To appreciate and understand the effort we’ve put forth as parents for their betterment?

To desire to carry on what we’ve worked so hard to begin, and labored to continue?

These are questions which have turned in my mind from the very early years of parenthood, and remain attendant today. “Legacy” is a hot topic on Substack lately, although it seems a lot of the advice is geared towards People with Lots of Money who want preserve their family’s money in a meaningful way. Some recent events in my personal life have prompted me to examine more deeply the ways we’ve (my husband and I) undertaken to perpetuate our People Without Lots of Money family legacy through our children - in the realms of memory, physical property, and traditions. Of course, my children are not yet grown, so here is my obligatory humble-stumble admitting that most of my advice is not-yet-complete conjecture based on what’s worked for me. However! my husband and I are both people who strongly appreciate family legacy, so I will share the personally relevant characteristics of our upbringings to underscore the factors which we believe led us to have the values we carry today.

I think the conversation about “legacy” leaves a lot of us wondering where to even begin. What can we purpose to carry on, when nothing belongs to us in the first place? So much of the traditional components of culture have been lost over the past decades, or transformed into something unrecognizable. Ways of life. Religion and ritual. Handcrafts and stories. Simple knowledge. There is no family seat, no locale of origin, no ancestral trade, no collection of great grandfather’s books, no tree in the yard from which multiple generations have picked ripe fruit. Progressivism, minimalism, “new money” ideals and anti-family values reign rampant over modern culture, obliterating the former ways of life which naturally led to a retention of legacy. But - here we are, and although our current environment may not be so readily conducive to legacy, it is still possible to attain.

My husband and I both care a lot about family legacy. In fact, it’s one of the principles we agreed upon as a high priority before we were even married. By “legacy,” I mean “building a life which will outlast us.” We married young, but approached the altar with a solid list of shared ideals in which we remain united today. Herein lies a very important component of parenting towards legacy: sharing said goal from the outset - or, as early as possible - between husband and wife. You can’t build upon what isn’t united. If we had chosen to pursue a modern-values lifestyle for the first decade of our marriage, I honestly do not believe we ever would have been able to attain our current status: property-owning parents with a family side business. What led to us minding our legacy began decades earlier, in childhood.

In discussion with my husband regarding our reasons for being who we are today, we both agreed that a huge factor was the large amount of time we spent with our respective grandparents. (Good) grandparents (and other extended family) have this magical effect of both solidifying and broadening a child’s world. Through our extended family, we are comforted by the breadth and closeness of our relations. We learn family history, family recipes, family stories, how to act, how not to act, who lived where and when, who died when and what they liked to do. We learn about those family members’ personal interests and ideas. We integrate, in some form, those ideas, histories, happenings and interests into ourselves and carry them with us as we progress through life. Ideally we will then pass these valuable treasures on to our own children - it’s only natural. I visited with my paternal grandparents very frequently, and I learned a great deal from them. I could not even tell you all the things I have absorbed from my grandparents. About my uncle, who died young of cancer. And the other uncle who died, less young, of the same cancer. The great grandparents’ hobby farm and their life during the Great Depression. Colonial herb gardening, how to set a fancy dinner table, candying violets, colonial era tea service, how to scrub a baseboard with a toothbrush, dried flower arranging, and simple cross-stitch - all knowledge from my grandmother’s personal interests. American quarter horses, presidential history, horseback riding, classical music, restoring antique furniture - interests of my grandfather. My husband spent a lot of time with his grandfather, son of immigrants from Finland, and spent hundreds - if not thousands - of hours at the generational family cabin and land upon which the original immigrant family settled, fixing and building things, rattling around, and especially listening to the clock tick while his grandfather talked for long hours with his brothers who remained living. On paper, to a modern kid, that sounds boring as hell. But time well spent with grandparents is invaluable in building a child’s sense of family history and foundation. We were both blessed to have good grandparents who inculcated traditional ideals of hard work and personal accountability, the kind who didn’t own computers or smartphones and barely turned on the TV. To them, we owe respect and gratitude for what they passed on to us.

An additional element that I consider important in my own formation towards minding my legacy was the infrequent vacations with extended family that I enjoyed throughout childhood and my young adult years. I dimly recall the concrete details of our various trips - to Old Lyme, Connecticut, the New Jersey beach, Florida, California, and Wisconsin - including or meeting aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, but I loved being surrounded by family and feeling the happy camaraderie we shared by staying in the same home. My husband took multiple yearly trips to his family’s aforementioned generational cabin, around which extended family members still lived then and do today. In short, we both spent concentrated periods of time immersed in our respective generational family cultures.

