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Last night Russ and I went out on a dinner date.
We had gotten the kids pizza before going out and had left them with strict instructions to clean up the table, put the recycling outside, push in the chairs and turn off the lights, and get the little ones in their pajamas.
We knew we were going to be home from our date early because one of us had to drive David to his job at 11pm, so we didn’t give any further instructions beyond that and, “Enjoy yourselves. Watch a movie, play a game, or something.”
We went out and had a relaxing evening at one of our favorite locally owned restaurants where we discussed our child’s therapy and progress (or lack of), Will’s new medication and our need to have a Modern Family discussion (post to come on this one).
It was great to get out, have awesome drinks, and share an absolutely delicious dessert plate.
It was bliss.
I felt like a real, genuine adult 
Until…
we came home.
We walked in the door to discover that nothing had been done.
Or, let me rephrase,
done right.
Now, I will be the first to admit, I have trouble not expecting perfection out of my kids, so I often have to take a step back, relax, and think before I speak.
Last night was not an exception.
I took a few moments, walked through the house and sadly, it didn’t get any better.
The rooms that had been cleaned, mainly the kitchen and living room, were no longer even sort-of cleaned.
The few things that were asked of the kids were not done, except for Will being changed (and his clothes and pull-up left on the living room floor) and the trash from dinner having been carried from the dining room and left in the kitchen.
Rather than lose my mind, I told the kids that I was taking Will up to bed, told Emma and Keith to brush their teeth and go to bed, and then told the bigger kids that I expected them to clean up the mess in the kitchen and living room before they went to bed.
And I went to bed.
And Russ drove David to work and then he went to bed.
At 6 am, I woke to go pick up David from work and as I came down the stairs, my tension rose.
It was still a mess.
I grabbed my purse after taking the dogs out and left to get David.
An hour later, I was home, put on some coffee, and cleaned up the house.
It was HOURS before the kids were awake and after their zombie-like state had worn off, I informed them that if they want to continue to treat my living room, kitchen, and dining room like they treat their bedrooms that they no longer have privileges in those rooms if myself or Russ aren’t present.
The reaction was what I expected:
arguing,
yelling,
pointing fingers,
you know, all that good stuff that comes with the hormones of teenagers.
I then told them if they can prove to me that they can keep their rooms clean then I will allow them to use my rooms.
I was then asked,” Do we have to keep them clean according to you or to us?”
And I said,”Me.”
More grumbling and then my daughter Gabi piped up with,” Well then, I guess I will never be able to leave my room. Your standards are too high.”
Wow.
Ok then.
Which then begs the question, how clean is too clean?
All I ask is that clean clothes at least remain folded (put away is a bonus), dirty clothes are in the laundry room and not on bedroom floors, no food is left in the bedrooms and there is no trash on the floors.
Is that asking to much?
Would love input.
Nope! Although I am going to owe Josiah’s future spouse a HUGE apology because I have spoiled him rotten! But that is easier with one than it would be with 9! I think that some times it is a good idea to ask the kids to tell you what they think is reasonable and what they consider a fair consequence of failure to keep their commitments. (You may be surprised by what they will admit is reasonable under those circumstances.) Make a “contract” with each of them, individually, of mutually agreeable terms. Type it up, both of you sign and date it, and then stick to it! But there has to be commitment from both sides and you have to be willing to stand firm. It’s not easy!
We also hear that our “expectations are too high.” The only reason our expectations are so high? Because we know they are capable of being treated more maturely than their chronological age. We raise the bar because they are capable of reaching it. To which we usually hear, “But__________ NEVER has to do ______!” “Everybody else _________.” If they’d been born to “everybody else” their situation would be different. Maybe “everybody else’s” kids are unable to reach the high bar. Maybe “everybody else’s kids” have parents who don’t have the resolve, energy or sheer stubbornness to stick by their guns in their children’s best interest.Unfortunately for our two, they’re stuck with us. As a result, they may find out in the long run they’re more self-sufficient and behave in more socially acceptable ways far earlier in their lives. Until that time, we welcome the derision and comparison to the “cool” parents. It’s our job to do our best to help them reach their best. I’ll take the hate…trusting it’s temporary.
