn't teach in a messy house so our main chore time was before school. Of course kitchen was the hardest since they'd be loading/unloading for three meals. I'd pitch in with the younger ones in the kitchen (8 year olds) til they got a little taller : ). They didn't mind *too* much though since the following Sunday they'd move to an easier room that they only needed to vacuum and tidy up once a day. Here's the thing, though- my kids had some outside activities and sports but not nearly as many as yours have. They'd do one sport and that's it. I think I would have keeled over from exhaustion! And once the older ones were working a lot of hours they 'graduated' off the rotation (just bc they weren't home as much). The younger kids picked up the slack. But the older kids still did their own laundry of course. And somehow they all made it through college haha but I still miss those days when we were all home together.
ReplyDeleteLove your room per week situation. Homeschooling is great but also I can only imagine how messy our home would get if we were all there all the time! We only allow our kids to do one sport per season, and we don't do travel teams (with the exception of a volleyball league that's required off season) and yet still, the schedule is crazy pants! I can't even imagine adding travelling to what we do. I feel like my 8 year old just could not clean a bathroom yet or vacuum, but when my oldest was 8 years old, I probably thought he could, so maybe I need to re-evaluate their capabilities.
DeleteOh I often think the perfect schooling situation doesn't exist; in fact I felt kind of forced to homeschool so I wasn't pushy or elitist about it. And because they were home and available it was a little easier for my kiddos to clean up before we began our day. My oldest was 7 when we had him begin doing dishes (at least unloading what he could reach)- but at that point he had three younger brothers so I probably treated him like he was older : ), and each of our other kids stepped up around the same age. I also did 30 meals in a day (once-a-month cooking) for a few years in the thick of the busy-ness. Lol- it was kind of a fad back in the day..... I got together with another mom and we cooked all day, ending up with 30 meals each- six repeats of five different dinners for the freezer. The meals ended up lasting quite a bit longer than one month, since some nights I wanted to cook, and we'd eat out occasionally too. But not everyone has a free weekend day once a month. Re: laundry, I think a ten year old is probably capable enough to do his/her own laundry.
DeleteColleen, so much respect for you always. I truly don't know how you do it! The only thing I can say, since I'm not where you are now, is when I was a teenager, I did my own laundry and I did the dishes every night. In fact, I was so missed when I went to college, my parents bought a dishwasher after 13+ years of not having one! I think it's not asking so much of them to depend on them in that way that they really are indispensable to the family. We've finally hit a point where my oldest does the dishes every night (although, we step in when she gets swamped with homework or it's too late) and it's really lovely. I do do the mental and physical work of feeding my family full time, so its only right that they clean up afterwards. I'm sure you'll figure something out! You guys are black belt level parents!
ReplyDeleteCan you come to my house and do the dishes every night? Ha! My teens are actually helpful with doing dishes, they are just literally barely home, and when they are, they have so much homework. Did you not do sports or work a job as a teenager?
DeleteOh those younger kids are always spoiled ;) So interesting to read about how you were raised. I was raised where we could play lots of sports, take dance, music lessons, etc. There were six of us but activities back then were like once a week town leagues...no club or travel. My parents would hardly come to any of my high school games bc it was an hour away from home, and I did a lot of getting rides from other people! It's just not like that anymore. It seems so much more complicated now and we try to keep it as simple as possible but simple times seven kids is never really simple, ya know? And everything is right smack in the middle of dinner time or dinner prep time because almost everyone works and can't make it until after work. It's so hard but I don't want my kids to not learn and play sports/music so we just struggle through, I guess.
DeleteIn fairness, it seems like Andrew has an excuse ;)
ReplyDeleteIt's all so hard. My parents reached a similar breaking point and they had to go back to basics with a chore chart with us. and at dinner each night, whether a friend was there or not, we had to do a round-robin style of if we did XYZ yet and don't forget to do ABC after dinner, don't forget to check it off the chore list, etc. This was until it was drilled in our heads and a habit. I remember we teens all whined how embarrassing it was when our friends came over and saw our chore list or had to listen to our dinner check-in haha
Andrew does have an excuse...for now ;) I can imagine how embarrassing that was for you guys, but also can see how your parents needed it! I remember one time my dad made my boyfriend wait in the family room until I cleaned my bathroom because I hadn't done it yet that week. Oooh I was so mad and embarrassed!
DeleteI remember that same frustration, and I only had TWO kids and I only worked part-time.
ReplyDeleteI think Phil is onto something with the daily chore chart; small hands can make an impact, even the larger hands that have a job and school can do a little to help out.
If that doesn't work, ya'll need to Strike for a week, but don't tell them you're striking, just stop doing it all and see if they notice. Let us know what you decide. Sending big hugs to the Mom who does it all. XO
A secret strike - yes!!!
DeleteThe big family guilt is so, so relatable. My husband reminds our kids (and models it too) that we all live in this house so it is our shared responsibility to take care of it. We also say out loud to the kids, "You've got X number of years before you leave this house and need to be a functional adult, and adults need to know how to do dishes, wash their clothes, etc." It is so hard!
ReplyDelete