It follows that if you’re spending a lot of time with grandparents who don’t use TV, computers, or care about what’s playing on the radio besides Mozart or Jan Sibelius, you will be uniquely inoculated against the meaningless trappings of modern culture. Due to the anti-family values held by most of society today, I firmly believe that one must exist largely outside it - in various ways - in order to retain a sense of purpose towards legacy and tradition. We were made comfortable with a more conservative, simple form of living which did not require our unquestioning adherence to modern ideals. Our own immediate families lived in and participated in a typical modern life but had their own little cultures which did not include much of what was typically considered “cool.” We did not watch the “normal” TV shows, listen to popular music, go to Disneyland, or pursue almost any of the culturally popular ideals at the time. This was not because our parents were fundamentalist religious weirdos; no, they just thought those things were annoying and trashy and wanted to do other things instead. My dad built boats in our garage for fun and took us sailing and skiing. Our family took road trips to historical locations, watched Masterpiece Theater and didn’t buy (much) junk food.1 My husband grew up splitting wood, reading his dad’s collection of midcentury science fiction and fantasy books, and visiting grandparents very frequently - which he was able to accomplish because he was homeschooled. Yes, there was also a lot of screen time, but these anti-modern cultural influences were significant enough to hold their own and bear fruit in later years.

Isn’t it funny how all the ideals pushed upon young people today effectively exterminate much possibility of building a future that outlasts oneself? Not funny at all, really - but when you consider how uncool it is to even be sexually fertile and act upon that fertility by producing children, much less more than two of them, I remain confident in my pronouncement. People are told to leave their place of origin, go to a college far away, take on debt, travel as much as possible, delay marriage, avoid having children, move often in pursuit of a marginally more ideal living situation. Doing these things will mean you’ve “made it” as a modern success story, but they can very often be absolutely antithetical to creating a legacy.

If you raise your child to be of the modern world, they will in all likelihood continue that trajectory into adulthood. If you raise them to value family and legacy, they will retain it. At the very least, they will have a much greater chance of caring about the importance of family given intentional parenting towards that principle. Yes, some people by their nature and temperament will be bound to reject anything their parents teach them, and doggedly pursue their own aims which may be counter to a traditional, family-valuing mindset. But by and large, we become what we were raised to be, one way or another.

That being said, here are the principles I am working from in my efforts to raise children who appreciate their legacy and desire to continue it in their own lives:

Have Something To Perpetuate

Get married and have children. There is no legacy if you have no one to whom you can bestow it upon. Own property, if possible, and hold onto it so you can build value and a sense of place for your children. Take care of your property and make it beautiful and useful, with the next generation in mind.

Belong To A Place

Pick a location and stay there. This doesn’t work if you’re constantly job hopping to the latest up-and-coming city or taken in with “best life syndrome.” Build roots and connections with the local community and other families there.

Know Tangible Things

And teach them to the next generation properly. Physical skills - even hobby skills such as painting, whittling, knitting, and hunting - are all part of your legacy because they become a part of you that is shared with the next generation that follows.

Keep Physical Objects

To a point. I’m not condoning hoarding, but retaining special objects that belonged to family members is a way to keep them alive for yourself and the younger generation. Ideally you will integrate them into a place of real use or a part of your homes interior decor so they can be viewed - but in the very least, they could be stored properly with the intention of intermittent viewing for remembrance’s sake. Photo albums are the easiest way to do this without taking up space you may not have. Also, you can’t retain a visual sense of your family’s history while wholeheartedly throwing yourself into whatever the latest home decorating style is - especially if that style is whitewashed minimalism - so it will force you to develop more of your own taste, which is always a good thing.

Talk About Your Family

Talk about your family in a real way, in a casual way, in everyday conversation. Bring up deceased family members and tell stories about them. Relate the living family members to the members who have passed away. These stories will become your family lore, and help your children connect themselves to farther-flung branches of the family tree.

Have a Family Business or Physical Trade/Activity

Something tangible and lasting to involve your family and children in. Maybe that’s a ritualized extended family group activity, or outing. I knew one Polish family who got together with the cousins and uncles and made sausage the old-fashioned way every year. Other families have a business which can employ and connect multiple members. Some families have a smaller side business - such as carpentry, sewing, or music performance that the children can actually participate in and learn real skills.

Respect Your Own Parents

Respecting your parents does not mean whitewashing their flaws, allowing them to be unhealthily involved in your life, or letting them do whatever they want within your family. It does involve speaking well of them when possible and staying quiet when there isn’t much nice to say. Respecting your parents means you help them when you reasonably can - and maybe even when you reasonably can’t - and give them the honor due for the simple office of parenthood, and the fact that they’ve lived longer than you. Do you want your kids to respect you? Then model it for them, now.

Don’t Be Ashamed Of Your Life

Are you encouraging your children to embrace the modern lifestyle via an underhanded rejection of your own? Do you express gratitude for what you have and who you have? Wendell Berry’s novel Hannah Coulter explores this theme, as the protagonist’s children grow up and move away, abandoning the family farm and their parent’s traditional values. Hannah realizes that they had unwittingly been encouraging their children to leave all along, and regrets she cannot undue past actions. Hannah Coulter is an excellent modern story including the theme of family legacy - I recommend a read for further exploration on this topic.

Legacy is made of people and the connections between them. In fact, I think most of legacy IS just generational connection. Those connections are rooted in places, stories, items, and the very features we bear influenced by family genetics. Ultimately, the greatest way to build a legacy is to create and build connections amongst the family that you do have with the intention to build one of your own, and inculcate a steadfast belief in the importance of family in those members. As for me? I’m making sure my children know about cross stitch, the history of the American west, and are comfortable having the local classical radio station playing in the background. I’m ensuring that they regularly visit that same generational Finnish cabin where my husband whiled away so many thousands of hours. And if we are successful, we will live to see our grandchildren someday learning to love these same cherished things.

