The guilt of not doing it all: What do you let go of?

QuirkyMama, yes, give yourself a HUGE break! {{HUGS}}

I wanted to add one thing I did about a year and a half ago is assign a COLOR to each child. We have 6 children from ages 13 down to 2 years old. Each child has ONE cup, ONE bowl, ONE plate, and ONE towel.

Do you all see where I’m going with this one???

If you leave your towel on the floor (not that any of our boys would ever do that or daughers either ;), but if you do, Momma knows you did it. Because oldest DS has orange, next DS has blue … you get the idea.

If you want to eat, you better have washed your dishes from the last meal. I keep one of those scrub brushes where you add in dish detergent. Even our little 2YO can use this with assistance from an older sibling or Momma. If your dishes are dirty and you want to eat … well let’s just say they wash their plates and/or bowls after meal/snack. I do run them through the dishwashwer once a week or after anyone is sick.

Our older sons began doing their own laundry about a year ago. They LOVE it actually. We used to have a big ‘ole pile of clean laundry about twice a week to sort and then each one folded/put away his own clothes. I helped the little ones. Still do, but anyway, now our older sons keep their laundry separate and it actually takes them less time b/c a). they don’t have to sort theirs out and b). they do it when they are ready (oldest 2 do theirs about once a week; 10YO son waits until every last stitch of clothing is dirty ;).

It works though and is part of their chores. It has greatly helped me with laundry chores as I was washing for 8 people! YIKES!

Another thing I do is each day of the week M-Sat, I have a kitchen helper. This child helps me in dinner prep and then clean up. The child also has dish duty. Daddy helps the younger three, but our older three boys do dishes on their own. Yes it takes them awhile, but they have it just one day a week. I just assigned it oldest to youngest, so Monday is oldest DS, Tuesday is 2nd oldest, and so on all the way through Saturday with baby DD. I often let them help me plan the meal as well on their day, which they really like doing.

As for moving from it being “Mom’s work” to “our work” it is a process, but I have found giving them more responsibility and expecting more than you might think they are capable of really can encourage them. Like when I first proposed them doing their own laundry and commended our older sons on how I thought they could do it, they accepted the challenge and have really made this job their own. I am quite proud as if y’all can’t tell LOL! Can you imagine how thankful my future daughters-in-law will be when they find out their future husbands know how to sort, wash, dry (or not), and fold/hang up clothes?!

The loneliness, well I still struggle with that. We have had a hard time getting plugged into a group. We do go to some things in our area and we participate in some events, but we never seem to have anyone to just go to the park with on a whim or anything like that (zoo, science center, etc.). That would be nice, but I just can’t seem to find anyone who wants to hang out with me and our 6 children. I keep praying about it and as Tristan said, waiting patiently on the Lord.