Cheryl, my brilliant dear friend, I might just read your entire response to my kids.
Sheer perfection!
no wonder you’re a published writer
I know that mine are not able to keep their rooms the way I would really like see them. For me, I have decided that the state of their rooms is not a hill I am going to die on. That being said – I have said that the next time I find clean clothes thrown in the closets on the floor is when I STOP doing their laundry. Food is not allowed in bedrooms and only water bottles are allowed upstairs. When I lost it on the kids a few months ago and helped them regain their rooms I pulled about 30 water bottles out from under Sabrina’s bed.
Picking up after themselves downstairs is still a challenge for us, and yes I would expect that all dinner trash etc be put away. I think I have done too much for mine, and now I am also “paying” the price of getting those blank looks etc. I think you have a right to expect the common space to be picked up and free of food debris. I am working on this issue too, because she leaves in August for college and I keep saying over and over that she is moving into a space half the size of her current room and is going to have to share. A room mate is not going to appreciate her mess.
Your expectations are certainly not too high.
I just have one so it isn’t too crazy. He usually does a semi good job. In the summer when the extra kids are here things can be a little crazy for certain.
I have a friend who also suffered the same frustration. His solution was to clean up and then take a photo of the area “Clean” and post it in the area – so that if they were asked to clean up they knew what clean looked like!
That sounds like a good plan. Thanks!
I’m a bit OCD so my response should be read as such. I have things I need done a certain way (dishes, laundry, mopping, kids’ baths, etc) so for those things I just do them myself without even thinking of asking for help from the kids (Ryan knows my standards and does help with dishes and kids all the time). The kids have their own rooms now and I do let it go a couple days before I get really frustrated with it. Although, they’re away from home 2-3 nights a week lately so their rooms either stay clean or stay dirty
I wash, dry, and fold laundry, set it in two piles (Allison’s and Ryan’s) and they know the drill when I call for them to put it away – put it away where it goes, still folded, and don’t slam dresser drawers. When they clean their rooms, I tend to hover in the hallway between their rooms and micromanage as necessary (“put your ponies away”, “hair bows go in your bathroom drawer”, etc). What I absolutely DO NOT stand for under any circumstance is wet towels or dirty laundry on their bedroom floors. That truly pisses me off and earns me the reputation of “mean mommy”. I also don’t stand for them leaving their plates at the table, they scrape them off and put into the sink every meal (I won’t start cooking the next meal until it’s done so they’d be hungry fast!). We live by routine and they’ve just come to know my standards/quirks/requirements. And along the way they’ve developed their own. Simply put: NO YOUR STANDARDS ARE NOT TOO HIGH. You should be always pushing them to do better than they think they can do, and they will find a way to do it 
Hang in there!
NO! Standards are put there for a reason. If they had simply left the lights on because they cleaned up but forgot the lights- no big deal point it out. If they had gotten all the little ready and forgotten a couple of items- ok no sweat. BUT in my opinion we are training our children to do for themselves. That means I order you pizza- you pick up and take car of things a bit. If not- no pizza next time. I too have a tendency to be over the top and am learning to sit back and really think if I am expecting too much. Sometimes YES…..sometimes NO. I am simply showing them that they shouldn’t treat the house like an episode of hoarders!!!!!! I don’t like mice!!!! I don’t like growing things under the beds. Plain and simple- that is not that big of a deal to ask.
OH MY GOODNESS..Do not get me started…lol..
I swear we are related…
and same with our kids..Im sure of it…lol
Our kids are supposed to clear the dining table, scrape and stack the dishes and thats it..I STACK THE DISHWASHER and clean the benches..is it ever done?…NOPE
Will(13) is supposed to Empty dishwasher each morning(as he is always first ready for school) and take out the trash…is it ever done?…NOPE..not even when I put the trash in the middle of the kitchen floor …and sarcastically say to him..’oh look, no bowls for breakfast..where are they?’..nope still doesnt get done..