Thank you so much for stopping by. I am humbled by your support and words of kindness! If you’d like to follow along, you can subscribe below. Most of my writing is free because, well, I want lots of people to have the opportunity to read it. Paying subscribers help contribute towards our family’s livelihood and ongoing mission to build legacy and tradition in our home.

Blessings,

Emily

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We learn the language of modern motherhood largely through social media: influencers or “mental health/parenting professionals” on Instagram, Facebook groups, Tik Tok and the like. Some mothers read books, but more of them listen to podcasts or watch YouTube videos. My experience with gentle parenting techniques and neurodivergent ideology comes largely from Instagram and Facebook groups, and also a few books I read early in parenthood and have largely discarded. Thankfully, I am no longer on Instagram, but I recall being inundated with reels on everything from sleep training to counseling your child away from pushing another child off the slide at the playground during my time wasted on that platform. Facebook groups for mothers of neurodivergent children are filled with women counseling other women on getting an IEP for their child, finding a psychologist who will quickly confirm a parent’s suspected autism diagnosis for their child, and discussing how OT helped their child learn to do certain tasks successfully.

I sense that some reading this might be getting their hackles up as they perceive that I am here to denounce “neurodiversity” or gentle parenting. While it’s true that I do not support most gentle parenting - try authoritative parenting instead! - I am not here to discuss the relative validity of these techniques and beliefs. I am very glad that mothers who have children that struggle or have issues themselves are getting (at least some of) the support they need.

However, I believe that there is a significant cohort of women falling into the pool of neurodivergence-speak and alphabet diagnoses (ADHD, ODD, OCD etc) simply because it happens to be a dominant portion of millennial motherhood society. These women may not actually or fully belong in those “camps” of mothers and families, but come to doubt their child’s normal development and behavioral challenges, seeing them as aberrant or something requiring professional or medical intervention. They unwittingly pathologize their child’s very normal behavior due to misdiagnosis based on social media content.

As a side note: while I am glad that these mothers in great need of help are getting the resources they need - even virtually, via advice and support from other mothers - there is one very negative aspect of the online neurodivergence/therapy/gentle parenting discourse for which I see no redeeming qualities, and that is the harsh criticism of fathers and their natural instincts towards masculine parenting techniques. Men are verbally castigated by their wives for doing things such as refusing to play along with the 12-step routine that an eight year old child has insisted upon before walking out the door for the day (likely because they correctly perceive that - outside of a true, profound diagnosis and disorder - this may be child manipulation of parents at its finest). Husbands find themselves divorced due to a lack of knowledge on the latest parenting techniques for ODD or ADHD. This is not to say that millennial fathers in general don’t have their own long list of character flaws, malformation, and lack of knowledge around how to treat children. But as a rule, fathers are largely maligned by mothers on social media for not being as informed, gentle, or compliant with their child’s demands as they are. The mother is the one who reads and researches, makes the mental health appointments, navigates medical care, and then finds her husband hopelessly behind the times and frustratingly out of style. I don’t blame the mothers for feeling frustrated that their husbands don’t “get it”, nor do I condone abuse but - hear me out: what if some of these children didn’t actually need special therapies, routines, services, or diagnoses? And what if a father’s natural masculine instincts towards parenting his children weren’t all bad? I have seen, on many occasions, fathers deemed abusive for physically restraining a child who was trying to hurt them.

I personally think that this social media influence takes root due to the lack of generational, common-sense parenting wisdom and hands-on assistance from older mothers and an absence in personal experience with children before becoming mothers themselves. How many of us spent extended time with babies or toddlers before becoming a mother? Many women have never seen someone breastfeed, never observed a toddler’s tantrum being artfully handled, never even held a baby themselves until they bear children of their own. How on earth can we expect women’s intuitive instincts towards motherhood to spontaneously emerge once their children are born given the lack of formation?

That being said, I think it does genuinely seem that children today have more struggles behaviorally and mentally than when I was growing up in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. I think debating whether or not these changes are “real” is unhelpful because if the symptoms are presenting, they ARE real, whether they are caused by too much internet, vaccines, or divorced parents, etc whatever other reasons people give. But it’s unfortunately not possible to point to one thing as the cause. What came first, the parenting confusion or the behavior? It’s impossible to say.

I feel confident in speaking on this matter because I have been (and continue to be, to an extent) one of those moms. Some of my children have exhibited confusing behaviors and symptoms which I didn’t understand and had no idea how to handle. I won’t be disclosing too much specifics for privacy reasons, obviously, but suffice to say that after consuming a lot of parenting content I was convinced that one child had AuDHD/ODD/OCD, another child was autistic/SPD and needed OT, and a third child was ADD/ODD. For the sake of simplicity, I will focus on the child who I thought was autistic with sensory processing disorder and needed occupational therapy. Let’s call them “K.”

