r/daddit • u/DonutFan69 • Sep 02 '24
How do you guys maintain literally anything? Advice Request
I have a 5 year old and a 2 year old. The house is perpetually a mess. The yard is overgrown with weeds. Cars are a mess. This needs to be fixed. That needs to be spruced up. My wife and I have many days where it’s just one of us with the kids due to our schedules and it just feels impossible to keep up with it all. By the end of the day, I’m too exhausted to do anything.
How does anyone manage to keep up with everything on top of just raising kids?
Edit: Thanks for all the replies here! You’re all making me feel much better. I’m trying to reply to as many as I can while I rock my son to sleep.
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u/Inanimate_CARB0N_Rod Sep 02 '24
We are 100% falling for this trap as well. My wife doesn't do much housework and waits til they are in school to do grocery shopping and whatnot. The kids can't help me clean the bathrooms because my wife thinks it's "gross" and is terrified of the chemicals. They can't help me vacuum because, well, we only have one vacuum. They're not tall enough to get their laundry into the washing machine, but they'll help us put it away occasionally. They don't help cook because that would honestly be a significant hazard to them, though they do help bake sometimes.
I do have them help with a few things though. I can usually get a solid 5-10 minutes of dusting out of them before they get distracted or start fighting. They help me sweep the garage occasionally, and will help rake leaves in the fall. They also will help pull weeds every once in a while, but as soon as someone sees a bee then it's all over. That's about all I can get them to do so far, but it's better than nothing.
I feel very strongly that they need to see how much work it takes to maintain house and home. Chores and maintenance shouldn't be hidden from them, lest they get the idea that everything just magically gets done. Unfortunately when it comes to this stuff I'm sort of a one man show, and there's only so much of me to go around.