Where’s the Joy?

Where’s the Joy in Chores?

My son, Jack, recently performed in a production of Honk, Jr. with the Plano Children’s Theatre. Honk is an adaptation of the Ugly Duckling.Jack’s character was Drake, the father of Ugly.As such, Drake gets a taste of motherhood when his wife, Ida, takes off in search of the missing Ugly, and Drake must care for the other ducklings.

Drake sings Where’s the joy in motherhood?An endless round of chores that have to be done.Then when you think you’ve seen the back of them, you find in actual fact you’re back at square one!

I can relate to this lament about chores!Seems like you just get on top of something, turn around, and sure enough there is simply more to do.As I’ve been thinking about this endless cycle of chores, it seems to me that I need to change my mindset around the nature of getting them done.Some tasks, like laundry, are never going to be complete. Unless you have your family go around naked for a day, you will never really be done with laundry.And even if you did institute a nudist day, there would still be sheets, rugs, and whatnot that need washing.

What is this mindset change?For me, I like things to be finished up, but with chores such as laundry, that just isn’t going to be the case.So, instead, I’ve decided to focus on daily progress:one load a day, instead of trying to get every stitch of clothing in the house done up all on one day.One load a day means a completed load, washed, dried, and put away.Then I can say, it is finished, meaning the one load!

One of my friends struggles with getting the folded clothes out of the laundry basket and into the drawers.They dress all week out of the baskets.Another friend has tried this one load a day, but she forgets about it after putting it in the washer, and then has to start all over anyway.So, even this one load a day approach has its challenges.

Another more mindless chore that seems like I’m constantly attending to is loading and unloading the dishwasher.I recently adopted a little routine that works well to keep me from being aggravated over this recurring task.It goes like this:pop a cup of water into the microwave for two minutes, unload the dishwasher while the water heats.Plop a teabag into the cup to steep while loading the dishwasher and wiping down the counters.That job is complete, for now, and I can enjoy a cup of tea.This ritual has two big benefits.I give myself a small treat to enjoy and I keep things in perspective realizing that this is truly only about a three minute chore. Works for me!

Back to Drake and his rhetorical question, where’s the joy in motherhood?I think it is not in the doingof the chores but in the knowingthat you have these important people (your family) to love and take care of, certainly a perpetual enduring experience, one that is never really complete!

Brenda Bonin is The Working Mom’s Coach.Visit her at www.workingmothermatters.com for a free report on success strategies to manage it all when you have a family and a career.