Something had to be wrong with K, according to what I saw other mothers speaking about. They potty trained very late, had trouble using utensils at the table for years, had some sensory issues and speech issues, among other harder-to-explain symptoms and behaviors. I read about autism, sensory processing disorder, and other diagnoses and became convinced that this was the key to explaining my child’s perplexing behaviors. I began to think to myself as if these diagnoses had already been confirmed by a professional, because - I am the mother and know best, right? While women can have superhuman levels of intuition towards their own bodies and their children, we can also be heavily, unconsciously influenced by groupthink and societal pressures to the point where we begin to believe things we never would have considered a short time before.1

It feels really good to have a diagnosis, a club to belong to, some kind of specialist-sanctioned rules for parenting or way forward in dealing with your child’s behaviors. That may seem crazy to some reading this essay, or others might find themselves nodding along. To type out “my child has AuDHD, ODD and SPD” is very validating for some women. And again, I am not saying that some families and children do not genuinely have these struggles. But for some women - this is simply a societal trap we have fallen into unwittingly. In the case of my child, K, I took them to get evaluated several places and saw that none of the suspected diagnoses were confirmed. They passed the OT exam with flying colors. Not only that, but K grew out of the offending behaviors and personality quirks. I realized that I had been influenced by a light form of social contagion and felt awful for pathologizing my child’s normal behavior.

The thing about childhood behavior is that there is a range, a spectrum, of everything from the time at which a child potty trains, to the number of minutes that they like to talk about their favorite hobby or character, to the way that they hold their pencil in the first years of writing. Not only is there a spectrum of normal which does not necessitate the label of “neurodivergent” on one end and “neurotypical” on the other end, but I think we forget that children grow and change and some behaviors which might be labeled as something not-typical will simply evaporate as the child ages. Older mothers who still retain traditional parenting wisdom would be quick to confirm this, with a reassuring smile. But in the new paradigm, these older mothers are seen as “behind the times” and their opinions are often seen as less valuable than the nurse on Instagram counseling you on why your 10 year old has a Cluster B personality disorder (it’s all your fault).

I think my generation has shunned the advice of the older moms because we largely look upon our own childhoods as traumatizing, to varying extents. Yet we forget that our parents were human, make mistakes, almost certainly love us dearly, and were likely reacting to the perceived failures of their own parents. (And, of course, it follows that our children will likely see us in the same light if we don’t model a better attitude towards our own parents…) I’m not going to tell you that your childhood was not traumatizing. Many boomers practiced some combination of authoritarian or permissive parenting, neither of which was ideal. In our desire to parent differently, though, things have gotten a little out of hand. Determined to do things our own way, we may be too quick to embrace a new method bound to produce simply a different kind of messed-up child.

There is a third way - between the authoritarian ignoring of typical childhood behavior and failure to address real problems or hiccups in development, and the current symptoms-and-feelings focused death spiral. And possibly the best way I can offer an example of this is through one of my favorite childhood books.

Have you ever heard of Mrs Piggle Wiggle?

If you are not yet acquainted, allow me to introduce you. Mrs Piggle Wiggle is a little old woman who loves children. More importantly, she understands children. She lives in a neighborhood amongst many families, not a few of which contain children who visit her daily after school to play at her very child-friendly home. She always listens when children give long, rambling stories about their dreams, she allows the boys to take apart machinery in her yard and build whatever they want with wood and tools, and she hosts tea parties for the young girls in elaborate dress-up. Of course, there are always cookies or some other sweet available to be munched. The children always help with the chores, and are given real responsibility.

Another key quality of Mrs. Piggle Wiggle is her ability to help the parents of these children in dealing with disciplinary difficulties and character faults; e.g. the child who will not clean up his room, the child who never finishes a task, the child who will not brush her teeth, the child who always forgets to take care of her pets.

Each chapter is named after a “cure” she advises or administers to a child at the behest of an anguished parent at their wit’s end. The cures are typically dealt out through exposing the child to natural consequences of their behavior in a particularly kind but firm way, with the exception of Mrs Piggle Wiggle’s Magic, which involves - you guessed it - magical cures. The typical scenario goes as follows: the child has a troublesome behavior normal to childhood, such as picky eating, messiness, lack of follow through, or lying. The mother tries her nicest and best to get the child to change their behavior, occasionally resorting to sternness, while the father admonishes the child. The reader sees a window into the shared responsibility for the flaw, between the mother, father and child. The mother calls Mrs. Piggle Wiggle in despair, and she assures her that she knows just what to do.2 The rest of the chapter proceeds with the cure itself, including remarkable insights into human nature and lots of humor.

The other day I was listening to Mrs. Piggle Wiggle’s Farm with my daughter and it struck me that if many of these children were being raised today, the mothers would have a very different experience in getting advice for handling their behavior. Considering this, some of the children from Mrs. Piggle Wiggle would easily be diagnosed today with ADHD, OCD, or one of the many other lettered behavioral diagnoses. And even if they were not diagnosed, the mothers would be advised to approach their child's behavior in a multitude of ways, none of which involve parenting wisdom or traditional common sense.

