I’m training my younger boys to clean up. While raising my
older three kids, I did most of the cleaning. I ran a home daycare business,
and cleaning up kind of seemed like part of the job description. When I started
teaching mid-way through Elyse’s fourth grade year, I did not immediately
conscript the kids into service (the boys were in 6th and 8th
grade at the time, and I guess it was one of those deals where I thought it
would be easier just to do it myself). Eventually, they all learned to do their
own laundry, mostly because I refused to corral it off the floors in order to
get it in the washer.
Now, older and wiser, I try to have Trevor and Austin help
out every week, even if it means I spend more time insisting than they actually
spend cleaning. Their job is to dust so I can vacuum. They aren’t the most
thorough cleaners one could “hire,” but at least they’re getting the idea that
maintaining the house is not 100% my territory, and they’ll make better
husbands for it someday.
When I was growing up, the assumption that cleaning was
women’s work was definitely part of the atmosphere, and even though my husband
is a “stay-at-home” dad right now, he’s quick to inform me that that doesn’t
make him “a housewife,” so apparently he grew up breathing the same poisonous,
pre-feminist fumes.
I was very careful to
name all my kids names that would be comfortable on an executive desk-plate. When
I read them books with stereotyped roles, I changed the words. But somewhere
along the line, I missed the boat. I should've taught them to value keeping a house
clean while I was teaching them to reach for the stars.
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