An Epistle to My Family:

I feel safe posting this here since maybe only three people ever actually read my blog, and they are all family. (You will notice that I didn't not link this post to facebook. You're welcome.)

Yesterday, while you read, looked at electronic devices, slept, and/or went to the library, I spent nine hours on my feet, sewing. As I've been doing every day for about a week now. After the sewing, I went to the store to get some things for dinner (on my feet, except for the car ride), I made dinner (also on my feet), and before I went to bed I did the dishes (yeah, on my feet). This morning I got up at 6:00 and cleaned the entire kitchen; it took me an hour-and-a-half—on my feet—to unload the dishwasher, reload it, wash the sinks, wash the remaining dishes by hand, wash the counters, take out the trash, and sweep and mop the floor. And now I will spend the rest of the day on my feet, sewing. By the end of the day my feet and ankles will be swollen and retaining water; the swelling goes down a lot by morning (although not completely) which is why I am able to spend each day on my feet again.

Anyway, this is ridiculous. The whole "messy house until Mom takes care of it" thing. You are all big enough and have plenty of time to do it. So, like it or not, let me tell you how it was when I was your age. This may sound like Grandpa's "I walked to school four hours in knee-deep snow every day—even in the summer—and it was uphill there and back" stories, but this story is actually true:

When I was eight years old my mom took a full time job. I didn’t worry about it too much then, but I’ve thought about it a lot since I’ve grown up.

My sister Melanie (who was thirteen at the time) says that my parents gathered all us kids together for a family council, and Dad told us that now that Mom was going to be away from home so much we needed to be more helpful in the house. I don’t remember this and neither, apparently, did most of my other siblings. Melanie took up the slack of the housework and when I was old enough to be willing—between nine and eleven—I worked with her. Melanie taught me how to take care of a house.

*Every day we did the dishes. This meant we washed them by hand for a few years until my parents could afford the exciting luxury of a dishwasher. It meant we scoured the sink before and after the dishes were washed; it meant we searched the house for dishes so we wouldn’t miss any; it meant we washed all the pans; it meant that we dried and put away any dishes that would create a precariously high stack in the dish-rack; it meant that when the rest of the dishes were clean and drying we wiped down the counters, the stove and the table. And then we swept the floor and mopped it (often on our hands and knees).

But we didn’t stop with the dishes; we took care of the entire house, at least upstairs—which included the kitchen, dining room, living room, den, and two bathrooms—daily. This meant that we had to figure out where to put everyone’s stuff—often to be yelled at later by our siblings if they couldn’t find their things. It meant that we dusted all the furniture, vacuumed the carpets, and swept and mopped the floors. It meant we cleared and washed counters and tables. It meant we scrubbed two toilets, washed sinks, counters, bathtubs and showers, washed mirrors, and scrubbed two bathroom floors. It meant we cleaned our own bedrooms. Every. Day. It also meant we washed our own laundry, and did the community laundry, like towels and dishrags. We also cooked dinner two to four times a week. I reiterate: we did this work every day.*

Sometimes we deep-cleaned. This meant taking all the books off of the shelves (and there were lots of books!), dusting the shelves and putting the (dusted) books back in their places. It meant taking everything out of closets and reorganizing them. It meant cleaning the common area of the basement—a space as big as the living room, kitchen and one bedroom. It meant washing windows. It meant scrubbing walls or degreasing kitchen cabinets. It meant shampooing carpets. It meant waxing and polishing wooden floors. Other times we canned apricots and tomatoes (which we only learned how to do because we'd seen Grandma do it every year when we were little; nobody "taught" me to can fruit).

As teenagers Melanie and I did the *regular housework* every day. My parents didn’t ask us or remind us, or always thank us for doing it. (In fact, I have a clear memory of having cleaned the entire house except for the den, getting dinner started, and standing at the sink washing dishes when my mom got home from work. She walked through the house, past me, without saying a word until she got to the den, and then she complained about what a mess the den was). Melanie and I didn’t complain about the housework—not even to each other. It wasn't something to complain about; we did simply because it needed to be done. We worked together until Melanie got married, when I was fifteen years old. And then I did it by myself until I got married and moved out at twenty-two.

For a while, recently, I would think about all this and, knowing how long it takes me to clean the house now, I would wonder if I was just making myself out to be more wonderful than I really was. How could I possibly have gone to the dance studio every night from 4:00 or 5:00 until 10:00, and had piano lessons once a week, and practiced piano every day, and done all this housework? I even talked to Melanie (and Dad, who saw some of this before we got married) about it. Was my memory faulty?

Nope. Because it works like this: Since we did these things EVERY. DAY, it didn't take long to get them all done. Maybe an hour (and that includes hand-mopping the floors). And that was with only one or two of us working. And doing the minimum on the weekends.

So, here's the deal: I expect YOU to take care of the house—especially when I am working on this big sewing project. Plain and simple. We've talked and talked and talked about how to divide the work, when to do it, why it has to be done, etc., etc., etc., until I'm sick of hearing about it. I've made up sheets of what needs to be done in each room. I've showed you how to do it; I've written up papers on how to do it. Enough.

You have lists, and you have brains. All those little house-cleaning jobs need to be done every day. In the morning would be best. The first day might take a couple of hours with all of you working. You will need to brush up the kitchen after every meal; this might take 30 minutes with two or three of you working. And then you need to keep doing those things every. single. day. After the first day, if all of you work together, it will probably take you thirty to forty-five minutes each day to clean the entire house. We are not talking about this any more. I'm not asking for your input on how, when, or why.

These are my expectations:
1. One person will not do ALL the work by themselves. Believe me, after thirty-five years of it, I know the unfairness and resentment that go with that. You will ALL work on the house together, at the same time.
2. Every job on the lists will be done to my standards every day. (You should all know what that means by now.)

JUST DO IT!!

Love, Mom

p.s. All of your electronics are now confiscated until I see some results.