Housework, The Never Ending Battle

My least favorite aspect of being a mom and wife is HOUSEWORK. Yuck! I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the quote, ‘cleaning house while you still have children is like shoveling the drive while it’s still snowing’ but that is exactly how it is!

If I clean while the kids are at school, it’s much easier to get it done, but as soon as the walk in the door, it looks like an explosion of backpacks, shoes and homework. If I clean while they are here, it’s even more pointless. As soon as I have one spot clean, they swarm to it like angry bees. Needless to say my house is never clean for very long.
Luckily my kids are getting old enough to help out. My daughter has dish washing duty (loading the dishwasher). Is it wrong that I assigned her one of my least favorite things to do? My 5 year old clears the table and wipes it down after dinner and they all help out picking up their toys.

My biggest help however, is my husband! I think there is a big misconception that stay at home moms don’t or shouldn’t need help from their husbands. After all we stay at home all day we should be able to take care of it all right? It’s funny because when we first got married I would not let him help with anything. My husband put all the dishes in the wrong spots and folded the towels wrong! I definitely didn’t want him cooking because he found the biggest bowls and spoons we had and used every single one of them! Now, 9 years and 3 children later, I don’t care if he wads the towels up in a ball and puts them in the cabinet. At least they aren’t laying on the couch! I’m just happy for the help!

My husband helps a lot. He takes the kids to school, cleans the kitchen after I cook and does all the sweeping and mopping. I found that we are not alone! Lots of husbands help out with the running of the household!

Jennifer’s husband also has kitchen duty. Jennifer says he also gets the older 2 children in the tub and ready for bed!
Ryan’s husband helps with baths too, does laundry and cleans on his days off.

Another bath time helper, Jen’s husband also entertains the baby so that she can get things done and he helps with homework.

Melissa’s husband also helps with their son’s homework and does the grocery shopping. I am currently trying to figure out how much he would charge to do my shopping as well!

It seems that the keeping those floors sparkling clean falls under the man’s responsibility quite a bit as Jodie and Melissa’s husbands both have mopping duty! Jodie says her husband is not too good in the cleaning or dishes department, but he does get the kids ready for bed!

I think that the home kind of feels like a mom’s office and at first when someone, like your husband, comes in and tries to help out we can be critical of what they are doing or skeptical of their abilities to do it as good as we can or would. However, as time goes on and life gets busier and busier, we realize how nice the help is and we are appreciative of it! So to all those dads and husbands out there that help out, thanks so much! We really do appreciate you! You make our lives easier!