A Mother's Golden Rule
I stood at the top of the stairs, wondering what to do. I was almost nine months' pregnant, and my center of gravity had clearly shifted, thanks to the nine-pound baby I was carrying. Add the overflowing basket of laundry, and I could see that I was courting disaster by trying to lug it plus me down two flights of stairs.
"Sarah! Peter!" I called my two oldest children. "Come help Mom!"
Both kids ran up the steps to meet me.
"Please help me get this laundry downstairs," I said.
Each took an end of the basket and slowly carried it down the carpeted stairs, through the foyer, and down the basement steps. My toddler leaned over the gate to the family room, watching us closely.
"Be careful!" I admonished as they continued down step-by-step toward the concrete basement floor.
I followed some distance behind them, feeling my way down using feet I couldn't see.
Once we arrived at the washer and dryer, the kids looked at me expectantly. At 7 and 6, they were still young enough to see helping Mom as an enjoyable activity.
A thought occurred to me.
"Say, as long as we're all down here, why don't I teach you to do laundry?"
They responded eagerly, and that spur-of-the-moment decision led to my discovery of a rule that I'd heard about but never fully implemented: Don't do for your children what they can do for themselves.
I'd always found it easier to do things myself so they'd get done right the first time. I'd read about families where the kids took an active part in family work. I just didn't have the patience to get through that stage where they're still learning and they take much longer to do something you can do quickly by yourself.
But now the truth of this rule was becoming clear to me. The kids had just made things much easier for me by bringing the laundry to the basement. With another baby due any day, I was going to have to fit more duties into less time than ever. Why shouldn't the kids help with laundry?
And that's how it began. Soon they were doing their own laundry every week. With a new baby in the house, the washer ran almost daily anyways, but it was nice to know there were a few loads each week that were not my job anymore. More importantly, Sarah and Peter were proud of the fact that they did their own wash.
(Years later, when they went off to college or out on their own, they were surprised to learn that many of their friends had no idea how to do laundry. "We've done our own for years," they'd say.)
Before the laundry lesson, the kids' main chores had been to make their beds and set the table. But the success of the laundry venture, combined with a newborn with medical problems, helped me see that there was more they could do to help out.
If it was time for breakfast but I was in a chair nursing the baby, they could pour their own cereal and juice. At lunchtime, when we'd finished school and I needed to give the little ones some attention after their naps, Sarah and Peter learned to make their own lunches. I felt guilty at first, but they had fun doing so and sometimes even made a sandwich for me (with great gusto).
The things they did for themselves were a big help to me during the years when I had four children under age 10. But what I didn't realize at the time was that their newfound independence in doing laundry and making simple meals was just the beginning.
As they got older, the self-confidence they'd developed helped them tackle things alone that I probably would not have allowed them to do. They became responsible for finding and bringing their library books to the front door on library day (no more frantic searching under beds for overdue books for Mom!) and paid the fines when they failed to do so. They picked out their own clothes when we were out shopping (I retained veto power, of course.)
As they became teens, they took the initiative to find jobs for themselves, to keep their bank accounts balanced and to budget for things they wanted instead of expecting their dad and me to buy everything for them.
They didn't do all of this perfectly, of course. They made mistakes at times, but they learned from them. And I learned that I didn't have to feel guilty about this. After all, if I still did for them what they were capable of doing for themselves, how would they ever learn?
Once I let go of the guilt, I could enjoy the fact that my list of jobs became a little shorter while my kids gained a sense of independence. Of course, I must admit that it's hard to see our kids become so independent that they grow up and leave home...and us. But like it or not, that's our job: to raise independent young people who can take care of themselves. And it starts with a mother's golden rule: Don't do for your children what they can do for themselves.
Copyright 2009 Barbara Frank/Cardamom Publishers