On the flip side

[laundrycrisis]

This is the flip side of someone with young kids and a partner with unrealistic expectations....

 

Our kids are getting older now, and there are only two of them. My husband drives a long commute and works a lot of hours. He is supportive of me being at home and homeschooling, and I am truly grateful for this. Now that I am no longer changing diapers and chasing toddlers, I do wish I could consistently keep the house cleaner. I feel guilty when he comes home to a mess. I feel bad that I don't get meals planned, shopping done and dinners cooked. When he stops somewhere on the way home from work, to pick up supplies for dinner, because I didn't have what I needed to make anything, I feel bad. I know he's tired. I feel guilty and I would like to do a better job. I will not try to make the house ready for a photo shoot day after day... but we both like order and a nice dinner, and at least some of the time, it's not unrealistic for me. I think I could do better on many days, and I would like to do better.

 

I am wondering if anyone else feels like this.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I do. I'm getting there. I've cleaned certain areas and then police it to make sure it stays decluttered and clean. I'm working on other areas slowly with the goal that eventually this will include the whole house.

[Trilliums]

Yep. :D

 

Two older kids--check

DH works long hours--check

DH sometimes stops off after work to pick up things for dinner--check

Feel guilty if he comes home to a mess--check

 

I also feel guilty if he comes home and I am still outside working in the yard, with time having gotten away from me and then I wonder if we should have baked potatoes for dinner!

 

But, sometimes he works so late, he misses dinner all together. The kids now eat so much that there are rarely leftovers. Then I feel double bad. Also, the kids have evening classes 3 times a week, so we eat extra early then.

 

I read the posts about the husbands who expect the moms with babies to have clean homes in amazement. I feel as though I have only recently recovered from baby years and youngest son is 13!! Part of me wonders how I would had coped if DH had projected this kind of expectation. It is pretty easy now to keep the main living area picked up and looking good, but the kitchen seems to store a lot of projects. Our dining room has become the main computer/school room. Sigh. Our house definitely is lived in, with lots of ... interesting stuff going on (!!) but I do manage to keep it basically clean. I noticed when our neighbor visits she would look around the rooms and ponder things, ask about things, etc. When I babysat for her mom, I saw that their home was very sterile. No books, no projects, no partially done experiments. I realized I much prefer our way of living over so little stimulation.

[Mommyfaithe]

Now that my youngest is 8, I am in disaster relief mode...I woke up from 20+ years of babies to THIS BIG MESS! Everything needs doin'. So I am calling in the troops and have made a ton of progress. Manageable goals, patience and lots of assistance from the big kids....even my moved out, adult ones need to pitch in sometimes.....

 

I don't feel guilty when dh has to pitch in.....we all need to be on the same team....and work together. He doesn't feel guilty when I work long hours, or am sitting in the freezing cold at a soccer game, or up late grading papers because I worked all day...

 

Faith

[Alte Veste Academy]

I feel guilty and I would like to do a better job. I will not try to make the house ready for a photo shoot day after day... but we both like order and a nice dinner, and at least some of the time, it's not unrealistic for me. I think I could do better on many days, and I would like to do better.

 

I am wondering if anyone else feels like this.

 

I used to feel like this and then I decided that I would do better. I made a plan and stuck to it. So can you! There was lots of good advice in the other thread. :)

[jenniferlee]

I feel as though I have only recently recovered from baby years and youngest son is 13!!

 

My youngest just turned 6. I still feel like I am recovering from 10 straight years of diapers and sleepless nights (I have 5 kids). I sleep in all the time now even though I mostly sleep through the night. I lay around and take naps when I feel like it. I was thinking about it the other day, just feeling so luxurious to be able to do those things, and feeling kind of bad because now my kids are old enough to do most on their own, I "should be getting more done". But I honestly feel like I am still catching up on on all those years running on I don't know what:D

anyway, maybe next year I'll start working on keeping the house cleaner.

[ocelotmom]

IMO, a 6 year old homeschooling is WAAAAAY more work than a toddler! Most still need a lot of direct parental attention for schooling - you can't just hand them something and expect them to do it independently.

 

I'm sure there are things you can do now to improve matters, but give yourself some leeway until both kids are old enough to work without your direct involvement most of the time.

[Alte Veste Academy]

IMO, a 6 year old homeschooling is WAAAAAY more work than a toddler! Most still need a lot of direct parental attention for schooling - you can't just hand them something and expect them to do it independently.

 

I'm sure there are things you can do now to improve matters, but give yourself some leeway until both kids are old enough to work without your direct involvement most of the time.

 

Well sure they need your direct attention for schooling. All of mine still need that too. The thing is that they're not wreaking havoc on your housekeeping when they are schooling. Where mine are significantly less work than a toddler is that they can play by themselves and be expected to clean up the messes they make. Yes, you have to help them form the habit in the first place, which is a lot of work, but the payoff is so great that mom is really doing herself a disservice if she's not helping them form this habit.

 

I think so many of us give ourselves leeway for too long. Truly.

[DianeW88]

My youngest is 11 and I've finally gotten there!!! :D

 

Now I'm working on cleaning out the basement, the garage, the closets, etc. So really....it never ends. :glare:

[justamouse]

Well, concerning the house, I think the ONLY reason I got it under control is because we moved two years ago. I really had no choice but to get rid of a bunch of stuff and prioritize what I liked enough to keep. Now I am VERY critical of what comes in the house because I am not doing an overhaul like that again.

 

And even with all that, I'm still having a garage sale to get rid of the stuff I thought I wanted, but am not using.

