Do you really want to be that guy?

We all have our preferences. Frank hates finding electronics left on in an empty room. I hate reaching for the scissors only to discover that whoever used them last didn't put them away.

When I was growing up, it often seemed that our house revolved around the preferences of my former stepfather. We weren't to have snacks after school for fear of spoiling our dinner, even though lunch had been several hours before. My mother was not to drive us to school because it would do us good to walk. The primary result of his tyranny was a lot of quiet rebellion: Mom drove us to school anyway (despite his occasionally spying on her to "catch her" doing it!), and my sister and I had snacks anyway.

The secondary result was that we all lived in fear of his anger. He was that guy, the one whose family dreaded his arrival home from work, the one whose family was quietly relieved when he went away again.

I think a lot of families have a guy like that. I have been that guy, and I don't mean before unschooling. Up until a couple years ago, I was going into work every day and then arriving home to whatever state the house was in. My unschooling readers—especially the working parents among my unschooling readers, and doubly especially my mom who occasionally drops by my house—can understand what it's like to walk into an unschooling house at some random moment. To the untrained eye, it's chaotic. To the trained eye—meaning the eye of a person like me who knows that life and learning are messy...

It's still chaotic.

There is a rhythm to an unschooling day, but you kind of have to be in it to see it. When I'm in the house with her, I know that Chloe's pile of notebooks is spread across the couch while she herself is painting at the kitchen table because something she discovered or thought of while working in those notebooks inspired her, and she rode that inspiration straight to her easel. Or maybe she was writing and needed to look something up on the Internet, and then she got drawn into a really fun Facebook conversation with her friends (socialization!).

When I'm home with her, I understand how this happens. I see the sparks. I hear her peals of laughter from the computer, or I see a painting in progress and hear her animated descriptions of her vision. And I know that she knows the notebooks are there, and I know she has every intention of getting back to them. It all makes sense. There's no chaos. The abandoned-for-the-moment notebooks are part of the rhythm. Do I know there might come a time when I need to ask her to clear the couch so we can sit down? Sure. But there's typically no urgency around that awareness.

When I'm working away from home, it's easy to forget all that. It's easy to walk in the front door and see

M E S S

"Come on, guys," I whine or snarl (depending on how tired I am). "Can you clean up a little, please?"

What changes for my family is the insertion of that guy into their happy unschooling rhythm. I become the random moment at which they must interrupt their flow and take care of MY needs.

In a little more than a week, I am starting a new job that will take me out of the house again. This post is my statement of intention to not return to being that guy. I am resolved to enter my home as if I'm an explorer, one who has every expectation of discovering all the wonder and creativity and unique joy that I missed while I was away.

Joyce on chores

Wise words from unschooling advocate Joyce Fetteroll. The full post this comes from is on Sandra's site here.

Think about how you’d want a friend to ask for your help fixing a car or doing something you didn’t really enjoy. You could probably think of dozens of other things you’d rather do with your time. And that’s something your friend should realize and appreciate.

So how could your friend ask for help? And how should she treat you while you helped? And how should she treat you after, to acknowledge that she really appreciated you giving her some of your valuable time to do something she knew you really didn't want to do?

What if she asked you to keep her company and you spent a couple hours of pleasant conversation. What if she asked for you to hand her things and hold things while she worked? What if when you made a mistake or didn’t do something the way she wanted it done, she apologized for asking you to do something that wasn’t as easy or interesting for you as she thought it would be? What if she thanked you sincerely when she was done? And then invited you in for some tea and conversation or let you return to what you wanted to do or whatever she felt she could do as a sign of her appreciation? Would you feel like helping her again if she asked?

Now turn that around. What if you had another friend who demanded that you help her work on her car. You’re her friend and you have certain responsibilities. And what if you couldn’t help to her standards and she got angry with you when you failed? What if you really hated working on cars and wanted it over and done? And you felt like doing as little as possible so you could get out of there sooner? What if when she was done she was angry with you and said “You should be helping more and I shouldn’t even need to ask.

Which friend would you be likely to help next time?

Which friend is building a relationship with you and which is tearing it down?

Careless schmareless

Changing perspectives
My daughters are the thrilled owners of an extensive (although not yet complete) Joss Whedon collection. Their joy in their ownership of these items is boundless. Truly prized possessions.

And yet they leave the DVDs lying about.

When I was tidying up in preparation for my little NYE soirée, I put away a lot of "Buffy" discs. I found myself thinking some fairly, um, traditional things about my girls. The word "careless" came up a lot. It got me thinking.

Careless. It's an interesting accusation. Someone is careless with her things if she does not keep them to the standards set by... somebody else. Some random arbiter of how things should be kept. And carelessness is to be avoided or else!

Or else what? MJ and Chloe have been leaving discs out for years, and, despite my oft-repeated gloomy predictions of damage, they have not suffered a single casualty. Or if there have been casualties, they have dealt with them matter-of-factly and without assistance.

In other words, their treatment of their CDs and DVDs is an entirely appropriate level of care.