Where modern parenting dictates that a child has ADD because they cannot keep their room clean, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle helps teach the necessity of tidiness through repeated natural consequences and kind but firm boundaries.

When modern parenting describes a girl who never feeds or cares for her pets as narcissistic, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle creates a situation with inescapable natural consequences and hands the child more responsibility with gentle care.

Where modern parenting says that a girl who refuses to wash herself must be neurodivergent, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle tells the mother to let her daughter get as dirty as she pleases and then plant radish seeds on her skin!

Yes, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle is a fictional character, but the stories are written with not-so-fictional scenarios and provide surprising insight into human nature - not to mention the realistic petty competition amongst the mothers in the neighborhood! While the series is not a parenting manual, I think millennial mothers would do well to pick up a copy of Mrs. Piggle Wiggle and gain a glimpse into a world where children are loved for who they are, how they are, and guided through their quirks and quibbles with artful, caring skill. 3

Before jumping to the conclusion that your child has a problem to be diagnosed by a specialist, I think we would do well to reflect on how well we have really parented that child thus far.

Am I a consistent, kind authority in the home?

Do I allow my child to experience the consequences of their actions?

Am I modeling the behaviors I want my child to exhibit?

Do I seek to understand my child, and not treat them as an inconvenience to be managed?

Does my child know that they can talk to me about anything, but that there are boundaries around expressing feelings in constructive ways?

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. If you are a mother reading this essay who has been in the same boat as me, I encourage you to get back to the basics of common-sense parenting techniques. If you are unsure about a behavior, find an experienced mother who raised well-adjusted children and ask her opinion before running to a specialist. Talk to other mothers about their childrens’ behavior and you will see that your child is likely not that unusual or abnormal. If you aren’t familiar with developmentally normal behavior for your child, read books on what to expect at each age. Don’t be afraid to step outside the modern parenting paradigm and see what lies beyond!

Thank you so much for stopping by. I am humbled by your support and words of kindness! If you’d like to follow along, you can subscribe below. Most of my writing is free because, well, I want lots of people to have the opportunity to read it. Paying subscribers help contribute towards our family’s livelihood and ongoing mission to build legacy and tradition in our home.

Blessings,

Emily

Subscribe now

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I think that most of the abovelisted activities and tasks naturally fall to mom, or whichever spouse is the stay at home parent. Sometimes both spouses work, and the home care tasks are (very ideally) split. Either way, in a variety of capacities, both parents have work to do in and around the home with family. I’d venture to say that dads often run into the same issue - but frankly, I’ve only ever heard this complaint from women.

And it’s really our fault, isn’t it?

But that’s not a fair accusation! one might reply. I’m the stay-at-home parent, and chief executive family officer of scheduling, housekeeping and organization. It’s my job to know this stuff, and do it well, and make sure everything gets done.

To which I would agree. Yet I posit that it is also your job to teach others how to accomplish these tasks well.

I think some women have their identities tied up in their work as mothers. Like how some men think only men can mow the lawn, or take out garbage, or change the oil because it would threaten their manliness to hand off those jobs. And such comparative women are loathe to pass on their knowledge because they feel it detracts from their identity-self, and if they hand away responsibilities - what will they be left with? Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you view things) for my children, I am not like this and am more than happy to teach them all I know. I do not want to be the only one who knows how to put away those hard-to-classify dishes. I do not want to be the only good-enough bathroom cleaner. I will not be the only one keeping track of the family calendar. I don’t want to be the only human being who can cook a tasty dinner in my house. And I won’t be, because I have resolved to teach my children most of what I know. I want to be REPLACEABLE.

What does it mean to be “replaceable?” It means that other people can do most of your duties, nearly as well as you can, when they need to. Obviously, they can’t do everything for you. You may have heard it said before to “Outsource everything except sex with your husband.” I don’t entirely agree with that, but it conveys the gist of the matter. Until your children are older - mid teen years? I doubt they will have the mental capacity to truly think the way the chief home executive officer does in large-scale planning way, but they are definitely capable of doing most of the handwork of motherhood from a pretty young age. All you have to do is teach them!

Needless to say, this is a lot of work “up front.” Just as the messy, crazy, and effort-laden choice to let your children use real tools and items from a young age typically results in greater capabilities in the short and long run, so it is harder to take the five minutes to teach your seven year old the art of dicing onions than to do it yourself in thirty seconds. The act of becoming replaceable takes place over time, like a butterfly metamorphosis happening repeatedly - or maybe Matroyshka dolls. For awhile you’re teaching your children how to clean, and then they can do it - and so that part of you is replaceable to that child, but then you have to teach them another thing, so you’re still very hands on in that new matter. And so on. You’ll never arrive at a time when everything is done, taught, kaput. There will always be more teaching. But it is good for your children to learn these things, however incomplete it may feel to you.

I have found that my children really do want to know how to do things, even if they complain or gripe sometimes. My son is always satisfied and proud to cook the perfect sunny side up egg with crispy edges and a runny yolk - and even more proud to serve them to his siblings for breakfast. I had to force him to learn in the beginning, but now he steps in with delight. Another child enjoys being complimented for having cleaned the family vehicle carefully - however much he allegedly hates the task. Teaching children to accomplish tasks and giving them responsibility makes for more capable, purpose-filled, happy kids. They need to DO things, for Pete’s sake. We are not meant to cater to them until they reach adulthood, then expect them to figure everything out from scratch once they move out.

