Life's been good to me so far

Something that really drives me crazy is the complete and total inability of anyone in my house to do anything more than they absolutely have to.

I can't tell to what degree I have failed as a parent (or even a modeler of behavior) to have such lazy and bare minimum children, and to what degree their attitudes are completely normal. Because I know I expect more from them than a lot of kids are expected to do, but - ARGH.

Scenario #1: Not doing all the jobs.

I'll tell everyone they have x, y and z to do while I'm at class, or cooking a meal, or whatever - and they do x, or maybe x and y, and act sheepish about how they "forgot" the other job(s). So then I have to make them do the extra job(s) when the jobs are all supposed to be done, which pushes back whatever else could be getting accomplished.

Scenario #2: Not doing normal stuff unless told.

My kids all have daily chores that have been the same for months and/or years and must be done, you know, DAILY. I get irritated about having to remind them (or in Aaron's case, INCESSANTLY NAG THEM alternating with timeouts in the corner and loss of privileges EVERY SINGLE DAY) when they - especially the older kids - are supposed to do them without being told. That's irritating, yet understandable to some point; they're kids. But I get SO MAD when they actually act surprised when I do the reminding. Like "What?!?! Pick up the things off the floor in the library and tv room?!" ...as though you haven't been assigned to that daily task DAILY for the last year and a half. I'm the one that should be flabbergasted that you still need to be reminded. Aaron will get these huge eyes and groan and throw himself on the nearest piece of furniture as though I've ruined his life when I tell him the compost still needs to go out, as though I just gave him some news that changed what he should have already been up to. A. This shit seriously makes me nuts. B. I am absolutely never backing down because I genuinely need the help around the house, and also because I cannot allow their slothlike ways to dominate as they grow up. But I can't tell you how many days we're late to PATH or TLC, or don't get to schoolwork until way later than we should, because I'm still battling it out with one or more of them about "morning chores" come afternoon (the rule is that the only things you're allowed to do before morning chores is go to the bathroom and eat breakfast).

Scenario #3: Not doing the whole job

This is what sparked my entry. Do you know how sick of it I am? There are so many of these situations! Ananda is supposed to clear and wipe down/out the kids' bathroom counter and sinks every day. She'll say "I did it" but that means, like, just the counter and the sinks are still full of food coloring or shaving cream or whatever the hell else someone else did a science project with. And she hangs her head backwards and slow-shuffles in there to do it, when I send her back in again. Aaron uncovers his bird's cage in the morning and then seriously just drops the blanket on the dining room floor (Oliver is in the corner of our dining room now). EVERY SINGLE DAY I have to call him back inside as he's tearing off on his bike because he needs to pick up the blanket, or he took out the trash but there's no new bag, or he fed the cats but left the open container of cat food in the middle of the kitchen and didn't give them water. And it's not just, like, that settles it. He comes in and closes the cat food but leaves it there and then tries to go again with them still unwatered. Or he wanders around looking at the blanket and then goes back out. "Aaron, when you moved the laundry through and started more you didn't start the dryer. Or clean out the lint trap. OR use detergent." I expected their "help" to produce MORE work for me...when they were toddlers O_o

Sometimes it's just needing help with methodology, because they're kids, and I can deal with that. Like, the boys need someone to give them jobs - a blanket order to clean a really messy bedroom still doesn't work that well. "First clean up all the books you have in your room. Ok, now take a shopping bag in and collect any trash." Etc. I gave Annie a job this morning she didn't fully understand so I showed her a simple way to do it correctly; alright, fine.

But, like, the big "You actually have to do ALL the dishes to be done doing dishes" talk I've given Bob weekly since he moved in a year+ ago, combined with the little reminders every 2-3 days? That can bite me. SO OVER IT. He is contributing to my feelings on this hugely, as a 21 year old person who is not actually my kid. Every week we can either choose to completely ignore the fact that his version of "cleaning the deck and sideyard" is not ours at all, or we can drag him back out after he says he's done and say "What about that plate? What about that sock? What about those cups, and these chairs, and that old muffin?" Then he does 75% of the things we pointed out to him, and we again get to choose whether to accept it or drag him out a second time to say "You STILL didn't ____."


Anyway, yeah. I don't mind driving a minivan. It doesn't hurt my self concept any to bake cookies or sew costumes. I will make a total fool of myself singing off key and reading out loud with voices and accents and get all nerdy-excited about cloth diapers and curricula.

But I fucking hate being a nag. I hate nagging. I hate the sound of my own voice pestering and repeating itself. I hate the tedious, circuitous quality it all has and how unimportant each individual thing I have to make a big deal out of really is. It's so overwhelming sometimes, how staunchly consistent and unwavering I have to be to produce the most mediocre results! Many things about our lifestyle (Grant's long hours, our one vehicle, our desire to prioritize whole-family time, the variable evenings I'm in classes, lots of stuff) preclude having a lot of set routines and scheduling, which I imagine would make some of this slightly easier.

The biggest motivator I sometimes have to send them to school is just to be able to shut the hell up and let someone ELSE boss them around and make them to do things for a few hours out of every day. Built in, automatic structure! But isn't part of the positive benefit of homeschooling supposed to be producing kids who can be and do things without outside structure? Some days it seems like they'll just need me nagging them rather than a formal setting.

I feel like I need a giant spatula to go around the house with, sliding it under people and flipping them up off their lazy keesters.

To be clear: My kids get a LOT of unstructured time. My younger three children have blocks of hours to just play in the yard, and Aaron has hours to just ride his bike around our block and hang out with kids outside, every single day. They tend to watch a movie and/or play video games just about every night. I take them to social events for the entire afternoon twice a week. I am really not expecting craziness here at all. That's actually the most frustrating part of all of this; that if they would just DO WHAT THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO DO it would never exceed 30 minutes of household work per day (more like 5-15 minutes for the three younger kids), and then they could go back to saying how bored they are and begging for more screen time than I allow in peace.

BUT NO.