All the girls are supposed to take the washing down to the laundry each morning..is it ever done?..NOPE..not until I remind them that its THEIR washing and its NOT going to get done if it doesnt get to the laundry.Hannah(15) learnt the hard way when her work clothes wern’t washed for over 2 weeks..(um..yuk, she works at macca’s).Cayley(10) has a bedroom worse than any teenager I have ever seen..OMG…lol..BUT..I don’t say anything about their rooms, they are their responsiblity…
(and thats what doors were invented for..lol)..I do however clean the 3 youngest kids rooms once a month..(usually when Jack(6)cant find his sports socks..lol)
Our kids are not aloud to take food or drink of any description to their rooms, all food and drink is in the kitchen/dining room only..
Each night before bed they ALL have to clean off the staircase and the loungeroom, if its not done whatever was left on stairs/loungeroom goes into my room, and they have to earn it back.
Also over the last summer holidays I decided I had had enough of their fighting and bad behaviour so I decided on a new punishment..CHORES..lol..I wrote out a heap of chores on paper(seperatly) and put them in a container, each time one of them misbehaved, back chatted, or whatever they had to get a chore out of the container(without reading it first) and do it, if they complained they would get a second one..worked a treat, we had a wonderful summer….oh and if they called a sibling a name(one of my pet hates)..they got 2 chores and a time out..Leticia and Hannah also had an extra..they had taken to hitting/kicking each other..each time I caught them they had to pay me $1..they don’t hit anymore and I had a lovely lunch out with a girlfriend when school went back payed for by my daughters..(we are using this method now on Hannah who keeps ‘forgetting’ to wear her retainer)…
So anyway…you asked for input..there it is….Peta
I think you might want to assign chores rather than leave to the kids to figure out what to do. Then if something isn’t done you know who’s the culprit. Bringing everyone together to figure out what they do best might help.
I was the oldest of 8 and did a lot because I was a pleaser, and to keep the peace.
No. It is not to much to ask. They are obviously old enough to do the task at hand. I have the same problems with my kids ages 17, 16, 15 (girl) 14, 9,8,and 7. 6 boys and a girl. just today we had to take my 9 year old to the eye doc, and let my 17 and 15 (girl) in charge and gave explicit instructions on what to do while I was gone. For Girl Child, unload and load the dishwasher, sweep, and wipe down the table. The 17 man child was to take the garbage out, help out with cleaning up lunch mess, and getting his dirty clothes to the laundry room . We came back and NOT ONE of those things had been done ERRRRG…Then the girlchild had the audacity to ask if she could go spend the night with her friend!!!! Oh no she didn’t!!! I truly sympathize with you. And wish you the best of luck….. If you find something that works, could you pass the answer on to me, cause I could sure use it…
BTW, I love this blog, your so honest and raw, and that is exactly what i need at this point in my life.
You totally don’t ask for too much.
No – it’s not. You are expecting the bascis. GLad you had a great date though
I promisse Debi, I thought I was reading my own story…
I’m in the process of figuring out exactly when/how my blog will be set up. I want to write an entire blog post in reaction to this. As you know, we have some vastly different parenting philosophies. It shouldn’t surprise you that I will be the one to disagree here.
Here’s where we disagree:
1. It’s not *MY* living room, dining room, kitchen. It’s *OUR* living room, dining room, kitchen.
2. We live consensually, not in an authoritarian way. I never give orders. My kids may clean up or not. If they don’t clean up and it bothers me, I’ll clean it up since I’m the one bothered. If I’m not bothered enough to clean it up myself, I let it go.
3. If I’m bothered significantly or if I have a genuine health/cleanliness reason why I feel it absolutely must be done, and if I cannot do it or feel too overwhelmed to do it, I share my authentic feelings with my children and request (not demand) their help. They may say no. However, since we live in a mutually respectful relationship, they tend to have compassion when I need their help. I also have compassion when what they’re doing is so important to them that they don’t want to stop to do housework. Whether I find value in what they’re doing is irrelevant–I respect their right to choose for themselves.
