“Mom, I clean better than you…”
August 3, 2006
"Mom, I clean these better than you, don't you think?" my seven year exclaimed the other day as he displayed several pots he had scrubbed out and rinsed. Thanks to my husband's insistence on their chore training, my son, as well my five, three and one and half year old daughters do a big part of the cleaning up after each meal. Seeing him hold up a clean pot brought back a distant memory.
When I was a teenager, I worked two summers on organic farms in New England. One farm in Vermont had a big old 1800's farmhouse where those of us working the land would live. The farm hands were a fluid menagerie of mostly neo hippies and college students, with some staying a few weeks and others working from planting through harvest. Besides the arduous farm work, we all had to pitch in with the housework.
One day a fellow in his 20's joined us. When it was his turn for dish duty, he took me aside and sheepishly asked if I would teach him how to wash each kind of dish, pot, cup, etc. I said I would, but wondered why he needed me to teach him something so simple. "I’ve never washed dishes before," he admitted, "My parents always had housekeepers who did that."
Now I am not going to pick on anyone who hires a house cleaner. But many of my generation of parents tend to view homeschooling as "school at home" so housework is seen as a useless burden. Often those who can, hire someone. Most of us cannot afford hired help, but instead may be tempted to drop one or more of the kids off at preschool. Or, a mom may go around feeling picked on, always cleaning up after kids who have no knowledge that they should be helping mom in a big way. I used to view housework as this mountain I had to blast through each day before I could get to the learning (and with four little ones and two more in utero, housework in our place is no small hill to climb) – until I was convicted by some veteran homeschoolers on this issue.
Now I see the ability to clean up a home as a valuable life skill, the training for which can be interwoven within the day. I don’t use my kids as slave labor nor would my home win any Good Housekeeping awards anytime soon. But, there is triumph in seeing these little kids make their beds by themselves, handle a vacuum bigger than they are, fold laundry, clean up a kitchen or bathroom – and do it with zeal, knowing they are an important part of the running of the household.
If you are in Southern California: If you need some practical advice and to know there is a Godly purpose to housework, please attend our next Considering Homeschooling Homeschool Information Night: "Keeping House, Homeschooling, and Keeping Your Sanity" presented by Susan Beatty of CHEA on August 26 at 5pm in Irvine. Please see www.ochome.org for details.
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