I'm home all day, every day. I have a teenager. I currently do not work. I am able bodied and my mental health is at about a solid functional 70%.
And here's a quick glimpse into my apartment, as of right this minute.
So,. please, cut yourself some slack?
I see you ladies, with babies and toddlers, pre-schoolers and busy school age kids. I see the activities and outings and the fun. I see the baking and the playing. You do it tired and sick. You do it when your child is ill, and the clingiest human ever. You do it when your husbands and partners are away.
I won't judge you, ever. If I'm concerned and you look like you're sinking, I'll offer to help. If I don't offer the right thing, tell me what the right thing is. Feel free to tell me that you're find. Feel free to change your mind on that.
Recently my son and I played boardgames, and debated over the dimenions of a Man-of-War (which I was building in mine craft) and laughed ourself into tears watching babies laugh and cats drink from taps.
We could have been cleaning, but prioritized lounging, hence the mess.
I've told my son that now that school is back, and I can make a concentrated effort to job search from 8:15 till 3:30, that I'm NOT doing housework during that time. I just won't. We both wear clothes, eat food and make mess, dammit we can both clean it up, weekends and evenings.
We could have been cleaning, but prioritized lounging, hence the mess.
I've told my son that now that school is back, and I can make a concentrated effort to job search from 8:15 till 3:30, that I'm NOT doing housework during that time. I just won't. We both wear clothes, eat food and make mess, dammit we can both clean it up, weekends and evenings.
I thought it was neat that mentioned that you're going to clean house together; that's something that I've just been making a push towards at our house too. Rather than having a boring list of assigned chores on the fridge, I'd like to make an after-dinner list of "stuff that needs doing today" - empty the dishwasher, vacuum the one room that has carpeting, take out the recycling, change the sheets on everybody's bed, fold the laundry, etc. etc. etc. Then we each take an item and run off and do it, and keep coming back to the list until there are no more items left; at which point you help somebody else. The trick would be that we would set a 30-minute timer, and at the end of the time, we all stop and play a game instead ("Dominion" is our current favourite.) Anything still on the list can roll over to the next night's list. The guys agreed to the plan, but the first night, after I'd put the baby to bed I came downstairs and said "you know what... I'm too tired!". Tomorrow is another night!
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