Labora and Little Ones

I wish that I knew how to perfectly and gradually increase the children's training of how to do domestic chores, but it seems instead that I have to reach a mini "crisis" first, then I lurch forward, improving anew how things run around here. Repeatedly, that is how it has happened.

It seems to me that three months into being a mother of four, I reached another one of these thresholds, where I felt I'd plunge over the cliff into chaos or I'd whip us into shape. I have tried to chose the latter.

When I watch big families, one of my impressions is that the children become highly competent at doing the myriad tasks and duties required to run a home. With so many children, it simply becomes impossible for a child to be coddled, to be crippled by having not been taught to work. Perhaps I am mistaken--and I am sure there are exceptions--but this is what I have seen from the outside when getting to know large families.

Around here, one of my recent trouble spots was after meal times, most acutely after dinner time: I'd have already been in the kitchen--wearing Joseph!--for an hour preparing dinner (and often setting the table because it's more effort for me to call in the children to do it than to do it myself), then after eating for ten minutes the children would clear one plate and scatter off to play. I'd continue cleaning the kitchen (or return to do it at nine at night), resulting in a double problem of the little ones treating me like a restaurant (at which they didn't even pay for services!) and their being off unsupervised, getting into squabbles, and making new messes. Really, the situation was shameful for children as old as four and six, in our opinion.

Our parental solution is two-fold and still experimental. One, we sat down the children and said we'd made a mistake to be letting them run off, that we were going to clean up as a family. Two--and this is the still-experimental part--we moved all the dishes to the lower cupboards so the children can reach them easily. This enables them to fully unload the clean dishes from the dishwasher and to set the table without any assistance on my part. So far this week, the new system is making this One Happy Mama. After dinner, we pray Grace After Meals, the children then clear the entire table (which required my explaining that it wasn't just taking say, their one main dish, to the sink, while leaving all their other dishes, the cups, serving dishes, and napkins on the table: it means making the table clear so it can be wiped). I still put leftover food in storage containers and wash the dishes. Meanwhile, after clearing, one child wipes the table well and the other child sweeps the floor. The entire clean-up takes 15 quick minutes! This means I can go into Family Rosary feeling peaceful and, once the children are in bed, I can often sit down and relax. And, truthfully, the children are showing great enthusiasm to be part of a team. We even put all our hands in and say, "Teeeeam [surname]!"

You laugh, but the Barney clean-up song remains a motivator!

In other areas, I am increasing the chores the children are taught how to do. It's hard not to slip up because it remains easier to do the work myself than to train the children and enforce that they do it. However, with this fourth baby, the scales are tipping and I don't have the time to keep up with the work if I do it all by myself. So the children have been doing a lot more vacuuming, dusting, making of beds, sweeping, mopping, switching of laundry loads, cleaning of bathrooms, general picking-up, and holding the baby. I have changed my reflection from, "What chores can they do" to "What chores can't they do?" Honestly, with some modifications of technique and expectations, there is not much they can't do.

With all these chores, how do I have time to write this blog post? Joseph had to nurse, so this is my sitting down and typing one-handed time!

Sometimes I still pick up toys for the children but I virtually never do it in front of them and, when I do pick up the toys, I chastise myself every time: "Katherine, you are denying the children an opportunity to learn how to work and to care for their belongings." Not saying I never pick up their stuff, just saying that I try to be honest with myself that I'm being lazy because it is easier to pick up a messy homeschooling room myself in seven minutes than train children (coax, cajole, discipline, hand out consequences, listen to screaming, haul tantruming child elsewhere) and watch the same pick-up take 27 minutes.

Also--and this is so cute!--Mary (4) is learning how to take care of Margaret (2). John (6) seems to pair quite well with Joseph (3 months), plus the oldest child is more trustworthy to take care of the delicate infant. Lately I realized that Mary pairs well with Margaret: they haven't started fighting yet. So I appealed to Mary's desire to be a Little Mommy and I taught her how to dress Margaret for bed or for the day, as well as how to change her (wet) diaper. At first, I limited my using Mary's assistance to the mornings, but then one night Margaret was bleary-eyed with fatigue and I was not able to pause my task to put her to bed. "Mary, do you think you're a big-enough girl to take Margaret upstairs, change her diaper, get her in to her night gown, and maybe even lay down in bed with her and read her a book?" Success!

These changes are such a joy to me. Besides relieving me of sheer work and requiring me to reduce perfectionist tendencies--so the toddler's nightgown was put on inside out?--these changes should also equip the children with abilities needed as adults, teach them spiritually how to work diligently with more contentedness and fewer complaints, foster closeness among siblings caring for littler ones, cause true self-esteem that comes from being a needed and competent member of a family, and occupy some of their time that otherwise might have too high of a ratio being spent in vapid idleness (e.g., junk TV, complaints of boredom, getting into sibling fights).

Ora et labora!