crushing daisies - ways in which patriarchal fundamentalism harms its children # 1

Work, work, work!

Last night I endured the tail-end of a Wife Swap program. The father in one home was a real stick-in-the-mud and a big believer in strictly 'training' his children. How I cringed to watch a work ethic so like my ex-husbands standing pasty white, flabby and naked on reality TV. This guy and his wife owned a restaurant and they - and their children - worked 7 days/week so that they could 'have the freedom of lifestyle' they wanted. Those poor kids had no free time and lived weighed down by inappropriate burdens their parents inadvertently laid on them.

Of course the new mom was a servant to did not allow her kids to do anything for themselves at all. Juicy conflict ensued as she insisted Dad sell the inn and give his kids their lives back. The new mom encouraged the kids to string worry beads on a thread to symbolically give back the adult worries they were carrying. The poor little mites listed things like 'I don't want to worry that the inn will go broke and we'll all have to live on the streets'. It was all uncomfortably familiar. I've seen it in so many QF patriarchal homes.

Some years ago I was invited to take a session at a homeschool mothers' group. The leader had asked me to speak about home organisation as, apparently someone thought I had got that together. I'm guessing the entirety of my self-congratulatory little speech was pretty cringeworthy but I blush particularly as recall myself quoting from some book I had read on the subject which smirked, 'Don't ever do anything for yourself that your kids can do for you.' I actually read it aloud twice telling them I agreed with it so strongly. And I really did.

Although our family is not so large as many I know, having the first 6 children in relatively quick succession does make for a pretty busy household. At various times I inflicted new and proven-to-succeed home management systems on my family in an effort to impart a smidgen of orderliness. I've been known to impose Managers of their Homes, the happy face system and numerous other mercifully short-lived, chart ticking nightmares on my long-suffering offspring. While those programs are not all bad, in our home they were mostly educational in just two respects. They taught me that (1) nobody likes me when I'm in Household Hitler mode and (2) I can only tolerate making my kids miserable for a short time.

But even though I failed to stick with a consistant program, my kids used to do a huge amount of housework. That's not entirely unfair as they did create a lot of mess. And it wasn't all bad. They learned some useful skills and developed - as promised by the program publishers - the seeds of character. But looking back, they did way more than was appropriate. It's cute that a 10 year old can cook dinner for 9 but hardly fair.

I don't think I loaded the kids up was because I was lazy - I'm not. But I do think that I was rather too proud of my little army of worker ants. Obedient, productive kids are a bit of a status symbol in QF. And it's not like giving up homeschooling so I'd have time to hang my own washing was an option. Having a husband with what I think is undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome and who's Aspie 'special interest' happens to be work - his and everyone else's - did not help.

If I think about it, I suspect my easing up on the kids work-wise co-incided with my loosening ties with QF families. And now that the kids are in school, I take a totally different view of housework. I feel that getting an education and having a childhood are the primary responsibilities of children. I do nine tenths of the housework and this is how I think it should be. Everyone here has one major responsibility which needs to be done once each week, they rotate helping with the dishes, keep their rooms relatively tidy and pick up when asked. I have lowered my standards a lot. If I'm hung up about something needing to be spotless all the time, I clean it.

As well as releasing us from the children's father's high expectations, freedom has gifted me the joy of serving my children with a whole heart.The kids are happier and I have a lot more energy now that I'm not wasting it on badgering them to work, work, work. Hey.....that sounds like the beginnings of an ad for a great new program....