Chores take the time they take, but with children you have to take frequent breaks in the middle of them to actually parent the children (change nappies, stop them from fighting, etc). If you completely forget about having a life of your own, then you won’t have any hope to be crushed. Also if you don’t split the house work evenly with your partner don’t have more than 2 children.
Don’t kid yourself into thinking they will be any help before they are at least 8. But you still have to start them off with simple things way before that, otherwise they won’t be any help even as teenagers. But, you’ll find that they need constant direct supervision and everything will take easily 3 times as long as if you just did it for them.
Any time they aren’t within line of sight, they are causing unnecessary work elsewhere. For example while I was making dinner, my 4 year old helped herself to a block of parmesan which they chewed up and spat out on my bed and my 1 year old let themselves into the bathroom and started jamming empty toilet paper rolls into the bottom of the toilet with the toilet brush.
For 2 young children you will end up doing at least 3 times as much cleaning at a third of the speed (at least until they are older). And unless you have reliable mentally stable family in the same place as you, you can forget about any sort of social life outside of other parents during play dates.
my 4 year old helped herself to a block of parmesan which they chewed up and spat out on my bed and my 1 year old let themselves into the bathroom and started jamming empty toilet paper rolls into the bottom of the toilet with the toilet brush.
i feel like the first one’s gotta be an achievement somewhere if life were a game, lmao. i couldn’t for my life spit out a BLOCK of parmezan - it’s too delicious 😂😭 kid’s going places. can’t imagine it being fun to clean though!
For the toilet rolls, is it an idea to put the rolls ‘under over’ rather than ‘over under’? or have you already done that
but yeah, thanks for all the tips. so essentially, forget about social life, try to split responsibilities, and all that.
if i may ask, what in it makes it worth (or motivates you)? for me my big consideration, ironically, is a sort of existential feel, that i can remove the dread of leaving no legacy - that i can have a next generation to show the world.
It wasn’t a large block. I told them something they didn’t want to hear and they spat it out (already chewed) in protest.
It was the cardboard tubes that they stuffed into the toilet. The 4 year old is very wasteful when wiping and if any of the kids finish a roll they tend to kick the tube under the shelves in front of the toilet. The 1 year old just collected them.
They are absolutely feral, despite my best efforts. However they are also very loving, sweet, creative, smart children and they fill me with a warm fuzzy feeling. Although that might be sleep deprivation and a persistent cold.
I feel like I should manage expectations here.
Chores take the time they take, but with children you have to take frequent breaks in the middle of them to actually parent the children (change nappies, stop them from fighting, etc). If you completely forget about having a life of your own, then you won’t have any hope to be crushed. Also if you don’t split the house work evenly with your partner don’t have more than 2 children.
Don’t kid yourself into thinking they will be any help before they are at least 8. But you still have to start them off with simple things way before that, otherwise they won’t be any help even as teenagers. But, you’ll find that they need constant direct supervision and everything will take easily 3 times as long as if you just did it for them.
Any time they aren’t within line of sight, they are causing unnecessary work elsewhere. For example while I was making dinner, my 4 year old helped herself to a block of parmesan which they chewed up and spat out on my bed and my 1 year old let themselves into the bathroom and started jamming empty toilet paper rolls into the bottom of the toilet with the toilet brush.
For 2 young children you will end up doing at least 3 times as much cleaning at a third of the speed (at least until they are older). And unless you have reliable mentally stable family in the same place as you, you can forget about any sort of social life outside of other parents during play dates.
Still worth it though.
i feel like the first one’s gotta be an achievement somewhere if life were a game, lmao. i couldn’t for my life spit out a BLOCK of parmezan - it’s too delicious 😂😭 kid’s going places. can’t imagine it being fun to clean though!
For the toilet rolls, is it an idea to put the rolls ‘under over’ rather than ‘over under’? or have you already done that
but yeah, thanks for all the tips. so essentially, forget about social life, try to split responsibilities, and all that.
if i may ask, what in it makes it worth (or motivates you)? for me my big consideration, ironically, is a sort of existential feel, that i can remove the dread of leaving no legacy - that i can have a next generation to show the world.
It wasn’t a large block. I told them something they didn’t want to hear and they spat it out (already chewed) in protest.
It was the cardboard tubes that they stuffed into the toilet. The 4 year old is very wasteful when wiping and if any of the kids finish a roll they tend to kick the tube under the shelves in front of the toilet. The 1 year old just collected them.
They are absolutely feral, despite my best efforts. However they are also very loving, sweet, creative, smart children and they fill me with a warm fuzzy feeling. Although that might be sleep deprivation and a persistent cold.