Unschooling: Dishes

19 May 2020

This evening, after dinner, I didn’t want to help with the dishes. I just wanted to relax on the sofa and leave everyone else to clean the kitchen. I could have done that. I could have taken advantage of my position as parent. Or I could have mentioned how tired I am. I’m sure my kids would have said, “Mum, you sit down. We’ll do the work.” Someone would have made me a cup of tea. They wouldn’t have made me feel bad for wanting a night off.

So why didn’t I tell everyone I needed to sit down and relax? Well, I knew I was capable of making the necessary extra effort despite not wanting to drag my body into the kitchen. I knew I could push myself to help. And I thought, “Probably everyone else is tired too.”

Making an heroic effort when we don’t feel like it encourages our kids to go beyond the expected, to be generous and do more than fairness demands. It’s our example that prompts them to say, “You go rest, Mum. I’ll do that for you.”

The dishes are washed. The kitchen is tidy. I’m sitting on the sofa. Imogen appears. “Can I do anything for you, Mum? Can I make you a cup of tea?”

We help our kids. They help us. Heroic effort is all about love.

Something extra

Here’s something that I wrote for my (now deleted) Instagram account. It’s also about dishes.

My husband Andy washes the dinner dishes every evening because we’ve decided that having a clean and tidy kitchen at the end of the day is important. (We don’t want to start a new day having to face the previous day’s mess.) But who is it important for? Andy could get up each morning and go to work, leaving a messy kitchen behind. The unwashed dishes wouldn’t be his problem to deal with. The girls and I would have to sort things out. But still, Andy washes dishes because whatever is important to the rest of the family is important to him. That’s because he cares about us.

I’m reminded of something I wrote about chores in my book Radical Unschool Love:

‘…Perhaps chores aren’t worth worrying about. In the whole scheme of things, they’re not very important. Could we be spending too much time and energy trying to persuade everyone to do them when it would be better to say, “If that dirty floor bothers you, do something about it”? If it doesn’t bother anyone, no one has to clean it. The chore belongs to whoever would like it completed. Which is okay. This might work. But is this the right thing to do?

What happens if a dirty house does bother someone? Even if we don’t care about the mess, shouldn’t we care about the person who feels unhappy because the chores are undone? Shouldn’t we be willing to help, not necessarily because we like a clean house, but because we want to put things right for the person we love? Someone has a need and we can fulfil it…’

Yes, we do what is important, what is right, because we love. Isn’t that something we want to pass on to our kids?

2 Comments Leave a Reply

  1. This is so beautiful! I love it. Yes, as they get older, our kids see and appreciate more and more things we are doing for them. I am so grateful that my children (usually) also like to help out with chores. I am not as diligent as you and Andy and don`t manage to to all my dishes every day. But it is huge help for the next morning, when you can start with a clean kitchen.
    I need to keep on trying 🙂

    • Luana,

      It’s easier for us to keep the kitchen clean and all the chores up to date because we don’t have young children like you! I can remember days when we had little ones in our family. It was a real struggle at times to see to everyone’s needs and do all the chores. But we all muddled our way through. Having the willing help of our older kids makes a huge difference, doesn’t it?

      Thank you so much for stopping by. It’s always good to chat with you!

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