WORK WORK WORK

Back when I was at BYU, I took a class about family work (only in the family science department!) for my minor. We spent the whole semester talking about how important work is within a family but not in the way that we see it so often in our society. We talked about work as a means to an end...namely that when we work with our children, relationships are built. We learned that It is the doing of the work that is important, because it breeds close bonds...the getting done of the work is incidental and sometimes wont happen was the jist of the class. In the class we discussed how we had lost something when we quit shelling our own peas because we had lost the time spent sitting with our families doing that work. We talked about how pioneer families worked together all day and had strong families to show for it. We planned for our futures of washing dishes by hand and scrubbing our floors on our hand and knees all the while building strong and perfect relationships with our children. I imagined in my head a perfect home with no mother/expert as we had called her in class (with some derision) who did most of the work instead, mine would be a home where father and mother and children all worked together in perfect cohesion and with perfect results...not a perfectly clean house but a place of order and a place with wonderful, relationships and never a cross word.

Then reality struck. I had kids. My kids hate to clean their room. I know, I know, I tried. I sang songs and worked with them and tried to have those wonderful and fulfilling conversations but...Hannah is so easily distracted that if she starts talking, she forgets what she is doing and just moves stuff around. Carolyn is sometimes a bit on the bossy side and spends all her time telling everyone what to do and informing me of exactly what others arent doing. Katie just puts all the clean clothes in the hamper and the dirty clothes in the drawers and quite honestly, no one in that stupid housework class said that I would have to wash, 12 to 15 loads of wash a week and that washing CLEAN FOLDED CLOTHES was part of the bargain...and Sam...well he pulls books off shelves and clothes out of drawers and toys out of boxes, faster than the speed of light. Every day it is a hassle, every day it is hard and I think, am I doing this right? Im certainly not doing it the way the class said...

But then there is dinner. I love dinner. I love cooking it with tons of little helper hands and I love eating and hearing the kids talk about school. I love seeing Sam cover his face with food and I ESPECIALLY love what happens after...After dinner every night one big girl washes the dishes with dad and one sweeps and cleans the table with mom. Katie helps with misc assignments and Sam bangs pots but a beautiful thing happens...the dishes get put in the dishwasher and the floor gets mostly swept and we all talk and have fun. It is one of my favorite times of the day.

So I look with some fondness at my family work class. It certainly made me think a little differently about what a home is and what work is about. I realize now that ideas are great and good but sometimes they are most successful when applied on a limited scale. I think I will always have frozen peas in my freezer and certainly a dishwasher in my house. Shoot, there may even come a day when I have a cleaning lady (I can only hope)! But I also hope I will always be found sitting on the floor chatting with kids while I sort laundry (clean clothes and all), discussing memories or blessing while I help a child load a dish washer, and laughing as I once again almost lose an eye to a broom navigated by one of my greatest blessings!!!