The New Deal

In an effort to maintain my sanity, I tried to LIG with regards to the housework. What ensued was total chaos and disaster. It came to the point that at the end of the day, I wanted to go anywhere except home so I decided on a New Deal. I divided up most of chores I felt could easily be handled by the other members of our little family and wrote them down on scraps of paper and each week we draw for 5 chores. Everyone is responsible for completing their chores in a timely fashion. Doesn't matter how, just that they get done. If anyone flakes out, the family member who completes the chore is to be compensated for their time. No yelling, no endless list of mundane household tasks eating up entire weekends and no mess, right?! Wrong! In the first two weeks, I thought "This is going great! I have free time on my hands and the house is not a disaster area!" By the end of the third week, I realized I was the only one getting their chores done, everything else was just...not.

Now, the tantrum I threw certainly doesn't compare to this, but I think I made my point without assaulting any remote controls. Taking the laundry basket down to the basement and leaving it for a week does not count as 'doing' the laundry, nor does leaving it in the machine, or in the basket. If I have to hunt for my work clothes at 6 am, I'm bound to be unhappy and if I have to look in the backyard, Lily the Destroyer will wind up 'missing'. Moving the piles of crap from one end of the table to the other end is not 'straightening up' and the sink is not a lay over to the dishwasher! It isn't just the inconvenience that such chaos creates that bothers me. To me, this little family is everything. I'd do anything for them but for months I'd been asking for help and what I needed was being pushed off to the side, to be gotten around to, if they had the time. I decided I was taking back my free time. Not all of it; that would be impossible but a few minutes at the end of the day, an hour a week, whatever I could get. But I wasn't going to live like a pig either and I told them so. For Micha's part, he knew it was coming and he did his best to make it up to me, even sending me flowers after I'd been the one yelling. Mumbles' was a different story. Had I raised a lazy and unsympathetic child? It's funny how, in those rare moments when we see our children's faults, we immediately blame ourselves. She did come to understand that I wasn't just upset about the chores, but about her attitude toward Micha and myself in general. I was hard on her despite knowing it's, in part, her age. Maybe the problem is we've chalked too much of the 'tween attitude up to being a 'phase'. No matter what age a child is, they are still part of a family and as a family, it's just as important to work together to support each other as it is to spend quality time together doing 'fun' things. I wonder how other families accomplish this?

While I've relaxed my housekeeping standards, I still need to have a place to come home to and not see every undone thing glaring me in the face the second I walk through the door. We are still drawing for chores each week and everyone is doing a better job of pitching in. Hopefully, this New Deal will lead to more time for us to do some fun things as a family. If the weather holds out, we're hoping to enjoy the May Day festivities this weekend at Lanesfield Historic Site.