So, where does that leave the parents?

It means that the parents need to get their ish together so they’re able to effectively teach their kids. Ask yourself these questions:

• Am I - me, myself - already doing the tasks I’m supposed to do around the home and in the family? (for you can’t teach what you aren’t doing)

• Have I cultivated the patience and good temper necessary for teaching my children?

• Am I prepared to lovingly accept that the child will not complete a task with the same degree of skill as I can? (at least at the beginning)

• Can I hand off responsibilities without being overly controlling?

*Key point, here, in the last two questions: you cannot let your sense of identity and self worth be tied up in how perfectly tasks are accomplished. This is called being a perfectionist, and it is a part of you that has to die in order for the teaching parent to be born! I know parents who are unwilling to allow the potatoes to be imperfectly peeled, the floors imperfectly cleaned, the bathroom mirror incompletely wiped because they can’t bear to compromise exterior standards for the sake of teaching their children. So they overextend themselves in order to personally accomplish everything and ensure its perfection, or the tasks simply go undone. Neither is ideal. Of course, you should be checking up on your children and nicely correcting them as they learn to perform these tasks and responsibilities, but still - it will very likely not be as good as you could have done it, and you need to get over that.

Next, you need to make it simple and straightforward for your child to take on these “replaceable” duties. I’ll provide several examples from my own family as potential inspiration - ways in which I’ve successfully handed off some responsibility.

One way that I’ve accomplished this involves our weekly Saturday house cleaning. Friday night, I write out a list with each child’s name and the cleaning tasks they need to do. For example, my 11 year old might be cleaning our mudrooms, wiping down the kitchen cabinet fronts, tidying up the yard, and cleaning the family vehicle. My 9 year old might be cleaning the upstairs bathroom, wiping down all electronic screens in the house, washing, drying and replacing the couch pillow covers, and dusting the bookshelves. And so on. For smaller tasks, I will have trained them in advance by walking through the job with them. For larger, room-specific job, I have created a binder with numbered task lists for each room. There is one page for each room, with a “weekly cleaning” level of work on one side, and a “deep clean” level on the back side. The work is very clearly written out, line by line, so the child can take the sheet with them to the room they’re cleaning and follow along. I always check up on their work once they’re done. Once all their Saturday chores and cleaning tasks are finished to my satisfaction, I let them eat a piece of their Halloween candy. If they delay cleaning tasks all day out of procrastination or stubbornness, there’s a chance they might miss lunch until the jobs are done. The function of the Cleaning List Binder is to take some mental load off my brain while still allowing the child to have specific instructions. It is too much for me to walk my child through each nitty gritty task, and check, and remind, and try and remember everything myself each Saturday. No sir. This way, they know what they’re supposed to do, and if they don’t do it, I’ll catch any misses when I check their work at the end.

For a long time, sorting and organizing clothes each season or size change was the absolute bane of my existence. Due to my poor organization, only I could do the job, and our bins are in the old fieldstone foundation portion of our basement which is about 2 inches too short for me to stand comfortably erect. As of this past spring, I’ve completely revamped our storage system so that the clothes are separated by gender and age/size in the same type of bin. Each bin is clearly labeled on the front, and slides into a four-high rack. Thank you, Costco. There are separate bins for winter coats, wool dress coats, boys sneakers vs sandals, and so on. Now, I can send a child downstairs with “size 6” clothing they no longer fit in and they know in which bin to put it! What was once a dreaded chore has become simple and quick to accomplish.

Make sure your child has the materials necessary to accomplish whatever task you’re delegating to them, and that there is a place for everything to go! Laundry baskets are stacked neatly where they should be, cleaning supplies are under the bathroom sink, the rake is in the garden shed, and so on. Otherwise much time will be wasted in hunting down the required tools and materials. Yes, this requires more discipline.

Another example: I am planning to type up what “cleaning up the kitchen” entails, in a numbered list, small print, and hang it on the wall next to the kitchen sink in an attractive looking frame. I don’t want there to be any reason for my child to say “I forgot to wipe down the counters” or “I didn’t know I had to clean out the coffee maker” because I didn’t have the mental space to remind them, or they legitimately didn’t know. If it’s on the list on the wall - there it is. I really don’t want to have to hover and remind to get a task done.

Finally - despite what I said above - you will need to accept your role as reminder-in-chief. Yes, it’s deeply tiresome to always be reminding people of things. But the sooner you accept it, and save your reminding for when it’s most needed, the less awful it will be. Expect to remind your children of many many things, and know it will decrease somewhat as they get older - but won’t go away entirely. This is just how it goes. You are still relieving yourself of the physical work in the task, but as long as you’re leading in your own home, the leader carries the ultimate mental load of making sure everything is done.

