Firing the Maid

Mama was inspired by this great book!  (My kids, not so much.)  The author challenged me to jump into action so that my children were no longer served in ways that would not serve them well as adults.  I needed to get rid of my guilt of asking my kids to step up their responsibilities, which meant I needed to fire the maid (aka Mama).

The teen and diva have both been doing their own laundry for quite some time, so I'm guessing they thought they were ahead of their friends in the chores dept.  But really, Mama was behind on her game of equipping them.  They have been capable of so much more for awhile now, but I've caved to the excuse that it would take longer to teach them than to just do it myself.

Somewhere inside I was also probably living by a false truth that as a stay-at-home mama I should be taking care of most chores during the school day.  Serving my family was my job.  Yet really,  I was overloading myself and under-loading everyone else.  The maid had to go.

So today our two worlds collided.  A Saturday with nothing on the calendar + a very dirty house =  Operation Cleaning House.  I organized a chore list for each room of the house, assigned age appropriate tasks for the little girls, let the older kids pick their tasks (making sure they both were able to practice each type of cleaning), and then hubby and I filled in the rest while also completing  the heavy duty ones.  Organization is the antidote to chaos.

The day went remarkably well!  The upstairs was finished by lunchtime and the downstairs (minus Willie's heavy duty kitchen tile scrubbing---which is happening as I type) was finished in time for dinner.  There were plenty of sighs, eye-rolling, grunts, and attempts to opt out, but overall it was a success!  The kids learned how cleaning works, Mama learned perfection is overrated, and the end result is that we have a clean house from top to bottom that everyone can take pride in!  And most importantly, the house was not cleaned by the maid, because each person living in our home is more than able to handle it.

Laundry and cleaning may be small steps in gaining ground against being served, but I am so grateful my children are at least learning how capable they are to serve in their home.  Mama is also learning to empower her peeps which in turn empowers her to serve in areas beyond the home (and not go crazy trying to do it all).

It felt so good to fire the maid today!

We discovered more than dust bunnies:
~no logic supports making your bed everyday
~showers need cleaned???
~clean does not equal spotless
~moving couches is quite revealing
~Swiffer and Duster mean different things to different people
~a lot of people make a lot of dirt
~crumbs and dust will never be totally conquered
~we really like having a clean house!
~those who didn't think they needed to "practice", actually need a lot of practice
~praise is a great motivator
~Windex is NOT a streak-free product
~the maid will not be returning