Housework, Part II: The Kids Get Older
by Esther Leisher
This collection of ideas about housework and Waldorf parenting got started when Nikki Stephens asked Esther Leisher what she had done about housework when her children were young (she has four grown children, two older ones and tw that were much younger; she homeschooled the younger two using Waldorf methods. It will appear here in several parts. You can get to know Esther better by reading in the category "About the Authors."
We would be delighted if you would add your own ideas and experiences in the "Comments" section at the end of each article. You are busy at the most important job in the world--parenting--and have a wealth of wisdom to share.
The time arrived when the kids were older and could do pretty much everything I did. Then I suggested they do one thing while I was doing something else. If they got discouraged, I helped. As they got older we had so much else to do during the week that Saturday morning became the cleaning time. Saturday morning meant chores (we didn't have TV). No playing with other kids until the chores were done. They avoided me all morning as I went about doing my work (a quiet morning!), and when neighborhood kids began to call, my children rushed to get their chores done. It never took more than half an hour.
Nothing every stays the same, of course. When enthusiasm waned and the children felt overburdened by chores, I typed out all the household things that had to be done. Then they chose each week what they wanted to do--one big job (e.g.. cleaning the bathroom) and one small one (e.g. emptying the trash baskets). I read the List to them if they were not yet reading. (Laurel didn't read until she was nine.) In the beginning they chose differently every week. Eventually they decided the easiest chores were mopping the kitchen floor and cleaning the bathroom, so those were choice jobs that had to be rotated.
Having a typed list of all the things that had to be done each week brought an unexpected asset. They were very impressed with the fact that they did only two chores and I did all the rest. Children live in images, not in facts. They see a long list and choose only two things. Without me telling them, they realized that I had a lot to do. Consequently they were tender toward me and sometimes protective. Once Mark, the oldest, told someone, "We let her sleep late this morning; she has a lot to do today." And Craig (the next oldest) would already have supper started if I returned late from town with two cranky little ones. Also, if I was ill, he would give them breakfast and get them dressed before he caught the school bus.
People ask me what did I do for myself? What can I say? Everything I did was for myself. This job, being the mother of these four remarkable people, was what I most wanted to do. I did yearn for time alone (and got it), and I did want and need adult companionship. But I also wanted my life to be spiritual. Over the course of raising four children I learned to meet my own needs. I used my outer life as the medium for creating my inner life. That's what I did for myself. I did not feel I was making great sacrifices, giving away all of me to my children. I had the job I most wanted and found ways to make it satisfying.
By the time the satisfaction of combining the outer and the inner wore off, I was looking into homeschooling and kept myself happy by learning to do the most amazing things. I learned to create my own stories, wrote simple little pentatonic songs and made dramas out of things like "The Three Billy Goats Gruff".
Since there were no longer any young children around, the daily housework was often done by using a deadline to get things done. "Before we go out walking, we need to get the clothes folded." Or, "We have to leave for town in 10 minutes. Quick let's get things picked up" or "the dishwasher unloaded" or whatever. The weekly housework was done on Saturday.
By then we were into a few years of Waldorf home schooling for the younger two children, and life was a continuous adventure. (The older two went to public school, and my time with them came in the afternoons and evenings.) Housework was imbued with inner qualities, for sure, but as the children got older we certainly didn't focus on it much. Saturday chores, the catch-all basket [see "Part I"], a few things done before doing something more interesting--and the housework was done. You can imagine that I rarely did any very thorough cleaning in those homeschooling days. Once in a while the cleaning mood struck me when they were playing or had gone to someone's house, and then I cleaned the oven or sorted out closets. But people come first and I am a person. Generally there were so many other things I wanted to do while the children were busy. Home schooling is extraordinarily challenging if you are using Waldorf. I said to myself a number of times, "Doing little housework does not, I assume, have eternal consequences. Bringing up children does. Besides, I need to keep the lady (me) who is bringing them up, happy".
My children are all grown up now. Oddly enough the children still think of me as a good housekeeper. I haven't heard any bitterness about all the work they did, even though they did as much or more than kids with a working mom. They all four feel that they had an unusually happy childhood.
