family chore time

So I wrote briefly in my Sabbath post about how we've been trying to do family chore time on either Friday or Saturday, so that on Sundays, we can just chill in our clean house. (Seriously, I so recommend this.) The other side of this is the whole concept of "family chore time," which is something we are trying to instill into our family's rhythm. It is one of those strange new frontiers of having a school-aged child. At some point over the course of the past year, we started to realize - HEY. If my child is old enough to get her own clothes on, and be potty trained, then for crying out loud, she is old enough to have chores!! (Admittedly this is a weak point in our parenting.) We had made something of an effort to get her to put her toys away, mostly when we had our own apartment in Chicago. But living with my parents over the past year, we got seriously lazy in the chores department. (Sorry Mom and Dad...your gracious tolerance of our total chaotic takeover of your house still amazes me.)

So here's the truth: I stink at doing chores. 

Seriously. I'm terrible. I will avoid and procrastinate and put things off as long as I possibly can, until it absolutely must be done, at which point the task has mounted to a level that induces panic and total overwhelmedness. At which point, the obvious response is to continue to avoid it, whine about how overwhelming it is, and use all the passive and manipulative patterns in my repertoire to get someone else (read:NATE) to do said chores for me. I would like to think that I have improved in this department over the course of our marriage, and certainly there have been times when I have put heartfelt effort into doing a better job. But the truth remains that, on the whole, I really just stink at doing chores.

Now on the other hand, Nate decidedly does NOT stink at doing chores. His parents did a great job of instilling in him the value of tidying as you go, and they had family chore time every Saturday morning. The way he tells it to me (so feel free to correct for accuracy if you were present for said events), his Mom would post a chore list on Saturday morning. Each of the five kids in the family would have to sign up for a set number (2 or 3), and it was first-come, first-served. So the earlier you got down there to sign up, the better/easier chores you got to have. And by lunchtime, chores were over for the day, and everyone could move on with their lives.

I have loved this idea ever since Nate first described it to me, for a few reasons. Number one, I love the structure and routine of it. There is a set and predictable time every week when everyone does chores, and there's no fighting or dragging it out. It's just chore time. period. From a mom's perspective, I wouldn't have to look at the messy fridge every day feeling guilty and stressed about how I really should be cleaning that. I can know that, it's okay, I have CHORE TIME and it's on the calendar. I will clean the fridge during chore time. This brings a surprising amount of emotional peace to me. Obviously many chores must be done throughout the course of the week...but there's still something to be said for two to three devoted hours to those tasks that really are just weekly ones.

Number two, I love the idea of the family all doing chores together, at the same time. A big theme going back and forth between Nate and I lately is, "We're a team." Having just moved to the South, away from our family and away from our friends, it's more important than EVER before that we stick together. It's the only way we're going to make it. And chores is one of those areas that tends to produce conflict for us (given the fact that I stink at doing them). So, I love the teamwork idea of family chore time.

And number three, I really hope that we can instill in our kids the same approach to cleaning that Nate has - that it's not a big deal, just a normal part of life, and if you just do a little bit all along the way, things won't pile up and get so out of hand. I really want my kids to not struggle with this the way I do. Hopefully family chore time is one way I can work toward that parenting goal.

So it's funny that I was already thinking about all of this, because this morning in my inbox I got this blog post about the joy of family chores. It's from a ministry called Connected Families and while some of the content can be idealistic, overly simplified, or even cheesy (including the post I just linked to), at the same time, I love their underlying philosophy of parenting (CONNECTED FAMILIES...says it all). I really do find a lot of their stuff encouraging in this "steady on, mate" marathon of intentional parenting. And while I will never buy three lawn mowers for the sake of togetherness like the mom in the story, I love how they encouraged the cheerful teamwork side of family chores, rather than the "if you don't do this right now, you're going to get it" philosophy.

Funny how in helping your kids grow up, half the time it's you who has to grow up. Such is definitely the case here.

So there you have it...family chore time. To teach me how to have a good attitude about chores, just as much as my kids. I'll let you know how it continues on.