I have been asked how I do it all. All, I guess, meaning raise a son, work full time, workout six days a week, have hobbies and friends and a marriage AND keep a clean house. If that is what that question meant, my simple answer would be a few things.
- I never let the work fall behind
- I take pride in my house looking like an adult space
- I shifted my mindset on chores
- I am not doing it all
I have always been a tidier. I am in a constant state of tidying up. On my way to the kitchen for a drink, I wipe up that spill on the counter. I take that jacket off the back of the dining room chair and hang it up in the bedroom. I grab that towel off the bed and throw it in the laundry room. While I’m there, I start a load of laundry. Then I head back to the kitchen for that drink.
Some might find this an extremely exhausting way to go through, life but for me, it is a matter of sanity. If I’m not tidying my house on my way through, what am I doing? Probably complaining about how messy my house is!
I try to be always on top of the house work because once you fall behind, playing catch up is what becomes exhausting. I make my house a priority.
Here come the haters. “Easy for you to say, you only have ONE child!”
How right you are. One child who has his own room and all, yes all, of his toys live in that room. This one child does not pay rent and is therefore not entitled to any share of the common areas of the house. He has graciously been gifted a small section of space to call his own provided he keeps that space up to par. We are desperately trying to earn the title of “Meany parents.”
When he was less independent, Cillian did have a corner of the living room designated as his play space, but now that he is old enough to play unsupervised, everything in the living space of the house is toy free. I want my house to feel like adults live here and are welcome here. I do not want to feel like I live in a daycare or a toy store. That feeling is what keeps me on top of cleaning up!
In my opinion, no amount of children is a good enough excuse to let your house keeping go to crap. If your house keeping skills are less-than, blame someone other than your children. If it is something you choose not to prioritize, that is just fine. But don’t pretend it is the kids’ fault. You were probably this way before kids too. You will find time for what you find value in.
I know that house work it is not everyone’s favorite thing, but I want my house to look a certain way. I want it to be staged but livable; Clean but comfortable. How my house looks when I walk in the door from work sets the tone for the rest of my evening. Having it filled with adult things that I love and free of child-mess encourages me to keep it looking and feeling that way!
It is all in the mindset. I stage my house the way I want, no, NEED it to look and I expect to keep it that way. I teach my son to clean up after himself. I teach him not to touch things that are not his, keeping in mind that the things that make my house feel like a peaceful adult home are just things. They are expendable, washable, and replaceable. I would be very upset if my son took a sharpie to our floors. I would punish him appropriately and then get out the alcohol and clean it off the floors. I might cry if he got a hold of and broke my grandmother’s vase, but that vase is not my memory of her. Life would go on.
Speaking of mindset shifting, do you think about how you will find time to got to work every day? It is 8-12 hours of your day! How do you find the time?! You don’t. You just go. You go because you have to. You go because working supports your way of life. You go because that job provides for your family. It is the same with chores. How do you find the time to wash dishes every day? You don’t wait until you find the time. You just do it. Those chores aren’t something that need to be stuffed in the crack between real life, they ARE real life. Washing dishes is like brushing your teeth. It needs to be done regularly to keep things functioning properly!
If you view chores as an irruption to your day, yeah, you might skip them and let them get behind and become bigger than they should be. But if you treat them like part of adult life that simply must be done, suddenly they do not feel so terrible.
Oh, and I said I wasn’t doing it all. That’s because I’m not. I have a partner who I expect to do a fair share of it. I chose him to share in the rest of my life, and it is also his job to keep that life going smoothly. When we started in this relationship, he had different priorities and might have thought my way of keeping a house clean was a little insane, probably neurotic, but after seeing how much I crave a tidy house, he made it his priority too. He sees the value in having a home that is peaceful and orderly.
He washes dishes more often than I do, and I wash laundry more often then he does. If we sit down to watch TV, we both fold the clean laundry and make sure it is put away promptly. While he cooks, I clean the bathroom. While I clean up dinner, he helps our son clean his room. That is what a partnership feels like to us.
We both also agree that it is important to teach our son those values. I know it is incredibly exhausting to watch our two year old take thirty minutes to clean up his block with constant supervision and more than occasional prompting when you could have done it yourself in 2.5 seconds, but it would be even more exhausting to be cleaning up after him for the next eighteen to twenty years. No part of parenting is quick or easy. It is not supposed to be. It is an investment in the future and investments always take time. Teaching our son to put his toys away or take his dirty clothes to the laundry room is part of teaching him how to function as a adult.
Investing time and energy into your home is the easiest way to invest in your family.
XO Beka
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