By Sharon M.
Many people have asked me how I can possibly “do it all” with caring for my 4 young children, working a part-time job, volunteer work, extracurricular activities, and cooking, cleaning and laundry for 6 people. The first thing I usually say is, “I don’t do it all!” I know that Babybunching.com has addressed the issue of overwhelming housework before, but since it’s a perpetual issue for all of us I thought I might put my 2 cents in.
I learned early on that my type A personality needed to let some things go in order to survive having a big family. For instance, I value my time with the kids more than keeping a super-clean house. Currently I am the only one who is capable of doing all the household chores for the 6 people living in my house. My husband works 6 days a week and my kids are all too young to help much (ages 5 and under). Essentially, there’s only one of me versus a pile of dirty clothes, a stack of dirty dishes and roomfuls of cluttery toys. Generally anything “dirty” gets my attention long before I get around to something “cluttery.” Since I value my time with the kids during the day and absolutely require my downtime at night after they go to bed, a few household chores are bound to pile up.
Whenever it seems that I have too much to do, I simply must prioritize! In other words, I do basic maintenance cleaning only on a daily basis. As a matter of pride, I do a more thorough cleaning when company comes over. This means that I put off dusting or clearing out all the toys until a friend stops by. I actually make it a point to schedule a play date every now and then just to give me a reason for making the house sparkling clean. Otherwise, I just don’t see the great need for dusting the bookshelves or vacuuming the fanblades when I could be teaching my son new words to read!
I take comfort in knowing that one day the children will be old enough to clean thoroughly and independently (they’re starting to get there already!). Then I can once again sit back and enjoy the comfort of a tidy house. Until then, I have resigned myself to a life of toys and dust in every nook and cranny of the house. The clutter of toys may have won today but their victory will be short!!
Sharon M. is mother to a Bunch of 4--four under 5 to be exact.
What a good mindset. I often tell my husband that we need to have people come over at least once in a while, so I HAVE to do a good clean of the house! Otherwise I try not to worry about it too much.
Posted by: Sara | Aug 02, 2010 at 10:40 PM
thank you for this post!!! I just had a talk about this kind of thing with hubby this morning! Even though we both work full-time, I am still 90% responsible for our bunch (3 under 3) AND the housework and it seems difficult for him to understand not keeping up with the mountains of work!!!i will be sharing this with him!! :)
Posted by: Jaymi | Aug 04, 2010 at 09:09 AM
Thanks for this post, sometimes I feel like it is just me that cant keep up (even though I know better). I have to remember that my kids come first and not feel guilty about that!
Posted by: Lorie Norman | Aug 04, 2010 at 01:28 PM