In a way, I’m pulling your leg by telling you it’s possible to become replaceable because it isn’t really true. No one CAN replace you. A son can’t replace a mother. Even five or nine children together can’t replace a mother, or father. But having your children (or other people) know how to do a large body of your work goes a long way towards freeing you up for other activities. No mother with a house full of middle-to-older aged able-bodied children should have to come home after being gone all day to a messy house full of undone tasks - indeed, especially, egregiously if she delegated tasks before she left. No ma’am.

Your kids can perform surface-level mother tasks while you are away, or incapacitated, or otherwise occupied. They can read books to the younger children, change diapers, wash and put away dishes, cook food, take out winter clothes from storage bins and put away summer clothes, and keep a clean porch! And they can do it all, because you taught them. Congratulations!

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Buy Me A (Decaf) Coffee

But do you really need a break? Or is some other factor at play? Let’s examine the situation.

You know how it goes. It starts with feeling touched out, somehow smothered from all the loving little people coming into contact with your body during the day. Between helping the toddler in the bathroom and breaking up a fight amongst two older children, you dimly recall a past life in which you had hobbies, creative pursuits, friends, time to think without being interrupted every 5 seconds, space to lay down and close your eyes without someone yelling your name. You start to feel sad or maybe even a little resentful that your life no longer includes some (or any, depending on your stage of motherhood) of those previously loved things.

Looking around, you think to yourself that if you’re ever going to clamber back up the slope of self-fulfillment, that break has got to happen. And soon, or maybe you’ll lose it!

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with moms taking breaks. I mean, what kind of human being would I be to decry alone time for mothers? Most of us feel rejuvenated and centered after spending time away from our usual marching orders. The “break” should serve to restoratively fill your cup so you can return to your daily purpose with renewed energy and attention. No, the danger of feeling reliant on “breaks” lies in the potentially avoidant mentality it can create if they are used to cope with life rather than accept it.

My issue with the “I need a break” mentality is that it can (in some circumstances) delay, disrupt the natural progression of motherhood. I venture to say that there comes a time for most mothers - at what point this occurs can vary, and I think it can happen multiple times in a life - when they are suddenly full to the brim with their duties and find themselves overwhelmed, desiring to hide or even escape from their responsibilities. Cultural decay and lack of a social village notwithstanding, I think this is a phase which is bound to present itself at one time or another to most mothers. Maybe one day, similar to the Cottontail mother1 pictured below, she awakens to discover 5 children under age 6 who all need to be fed, clothed, taught to behave, and not exposed overly much to screens. (Of course children don’t just appear all at once like that, but sometimes…. it kind of seems that way) Once this stage arrives, the mother can choose to submerge herself in her daily life, submitting to the growing liveliness, fight against it, or run away from it.

The problem with always looking desperately forward to your “break” is that you do not settle into the full ethos of your current situation as a mother. There is a difference between clinging to the maiden’s characteristic self-focused identity and enjoying some peaceful alone time as a mother. I might step on some toes in saying this, but the nature of motherhood is often to primarily take care of others with the time in her day. She must take care of herself properly in order to fully execute this purpose, but her daily life is fundamentally different than that of most childless women. Fighting this reality will not change it; it will only create anguish and delay the proper maturation into resplendent motherhood.

Our self-focused culture views the yielding to “need a break” mentality as completely inevitable and perfectly acceptable, considering the enormous death to self that motherhood requires. And it is, indeed, natural, for us modern-day mothers to feel stifled and lost given the lack of individualist “me time” which characterizes most of our lives. I remember sobbing as a young mother of one because my ever-awake infant disrupted my designated shower time. My mother, who herself still had young-ish children at home and lived 40 minutes away, came over and took care of my son while I took my shower. It’s embarrassing to recount now, but I recall feeling utterly devastated then at the sheer lack of time I had to myself. In hindsight, that moment was a single step on my journey to maturation as a mother. No, I am not saying that mothers should resign themselves to doing everything alone, with no help, and no breathing time, but the identity shift into primarily caring for others rather than for yourself can be painful; and these individual stressful events can serve a purpose in progressing that change.

Once upon a time, I was a mom who felt entitled to “breaks,” in the sense that I would white-knuckle my way through the week until the appointed two-hour time slot arrived during which a teenage babysitter would come to my home, and I would drive away, alone, to do whatever I wanted. I spent the rest of the week leading up to the next me-break grasping at any moments of alone time, sometimes hiding from my children, dissociating and scrolling on Instagram to grasp at a sense of creative identity outside of my home. I had five children under age eight at the time, and with the birth of my fifth child I experienced a sudden scrambling desire to depart from my sole identity as mother and caretaker. Not in any real sense, but mentally I fought hard against surrendering to my precious and vulnerable position as a mother of many.

The problem was not that I spent two hours away from my children every week. The problem was that I was surrounded by beautiful people who loved me, in a safe, peaceful home, in a happy marriage, and I wanted to escape. I was resisting the acceptance of my role as a wife and mother of five small children, and what that meant for my mental, physical and spiritual life.

Here is the advice I wish I could go back and give my younger self:

Feeling out of control or suffocated in your life quite possibly means you need one or both of the following two things (aside from the mental decision to work towards acceptance of your lot): 1) more sleep and 2) more discipline.