Huh. Imagine that.

The other part of this is that they seem to be free of the rather desperate feeling that these things are irreplaceable. My "Firefly" DVD set (my personal Joss Whedon collection) is terribly, terribly precious to me. I guard it. I worry about it. I think about buying a replacement just in case. MJ and Chloe have none of that. These things they own are just things, nice to have but easy to replace should the need arise.

Perhaps what they are is carefree.

But even that has as one of its definitions "irresponsible." Why? How did we get so mired in this feeling that all this care is required and that every possession must be protected to the nth degree?

When we were on the boat, we became slightly acquainted with a retired couple from up north who had sold their house and moved onto their boat in Slidell. They had pared down their houseful of belongings to the precious few that would fit aboard or in a small rented storage unit. Katrina came. They lost it all. All the care in the world hadn't done them any good.

I am not suggesting, of course, that we all start leaving our toys out in the rain. But maybe our kids should have the chance to show us how to care about what's really important.

Meltdown to motivation

We have too much stuff. Our house is bursting at the seams. This bothers some of us more than others. It bothers some not at all.

So, yesterday, as Frank was once again wading through stuff to get to a door, I decided (without thinking it through or stopping to wonder who had not slept much, who had not eaten, who was more frustrated than I thought, and who was perhaps exceedingly poised to melt down due to several intense workweeks in a row) that we were all feeling mellow and now might be a good time to discuss it. I started off chirpy and things went downhill from there. There was yelling, there were tears. I lost it worst of all and distributed my crap to the others in shamefully large helpings.

But by the end of the day, we had come up with a plan. I share it here, untested, in case it helps somebody else avoid the crappy part.

First, we each picked one or two things about the state of the house that are really important to us.

• Frank - clear walkways and having a place at the table to eat
• Ronnie - clean sinks and having a comfortable place to sit down in the livingroom (our main hanging-out space)
• MJ - having a clean glass in the cupboard, every time
• Chloe - having nobody walk on her things and having people ask before entering her room

We call them our "Tops."

In keeping with the unschooling tradition of "If it bothers you, take care of it yourself," we are each responsible for our own Tops. But we are also entitled to our Tops and can ask for/expect help in achieving them as needed. So, for example, MJ will monitor the inventory of glasses, but if Chloe has a bunch in her room, MJ can ask her to bring them up to the dishwasher (or she can ask for permission to go in and get them herself). Also, we'll be supplementing our supply of glasses today. And if Frank is taking out the trash and can't get to the door without walking on MJ and Chloe's latest project, he can ask them to move their stuff (satisfying two Tops in one).

As I said, it's untested, but I like it because nobody is responsible for *everything* (and I think Frank and I both felt we were previously). Plus, each person's Tops are completely reasonable things to wish for, and we all see that. I mean, nobody is asking for the house to be Queen Elizabeth-ready at all times. We just want to be able to live.

The second thing we did was to schedule a weekly trip to the Goodwill. I will be going every Saturday morning, as needed, for as long as it's needed, and we'll each add items to the weekly donation pile/bag/box as we encounter them. No need for a Clean Sweep (which alway strikes me as terribly intimidating and downright cruel). Instead, it'll be a gradual easing of the Stuff Overload.

There you have it. We'll see how it goes.

House Work

Despite the equality advances made in recent years, men continue to be (considered) the primary breadwinners, and women continue to be (considered) the primary childrearers. In the vast majority of unschooling families, the mom is home with the kids while the dad goes outside the home to work.

There are exceptions, of course, and in our house, we've pretty much turned that on its ear. It means wonderful things for our family—my kids have a wonderful relationship with their father (one of the best men I've ever known), and they get to see alternative gender roles in action and working well.

It also means sometimes confusing things for Frank and me. We were raised on those traditional gender roles, after all, and we occasionally bump up against them. And the alternative gender roles are sometimes not entirely comfortable. I have a strong desire to be the primary childrearer, for example, in addition to having an abiding passion for unschooling, so I continue to insist on have input into what goes on here during the day. I am gone all day, though, so Frank and the girls by necessity and desire take point on the unschooling.

But the primary place where we have conflict is over the house. I'm the woman and this is my house. That's in my head somewhere. And then I come home to whatever state the house is in after a day of busy learning.

Lots of unschoolers write messages and blog posts about the frustration dads can feel when they arrive home to a house that looks like a tornado hit, and Jon Gold gave a highly entertaining talk that touched on the subject at LIFE is Good 2008. It's the same for us, except that I'm female. I can relate. It can be really hard to come home to the remains of the day, and I find myself thinking nasty thoughts that don't really belong in the head of an unschooling parent. Or of any parent, for that matter.

Time for some house Work.

Nasty thought: Frank and the girls don't care about me enough to clean up.

Is it true? No.
Am I absolutely sure that it is true? Not even close.
How does it make me feel to believe that? In a word, crappy. Also, listless, overwhelmed, and lonely.
Who would I be without that thought? A better mom and wife. Less bitchy. Probably the resident, both in thought and reality, of a cleaner house.

