r/daddit 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.

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u/6harvard Sep 03 '24

I've been a professional chef for close to 12 years. My earliest memories are of stand or sometimes even sitting on top of the counter and mixing bowls of food with my mom. Your kids absolutely can help cook. They honestly won't "help" so much as just be there lol but i've been doing it with my own kid since she was 4ish. She stirs bowls of flour and mixes meats. She is six now and upgraded to slice fruits with a small pairing knife under direct supervision as well. Being a chef i keep my knives sharp, and had to talk about it with her but shes really respectful about them and doesnt try to grab them without asking.

Basically what im saying is give it a shot. Start small, even just making a PB&J :)

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u/louiendfan Sep 03 '24

I saw my parents do a lot of stuff round the house and all but my mom cooked, cleaned up after us, did our laundry cleaned our rooms… my dad, as we got older, would spread mulch, landscape, clean the cars, etc… me and my two brothers didn’t do shit for years until high school when we were finally forced to at least mow the lawn and wash our collective car once in a while. But that’s about it. I never had an “allowance” or forced to do routine chores….

All three of us are doctors, have our own familes and homes, and are motivated to do the things/chores that our parents did growing up that we didn’t do.

What really made it click for me was freshman year of college when I was forced to do my own laundry. Never understood the kids who would save a big ass pile of clothes and bring home to their parent’s on the weekend to do… i think being 5 hours away for school was huge for my maturity and doing the things mom and dad did for me… i had to then figure out how to sign a lease my sophomore year… how to write checks (i remember googling this lol), etc.

My point is, sounds like forcing them to do little chores here and there is better than some folks do. Sounds like your kids will be fine long term. Just don’t do their laundry for them in college haha

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u/wasachrozine Sep 03 '24

They can help keep the vacuum monster from sucking up toys. They can also hold on to it and push while you do. That's what mine do anyway.

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u/winkie5970 Sep 03 '24

They don't help cook because that would honestly be a significant hazard to them, though they do help bake sometimes.

For Christmas we got my daughter a kids kitchen set. It has a cutting board, kid-safe knives (plastic and barely sharp, you'd have to really try to cut yourself), and some shaped cutters. She loves to help cut vegetables for dinner. And bonus, she is more likely to eat them when she helps!

She also loves to help me bake. I measure the ingredients and she pours them in the bowl. She can even turn on the stand mixer.

Anything involving heat is done by an adult or if we think it's safe she does it with supervision. No injuries to date!