The proof in this advice is that as an introverted, somewhat OCD homeschooling mother of six, I no longer feel the need to escape or dissociate from my work as long as I stay on top of those two action items!

I am not going to use this space to convince you of the need for more sleep. We all know that many of us barely subsist on enough as it is. Being well rested will do incredible things for your mood and patience with whatever life decides to throw at you. But in order to get enough sleep as a mother of many children, you must be disciplined!

It all starts with a proper bed time, which relies on your children being in bed at the correct time. If your children are going to bed at 9:30, you are not going to get quiet time in the evenings to yourself unless you stay up until an ungodly hour. And in order to get your children to bed on time, dinner must be early enough to allow for cleanup and bedtime activities to happen in their proper place. In order to have dinner on time, you must be able to prioritize the needed tasks to avoid scooching the meal later and later in favor of unnecessary happenings. If it sounds militaristic - well, it kind of is. If it sounds intimidating - it definitely can be! But again, here is where having enough sleep will help you execute what needs to be done as a wife and homemaker. The days roll into one another, with habits and schedules building and forming set frameworks for life to progress smoothly.2

Here is a snapshot of what this schedule looks like in our home (as of now). ”Me time” happens in the evenings after my children are in bed. If I serve dinner at 5:00, we all have time to work together to clean up the dining room and kitchen afterwards. At my current stage in life, there’s no reason I should be doing all the evening chores myself! Children go upstairs for bed at 6:45, lights are out by 7:15. The baby sometimes takes longer to get to bed, but overall I’m not interacting with my children anymore after 8:00 - because they are going to sleep! And since the evening chores have already largely been completed, I am left with time to read, walk, shower, write on Substack, whatever. I can get to bed by 10:00 having rejuvenated my sense of self separately from my children, without having paid any babysitters.

Since this is the Internet, I am expecting some to read this and misconstrue my message. To be clear: I am not saying that women should never leave the house, or have any life outside their family. For myself, I meet up monthly with my fellow mom-friends, we prioritize visiting with family and friends on the weekends, and I’ll occasionally go on outings with one of my sisters, mom, or friends. I take continuing education in massage therapy, I get a massage and go to the day spa probably once every two or three months. Those are all enjoyable activities which round out my social life and physical well being. At other times, I have leaned more heavily on taking a simple walk at a nature preserve, going shopping alone, or attending a talk at church. However, I am not and was not reliant on these activities to cope with my life, as I have learned that taking breaks to gasp for air leaves you feeling drowned for the remainder of your time. The difference lies in the mentality, and the viewing of self-care through the mother’s lens, not the maiden’s glasses of autonomy.

Of course, there are times in life when breaks ARE necessary just to survive. Some of those times might include caring for a special needs or medical needs child, undergoing unchangeable negative life circumstances, or living through a transitory high-stress job position. Sometimes you’re in a situation where you literally can’t get enough sleep or breathing room to function. Ideally, those instances would exist as a phase which you will eventually exit and transition to a more balanced frame of life. I’ve been there at various times, and I’m here to reassure you that you should not feel bad for needing a breather in those hard times. My intent with this essay is not to gaslight anyone into thinking their difficult state of affairs is manufactured by a lack of self discipline. But I think in a general sense, we can take a hard look at ourselves and recognize whether things can’t be improved by rustling up more self discipline and getting to bed on time.3

What will you lose as a mother by shoring up your self discipline and budgeting in more sleep?

Nothing, except a little more of your former maiden self - and that’s not a bad thing.

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Buy Me A (Decaf) Coffee

I’ve so enjoyed reading other Substack writers’ “Day In The Life” posts that I decided to write my own. I think it’s fun, educational and a little bit nosy to get a glimpse into how other people live their lives - and I love that. I am nosy as heck and have fought to restrain that less-pleasant aspect of myself my whole life; but when people are just laying all that information out there to read, up for grabs? I can’t help myself.

My only real hang-up with “DITL” posts is that they only give you a very small snapshot of a life, which can honestly be pretty misleading, probably unintentionally.. but still. Rather than documenting just one day, I decided to follow two weekdays and a Sunday (loosely) to give the interested folks more of a well-rounded vision of how we live. I guess when I consider our many colored days, they all seem so similar yet unalike that it feels like I’d be giving you all a pretty one-dimensional view of things around here if I only documented one day. Also, life isn’t just the weekday “grind;” we have our Saturdays and Sundays and days off “school”. Maybe I’m being precious but it really feels hard to give an accurate portrayal of my life in just three days’ notes. Nevertheless, this is my attempt to do so.

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I tried to jot things down throughout the day as they happened, but sometimes I didn’t get to it until a few hours later. So as I wrote in the subtitle of this piece, this is a diary accountable but not exhaustive. I know I missed some things, but I really tried to get as much in as I could. I tried to include what the different family members are doing at different times of the day, so as to give a more complete picture.

For context, I’m married and we have six children ages 10(b), 8(b), 7(b), 6(g), 4(b), and 11 months old (g). We homeschool and I am a stay at home parent. Okay, let’s get to it!

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