Turn it around:

• I don't care about me enough to clean up. Eww. I hope that one's not true.
• I don't care about Frank and the girls enough to clean up. Double eww. It's a horribly negative slant on basic laziness, but there are shades of truth there.
• Frank and the girls do care about me enough to clean up. This is definitely true. But they usually don't clean up anyway, so there must be other reasons. Usually, it's 'cause they're still using the things that look like mess to me, or they think they might someday (in the dim and unknown future) want to use those things again. Or it's basic laziness, which I am hardly in a position to judge.
• Frank and the girls (and I) don't care about the mess enough to clean up. Bingo. Dammit.

Katie says that if you really want to do something, you'll do it, and if you're not doing it, then you must not really want to do it. While I tend to acknowledge the real obstacles of life more than she does, I've found it to be true for me a lot of the time. So many of the petty frustrations in my life—and, subsequently, so many all of my bouts with depression—have their roots in my constant tendency to choose the pleasures of the moment over the pleasures one derives from steady maintenance of home/job/cars/life.

I envy people who have a clean house to come to, who can invite guests over without needing at least a couple of days to prepare, who can give someone a lift without feeling the need to apologize for the state of the car, who never have to work all through the weekend to catch up on procrastinated tasks. And yet, when it comes down to those momentary choices, I continue to choose the fun/easy/pleasant/relaxing thing.

It's not all bad. As a direct result of this pattern, my life has been full-to-bursting with fun, easy, pleasant, and relaxing moments. But I'm ready for more maintenance.

Scott Noelle told me at Live and Learn that my kids take their housework cues from me. And he's right: for their whole lives, I have regarded chores as Tasks to Dread. Little wonder that they share that attitude.

The other thing he said is that if I can begin to enjoy living in a clean house even before I have one—much the way one enjoys a Christmas present even before it's been opened—it will put me in a more positive, powerful, energized place, and that, from there, making the choice to Do This One Thing Now will be easier.

Here's hoping.

Unschooling and chores

An unschooling friend pointed out that the following sentence in my previous post makes it seem like we require the kids to do regular chores: "She's discovered things she likes better at Summerhill -- no chores there...."

Well, this is biting off a big mouthful, presenting all this to a mostly non-unschooling audience, but I'll give it a go. Just bear in mind that the topic of chores is one that inspires hours of debate and discussion even among those of us committed to unschooling. I'm probably not going to convince you that this approach is right, but by the same token, you won't be able to convince me that it's not. With that understood, here we go.

To clarify, while chores do get done at our house (eventually), we no longer believe in assigning them to specific people. Frank and I chose this lifestyle -- having a house with a lawn, eating in, using stoneware and stainless instead of paper and plastic, etc. -- and we tend to set the standards for how that lifestyle should be maintained. We are, therefore, ultimately responsible for maintaining it. That's it, the bottom line.

As part of our family, the kids often voluntarily contribute to that maintenance, and when company is coming over, we all participate in the fire drill that makes the place guest-ready. Beyond that, the "chores" that the kids "must" do are things like occasionally hauling all their stuff to their own rooms, carrying dishes to the sink or dishwasher, and bringing me their dirty laundry.

Some unschoolers don't ask their kids to do even that much. Or if they ask, the kids are free to be too busy. It's all about respecting that the child's needs of the moment are as important as the parent's needs of the moment, and fostering an attitude of cooperation and joyful sharing of tasks. My schedule tends to be too tight to allow for that ideal flexibility. If now is the stolen moment when I have the time and willpower (an elusive combination) to start a load, now is the time the girls had better bring me their dirty clothes. However, they are free to choose to go without clean clothes for another week, and to accept the risk that one week might stretch into two.

I suppose I'd better talk about teaching responsibility, since that's what people always ask: How will your kids learn how to be responsible if they don't have any responsibilities? My answer is that OF COURSE my kids have responsibilities. Responsibility is unavoidable, and anyway, avoiding it is not something they have as a goal. Without external force being applied to them, my kids care, create, work, clean, correspond, keep schedules, remember details, pick up slack, invent, investigate, and help out. Making them do the dinner dishes once a day is not going to improve on that. Especially when they probably would have preferred cheese pizza on paper plates. :-)

Do Frank and I wish we had more help? Of course! What parent doesn't fantasize about having faeries that clean up all the messes overnight? Are we willing to assign, remind, harangue, harass, and punish in order to have that help? No way! Talk about time-consuming, nasty work! Ugh. Anyway, the peace of our family is not something to be sacrificed in the name of passing the white-glove test.

Even in our frantic moments, we try to help-because-we-love. And in our better moments, we are able to remember that everything we do, we do because we choose to. I don't clean the bathroom because I have to, I clean it because I like having it clean. Or because I like my kids to have a clean bathroom. Or because I don't want Frank to feel stuck with it. In my better moments, every chore I do is a gift to myself or someone else.