[ocelotmom]

Well sure they need your direct attention for schooling. All of mine still need that too. The thing is that they're not wreaking havoc on your housekeeping when they are schooling. Where mine are significantly less work than a toddler is that they can play by themselves and be expected to clean up the messes they make. Yes, you have to help them form the habit in the first place, which is a lot of work, but the payoff is so great that mom is really doing herself a disservice if she's not helping them form this habit.

 

I think so many of us give ourselves leeway for too long. Truly.

 

I stand by what I said. In my (admittedly limited) experience, 5-7ish is the age that demands the most undivided attention for schoolwork. And forming cleaning habits and everything else, for that matter.

 

Yes, my 8 year old is not homeschooling totally independently. I can't hand him his assignments and walk away for 3 hours and expect him to get it done all on his own. I have to keep him on track and help him when needed. But he can now read independently, and that frees me up an awful lot. And I can give him a chore to do and he can do a reasonable job of it with only a few reminders, rather than constant supervision. None of that is true of my 5 year old (or my 8 year old when he was 5-7).

 

I can do things in 20 minute increments, rather than 5 (at best).

 

Toddler messes aren't that big a deal - I can clean them up quickly as long as I keep her under control to begin with (ie. out of the markers). The 8 year old does ok on his own, though he may need a reminder to go back and get this or that. The 5 year old pretty much requires standing there and supervising for much more time than it would take to just do it myself if I want her to form her own habits.

 

Like I said, I do think the OP can probably find a way to do more now... but I also think that 1-2 years from now she'll find herself with a whole new level of capability, especially if she's investing the time and energy now in habit forming.

[Shellers]

This is the flip side of someone with young kids and a partner with unrealistic expectations....

 

Our kids are getting older now, and there are only two of them. My husband drives a long commute and works a lot of hours. He is supportive of me being at home and homeschooling, and I am truly grateful for this. Now that I am no longer changing diapers and chasing toddlers, I do wish I could consistently keep the house cleaner. I feel guilty when he comes home to a mess. I feel bad that I don't get meals planned, shopping done and dinners cooked. When he stops somewhere on the way home from work, to pick up supplies for dinner, because I didn't have what I needed to make anything, I feel bad. I know he's tired. I feel guilty and I would like to do a better job. I will not try to make the house ready for a photo shoot day after day... but we both like order and a nice dinner, and at least some of the time, it's not unrealistic for me. I think I could do better on many days, and I would like to do better.

 

I am wondering if anyone else feels like this.

 

I'm with you on all this. My kids are older (youngest is 12), my DH commutes an hour to and from work, and my house is cluttered. I do managed to cook a nice dinner every night and have it ready by 6 pm. I always have ingredients on hand to throw something together for dinner.

 

On Sunday I make a menu for the week and then go grocery shopping either that afternoon or Monday afternoon. I post my weekly menu on the inside of a kitchen cabinet so everyone can see what's on the menu.

 

I also recommend finding a few quick recipes and always having the ingredients on hand for days for days when you don't have anything planned for dinner.

 

I have no advice for keeping a neat and tidy house, I struggle there myself. I have a housekeeper come in every other week.

[Donna]

I often stress myself out about a clean house. I don't feel good when my house is messy. I have lowered my standards a bit over the years but I still like everything picked up, laundry done, kitchen neat, and dinner cooked before my husband gets home from work. It isn't always do-able because we run a lot but on days I am home, that is the minimum I feel like I need to do.

 

Once a week, I clean the whole house top to bottom. I don't like to do it a little at a time on different days, though that would be easier. I like my whole house to be clean at least once. As the kids have gotten older, they help with some of the chores but I really like to do it myself and have it done the way I like. I do take their help on those crazy weeks when I don't have a full weekend day at home, though...there's the "lowered my standards for my own sanity part."

 

My husband helps out with laundry and cooking on the days I work. He rarely complains about the house unless he can't find something he wants...which usually isn't a clean house issue but more a someone put it somewhere and he doesn't look very well. We need to do some remodeling so everything fits and has a place...we just moved here a couple years ago and have been tackling things a bit at a time. We did downsize a bit in the "things" area when we moved so keeping everything neat has been easier and will be easier still once we have proper storage options.

[LaxMom]

Well, concerning the house, I think the ONLY reason I got it under control is because we moved two years ago. I really had no choice but to get rid of a bunch of stuff and prioritize what I liked enough to keep. Now I am VERY critical of what comes in the house because I am not doing an overhaul like that again.

 

And even with all that, I'm still having a garage sale to get rid of the stuff I thought I wanted, but am not using.

 

I thought that said garbage sale!! :lol: I thought "how perfect!"

 

In many ways, I still feel like I'm just now catching up from the baby-toddler-diaper-sleep deprivation years, and the I, too, have come out of that fog to find a big mess.

 

It makes me sad to look back to when the boys were little and I had everything under control. In fact, I changed the bed every couple of days because I would run out of other laundry to do. With a preschooler and two toddlers in cloth diapers!! I just realized the other day that my thyroid and adrenals were probably working in overdrive during that time, and that's why I could get so much done (and why, in the intervening years I put on a lot of weight and developed CF).

 

I would love to get back there, in productivity not the path to physical burnout. In fact, since we have relatively late games this morning, I think I'll go up and change our bed. ;)

[Another Lynn]

Now that my youngest is 8, I am in disaster relief mode...I woke up from 20+ years of babies to THIS BIG MESS! Everything needs doin'. So I am calling in the troops and have made a ton of progress. Manageable goals, patience and lots of assistance from the big kids....even my moved out, adult ones need to pitch in sometimes.....

 

I don't feel guilty when dh has to pitch in.....we all need to be on the same team....and work together. He doesn't feel guilty when I work long hours, or am sitting in the freezing cold at a soccer game, or up late grading papers because I worked all day...

 

Faith

 

:iagree: Well said!!!