We Do It To Ourselves

Quite often, we as women, wives, and mothers feel like we're over worked and under appreciated. Through conversations I've had and comments I've heard, I've come to the conclusion that often, we do it to ourselves. I know you're thinking it's not my fault that my husband comes home from work and plops himself on the couch all evening or that my kids are lazy and refuse to help with household chores, but I'm going to tell you that it is, to an extent. Now, before you all start throwing tomatoes at me, let me explain. First off, I know that everyone is different and in different situations, and I know that we can't FORCE anyone to help us out, but most of us can probably be doing more to help those around us WANT to help us more. The first comment that got me thinking about this was made in Relief Society a few weeks ago. Our lesson was on Work, and the comment was made that its a lazy mom who doesn't make her kids do chores. Like many of you, my first thought was, "I'm doing ALL the work, how does that make ME lazy?" But think about it, if you're doing everything, that means you're taking the easy way out. You're not teaching your kids to work. It's hard to teach kids, especially little ones, how to work. It takes time and patience as you help them do it over and over until they get it right. For me, part of the problem was my way of thinking. I always knew I'd give J chores. . . when she was older. I thought what could a 3 yr old do that would be of any help. We've always had J put away her toys, and occasionally put away her clean clothes or put her dirty dishes in the sink. But on weeks like this one when I don't get clothes folded until after she's gone to bed I've just put her clothes away for her, and her dinner plate is still on the kitchen table because I was feeding the boys when she got done eating and I didn't remind her to take care of it. I'm going to try harder to leave her chores for her to do and to figure other age appropriate household chores for her to do. This will be trying for me because it means leaving her folded clothes sitting out until she gets home from school tomorrow and not getting all the cleaning done while she's at school or during quiet time. It means accepting thing as she does them even if it's not "my way" of doing them (as long as it's clean, right?). That leads me to a conversation I over heard at play group today. These two women were talking about how they wished their husbands/ older kids would help out more around the house. These women also acknowledged that it was partially their fault that they weren't getting the help they wanted. We as women sometimes get into a habit of doing our chores a certain way and we start to expect others to do them that exact same way. I too am guilty of this. Erik hates to fold clothes because t-shirts and towels have to be folded a certain way. It's taken a few years, but I can now let him fill the dish washer with out stressing out that he did it "wrong". One of these ladies commented that she didn't want to become like her mother, who was so obsessed about how things were done around the house that her father did nothing and it had been like this for as long as she could remember and now that her parents were getting older, her mother was resentful that her father did nothing to help. She found herself falling into the same patterned and was trying to change it. I sometimes wonder if this was just the social norm of those days - the man did his work outside the home and the home was the woman's domain - and that we 'inherited' these traits from our mothers. I know that growing up we had to fold and refold towels until we got them exactly how my mom wanted and I can recall times that she'd go behind us after we had filled the dishwasher and rearrange it. These two women found themselves doing similar things and as a result they found that their husbands and older children were more hesitant to do things around the house. I mean why even try only to have someone go behind you and do it again. I understand having kids do a chore again if they didn't do it correctly - but not because they didn't do it they way you (we) would have done it. I know its going to take some work on my part to let J's chores wait until she gets home from school or to let Erik clean things his way but 10 years down the road, I don't want a lazy family because I was too lazy to teach them today.