I grew up to a traditional household where the mom is the only one who does the chores inside the house while the dad does the outdoor stuff but, so much have changed. My dad who is not home most of my formative years because of work, my mom learned to do manly things on her own. The rest of the chores, our househelp did it for us.
There came a time when we were old enough to fend for our own, mom decided not to get househelp anymore. They were really such a mess. It suddenly dawned on us, that from that time on, we were the ones to wash the dishes, sweep the floor and basically make the house spic and span. It. Was. Hard. We felt like punished because it was never in our daily routine that we need to do such.
Reality kicks in when I started to build my own family, it was really hard to look for a trusted househelp. Raising kids and managing the house and everything else in between has become my number one priority. My developed habit of putting everything in order has put to a challenge when I had my eldest. I must admit it was really hard because I couldn’t entrust everything to his nanny. Me, my trust issues, my vision of having a spic and span place and hopefully land a career whilst taking care of him that time was part of it. Imagine my frustration when I couldn’t even accomplish one thing. It was just so overwhelming and frustrating all at the same time.
At the age of 16 months, I started to teach my eldest to pack away his toys and googled all the age appropriate chores for all ages. I wanted to change something how I will raise my kids and hopefully they will not feel being loved less just because they are tasked to do things.
I want to instill in them that at their young age they have certain responsibilities at home and the society, and such responsibilities has corresponding consequences. Others, may or may not be favorable with this but I just want my kids to be life ready early on.
I want them to value each member of the household’s responsibilities and respect them. I want them to love the place we live in and take care of it. There may come a time that they will change, and hope for the better. There will come a time that they will choose to live the lives on their own and I want to give their future partners in life the gift of having a responsible person.
I am thankful that all those six years of trying to be a role model and giving constant reminder to my eldest has somehow paid off. My eldest knows now when to keep his room tidy and clean and even lead his sister to do the organizing of their stuff. He keeps everything and makes sure that everything else is tidied before going to school.
Some might say, I may be too harsh on him/ on them but I know they will thank me one day. And I would love to see that day where they are already on their own.
