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Published on 03/22/1999 All articles from this issue

Weekends revisited

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By Joan Passarelli

Blue Jeans & Jelly Beans

Last month, I ranted on this page about how weekends are no holiday for the mom of the house, and how I adjusted to that to stay sane. But the weekend picture wouldn't be complete without the other piece of the story: house chores.

When the kids were little, I just did all the house chores myself. Little kids don't really make much mess, and I certainly didn't want their help cleaning. A 2-year-old does far more harm than good when confronted with a dust rag or, God forbid, a toilet-bowl brush.

Now that my three kids are all in elementary school, they get themselves ready for school and for bed, but in the process, the rings in the bathtub and the toothpaste smears on the counter mount up like they never did before. I couldn't keep up if I wanted to, which I don't.

I used to sigh enviously as I thought of friends who employ house cleaners, but I couldn't see doing that myself. My mother's work ethic is too strongly implanted. If someone else cleaned my house, I'd be cheating.

But then light dawned. I have three little house cleaners right here in my family. Time to put them to work. Mentally, I shivered a bit at the prospect of all the energy I'd have to spend to get them to do it, but I figured it was that or lose my sanity completely.

One Sunday a month or two ago, I got out some scratch paper and sat down with the kids. I explained that mommy couldn't do all the cleaning anymore, and they were going to start doing it once a week, and the only question under discussion was how to apportion the chores.

Bamboozled by my wily statement of the problem, they took the bait at once and started talking about how to divide them fairly. We generated the list of duties they needed to take over, involving bathrooms, table-setting, and vacuuming. (Hidden assumption on vacuuming: the rooms have to be picked up before you can vacuum. Like how I sneaked that in there?) They decided to spread out the chores over a three-week schedule. They would rotate regardless of age, and I'd give extra help to the 5-year-old when things were tricky for her.

After making up the chart, the kids were motivated to get started, so we did our first round right then. I assisted in pickup, supervised, and ran cleanser and sponges back and forth. My husband did the dusting and vacuuming that was outside the kids' scope. We put on some very loud music and charged around for about an hour. The kids actually laughed a bit, and - surprise! - we got everything done.

What we hadn't anticipated was that when the whole family was cleaning together, the kids had no way to cop out or drag their heels, but wanted to work hard to get done.

Accordingly, we've instituted a Sunday-afternoon cleanup hour. We pick a time when everyone's together in the house, cue up Huey Lewis or something similarly raucous, and get to work. My darling husband, besides dusting and vacuuming, sometimes goes into White Tornado mode (his term) and scrubs floors or takes hand prints off the walls. I love that guy.

And here's the best part. When we go to bed Sunday night, we, as a family, have done all the cleaning. Nothing is left for mom to do.

Now if we could just get it to stay clean for awhile ...

Passarelli is the mother of three and is constantly trying to improve her home management skills.