4. Never, never, never does the tidiness of our house come before our relationship.
5. There are never, ever, ever any required chores in our house. When my kids help, they help willingly.
What that looked like in our house today:
My 18-year-old (who loves baking) baked pies for our extended family dinner while my husband and I were out at a chiropractor appointment. While holding her baby in one hand, she had picked up the pie, an aluminum pie plate filled with cream cheesy goodness, and it just bent in half and spilled all entire floor. You wouldn’t have believed how messy a kitchen floor could get. I do not know how the entire floor came to be covered in pie. I came home and saw the mess, went upstairs to find her, and she had just given the baby a bath and was stressed. “I have pie between my toes,” she said.
My husband went to the store to buy her more ingredients. She made us each a sandwich and we sat down and talked while we waited for him to get back. I recognized her stress and I recognized our need to reconnect with each other. Then I made coleslaw while she made a new pie. She went up for a nice long bath while I watched the baby.
Baby and I went outside where husband and two teenage boys were, willingly and excitedly, doing yard work. They all had work gloves on. One was pulling weeds, the other was raking and carrying leaves to a compost. They planted some cilantro for me. My 13-year-old fixed a broken screen in a window (he had learned how to do it in a boy scout home repair workshop and is proud to be the only one in the family who knows how). There was much laughing and conversation, and the boys were equally involved in discussions about what should be done and how.
My back was a bit sore today, so I asked my 15-year-old if he would carry laundry up for me. He carried two big, full laundry baskets at once–I couldn’t do that! He, my daughter, and I folded it. He, my husband, and I, all carried it up to the correct people’s rooms.
I ran the dishwasher and scrubbed the floor. I listened to an audio book while I did, so I enjoyed the time to myself. My daughter was planning to have company over the next day and had to get to bed with the baby, so I vaccuumed for her and picked up baby toys, as a gift to her.
We all helped. No one had to.
Sheila,
No. It doesn’t come as a surprise to me that you disagree, I am, however having trouble figuring out how to take your response and reply.
I’m not sure if you’re meaning to come off self-righteous or if I am just taking it that way, but in your description of how your day played out, you make it appear that if one were to parent like I do, that I can’t possibly have a day filled with loving moments with my children.
Well, we do.
I painted a bad moment in our household and told the details. That doesn’t mean that every day is like what I described, nor that I don’t completely love and respect my children or that they don’t love and respect me. What it means is that they are teenagers and they are lazy and get into trouble and I don’t like it.
I would love to be able to just be friends with my children but I have 9 kids, 5 that are disabled or diagnosed and they need guidance. And a parent. or two. I can not imagine the chaos that I would have in my home if I allowed my autistic child, my 2 ADHD kids, my one ADD and fetal alcohol, and my possible bi-polar child to just do what they want. One of them would end up dead.
I respect every parent’s right to discipline or raise their children however they seem fit so long as their children don’t get harmed, it would be nice if you would do the same.
There is nothing wrong with raising kids to respect their elders and for there to be a hierarchy in a family. Children have been raised like that for hundreds of years. (I was and I am not scarred, feel cheated, nor did I ever feel used or abused by my parents for expecting me to follow their rules.)
There is also nothing wrong with using newer parental techniques and raising children to be partners in a home, so long as those children know and understand that all human beings should be treated equally.
I just feel like if you are going to preach to me about raising your children to be treated equally that you should practice what you preach.
I know from FB where you stand politically and it sort of surprises me that you would judge any parent for raising their children in a way they see fit (if it isn’t harming the child). I know you believe that we all should have the right to live as we want without anyone (govt included) to step in and tell us what we should do.
So do I.
I would never dream of telling you how to raise your children.
That all being said, I know I asked if I was asking too much of my kids. I opened myself up to criticism. I don’t think it was so much your answer, as it was your delivery that struck me.
I don’t think your intentions were to hurt my feelings and maybe I’m just being overly sensitive. (dealing with an unbalanced child in the home can do that to you)
I think, Sheila, you’re approach to parenting is off. First of all, it sounds as if you’re afraid of offending your children. You are NOT put on this earth to be their friend, but instead to be their MOTHER who cares enough to turn them into responsible adults who can function independently in society. How do you think they will have jobs with authoritatian figures who are less laisse faire than you? Kids thrive on routine and rules and that tells them that you love them enough to care.
