Household Duties

An assignment was given for my blogging group, Homesteaders and Homeschoolers. 

The topic is "how are household duties divided amongst your family."

Well, since I have a hired maid, cook, gardener, and animal caretaker I don't have any duties at home. 

"Snork, sniff, uh, what?  I'm awake. I'm here."

I was in fact dreaming up there, folks. 

Sigh. 

I do it all. 

End of story. 

All kidding aside, I was very fortunate to marry a very helpful and eager man 14 years ago. 

I hate how he loads the dishwasher, but he does do it. 

I really loathe doing that job, so we seem to both split the duties of that thankless chore. 

Yes, thankless. 

When is the last time anyone in your house said to you "thank you for cleaning that fork so that it's clean when I want to eat a salad."

No one has ever said that to you. 

Laundry I don't mind doing. 

I will wash. 

Then dry. 

Well, the machine really does that job. 

But, I assist. 

And I fold. 

My husband and children both will help fold if I'm knee deep in another task. 

But they all fold as if they are using their feet instead of their hands. 

So, I fold. 

But, I've assigned the children the job of putting away their own clothes now. 

I get moans and heavy sighs about this, but I remind them that I've done most of the work in this area and these polka-dot socks and Minecraft shirts are their things. 

And these things are their responsibility. 

The girls will feed the dogs and cats when asked. 

And the chickens. 

Chad gets the majority of the barn chores. 

Feeding and cleaning the stall in the wee hours of the morning. 

Really, 6:30 AM. 

But in the winter....that sucks. 

We all check the barn throughout the day for chicken eggs. 

I've even had the girls use the dog pooper scooper to pick up the piles of dog doo in the yard. 

Everyone LOVES that job. 

Yard work. 

I love to mow. 

Always have. 

It's like my free time. 

My alone time. 

Chad saws things. 

And burns things. 

And he's in charge of our swimming pool. 

I do nothing unless instructed by him. 

Which is usually just checking the skimmer for leaves. 

Otherwise, I sit on the deck and admire his work. 

There is one job I just do not do. 

And really have no idea how to do it. 

Changing the furnace filter. 

Blech. 

We suck up 2,456 pounds of pet hair daily into the furnace filter. 

That is Chad's job. 

Really, we all help out one another in this house. 

Chad and I both cook. 

I bake, though, as he doesn't really like to do that. 

But, I enjoy it. 

He can make some killer creme puffs if the mood strikes, though. 

He takes the girls to school. 

I pick them up. 

We have had a sick child and understand the need to "pull it together!" and have the mentality of "we are in this together!"

As I think most of our married friends do. 

Marriage and children are a balancing act. 

One side of the scale tips too far and loads up one person's agenda to it's maximum...there's going to be trouble. 

So, we all chip in together. 

We don't pay our children to help out. 

We ask them to help out because it's the right thing to do. 

This is OUR family. 

We teach them to stick together always. 

And keep family first. 

But, would it kill someone to play the lottery a little more often so I can eventually hire that maid!

This one just dusts cats...