These are the questions that occurred to me this past Monday during our chore time. Mondays are hard. We have come and gone and played all weekend. Things have been ignored, which is fine. I am one to believe a house should be lived in. I am one to believe that over-kill on cleanliness is too much pressure, too much angst, causing way too much misery. Sometimes you just have to live and clean later. This is our Mondays—the clean later!
So, the first order of the day is their rooms. I know they are their rooms. I do. I also know it is MY house and they live under it. I know that I have to pick my battles, I do. But this is one battle I can’t quite figure out how a godly mother is to tackle it! I told them all to please pick up their clothes—the clean ones in piles on their dresser, the dirty ones on the floor, and the questionable ones hanging off of dressers and hooks etc. … Monday and Friday are laundry days. I do all laundry on Monday and Friday. I instructed them to please pick up their rooms first before moving on to their weekly assigned daily chore.
When they all left their bedrooms as quickly as they did, I knew it wasn’t good. I called one back. I called another back. I went further into the rooms and discovered clothes in corners, thrown there to keep from being seen, maybe? Maybe not. Maybe they were just missed because not one child truly had their heart in the chore. Minimal effort is always the name of the game when it comes to keeping their clothes in order and their rooms clean. So, what is a mother to do?
I will tell you that it creates in me a very wrathful spirit. I work hard. There is a lot on my plate every day. And while they do have chores, for the most part their effort daily and the work I require from them day in and day out is pretty light—pretty light indeed. So is it a problem to persevere in and be solved? Is it simply the nature of the beast that is teenagers, and I should let it go? Or is it a colossal failure on my part as a mother that I have sons who do not do everything as unto the Lord and not as unto men? What is a mother to do? Really! If you know please tell me.