Also, does it strike you as odd that your 18 yr old lives with you and is what I presume to be a single mother? Did you not feel up to educating on that topic? Did it just seem too daunting of a task? Did she not feel up to taking her pill that morning (just too much effort)? That reflects on your parenting too.
You are doing a serious disservice to your children and to society. And thats why you have children who you have to praise for doing tasks they should be doing to begin with and also why you have babies raising babies.
Go pound salt.
Sheila,
I’m not sure I understand your response to this post. It seems like you have a wonderful set up in your house that works for you. If you were trying to get that point across, well, that’s great. But it seems like you were just boasting that your way is the only way to do things. I don’t agree with you, but applaud you for having figured it all out. Personally, I think I have the best kids in the world, but they still don’t know how to clean up after themselves. I think teaching kids to have responsibility for their own actions is a wonderful lesson. It’s nice that you all help each other, but what if that fails one day? For me, if my kids were to drop a pie on the floor, their next move better be to grab a sponge to clean it up. Yes, I will help them because they are kids. But I would not do it for them no matter what.
BTW = posted that recipe for the Malva peoding you asked for on my blog
Thanks!
No way. I can see from the length of the responses that i’m not the only one that feels this way so I’m not going to expound, but everyone in a family has to pitch in to make things in a home run smoothly, including CLEANING. That wouldn’t fly in my home. At all.
Please don’t take my response as anything other than an attempt to encourage you to reconsider that maybe your children aren’t trying to be difficult. You seem stressed out and upset with your children, and I hate to see anyone feel that way.
When I am having a hard time, I try to re-orient my thoughts to see if I can see things from a different perspective. Usually, that means that I look at things from my children’s perspective, and I look at any struggle between me and my children as a relationship issue. How can I improve my relationship with my children in such a way that I am no longer feeling a struggle or anger or resentment toward them? When you say, “What it means is that they are teenagers and they are lazy and get into trouble and I don’t like it.”, it makes my heart lurch a little because I feel bad for you and I feel bad for them. I think teenagers are awesome. I see them as anything but lazy–sometimes they have different priorities than us, but I wouldn’t use a negative word to describe them.
My political view are very libertarian, but different than the typical libertarian in that I don’t believe children are something parents “own”. I believe every person should have the freedom to do as they sit fit in their own lives, *INCLUDING CHILDREN*. So I don’t think parents should have the right to punish, ground, or order their children around.
And while I don’t think the government should make rules about how we do things (for example–none of the government’s business whether we bottle or breast feed), I do think that individuals can and should have very strong beliefs about those things and share them with others.
The only reason I shared my day is to show that just because children (and teenagers) aren’t forced to help around the house doesn’t mean that they won’t ever help if you have the relationship and respect in place.
No, your expectations are appropriate for their ages. I only have a four year old. For years I worked as a therapist with families and teens and they are clearly a tough age group. I personally think that with a household of your size there has to be clear rules/expectations/consequences, just for the sake of household management, if nothing else. Maybe a written checklist would help each family member, as a visual for accomplishments and to-dos. As parents we are teaching our kids how to grow up to be successful adults in the way that each of us sees fit. While I can see your one commentor’s point of view, it seems like that style of parenting would not be well suited for your family. I have an immense admiration for you and your family!
It’s not too high of standards, just a common courtesy. Clean up after yourself, it’s not that hard. You(you and Russ) aren’t going to be around for forever…
But seriously. Lol, no. My room is a clean right now. But when I get home off these orders and unpack, it’ll be a hot mess! Look, I’m in the army(girl, you know this). Now THEY have too high of standards. Trust me. I’d be happy to give a Bouff a tour of their own room and show them high standards. Shit ain’t cool!
Debi,
Love, love, love this!
My daughter is 12 and it has been a chore getting her to realize that this is HER house too, that she has to help with the upkeep. I will fully own and admit that I’m a slob but there comes a point where even I need a break. I am all over this for both of us.
-r