To Love Honor & Vacuum - Advice For Homeschool Moms

Today Sheila Wray Gregoire is joining me for a chat about her book, To Love, Honor and Vacuum: when you feel more like a maid than a wife and a mother. The book also has an appendix for homeschoolers.

Hi Sheila. Thank you for joining me today. First, I would like to ask you What's the best advice for a busy mom who feels that the only words out of her mouth are "hurry up, we've got to go?"

Take a deep breath, lock yourself in your room, and eat a bit of chocolate. Well, that’s more or less my advice for anytime we feel stressed, but let’s deal with this one first. Families today are way overscheduled. And homeschoolers often homeschool precisely because we don’t want to be overscheduled. But then what do we do? We figure since we have all this extra time we’ll sign the kids up for swimming, and gymnastics, and karate, and homeschooling co-op. And because we’re now such good teachers and organizers, we agree to oversee the Easter pageant, or organize a women’s retreat. And then all of a sudden our lives are out of control!

In To Love, Honor and Vacuum I talk a lot about how society makes us feel that we do a disservice to our kids if we keep them at home, because we’re supposed to be enlarging their lives with all these amazing opportunities out there. But your kids need you; they don’t need a ton of activities. And you’re called to your kids and husband first, not to every activity in the church. Sit down with your kids and your hubby, if you have one, at the beginning of each term and figure out what you will do for outside activities, and let the rest go. Your kids will survive, even if they don’t play soccer this summer.

Why do we get so guilty and upset about the state of our homes?

Women, especially women in the church, have come to see our identities as being caught up in whether or not we’re good housekeepers. When kids walk behind us while we vacuum, carrying a box of crackers and scattering crumbs in their wake, we feel defeated and despondent because we can’t seem to get the house clean while Martha Stewart never has a problem. She even has time to collect pine cones and make them into centerpieces, while we don’t have time to fold laundry! What is wrong with us?
Absolutely nothing. Remember Mary and Martha? Martha wanted to impress her guests. Mary wanted to listen to Jesus. That’s what our homes are about: being places where we can learn about Jesus. Of course, a certain level of cleanliness is vital. You shouldn’t fear catching a communicable disease in the kitchen. But if you have magazines and science projects around the house, think of them as conversation pieces, rather than things that prevent you from having people over. Don’t be perfect. Be real. It’s better for everyone.

Why do you say that many moms serve their kids and their husbands in the wrong way? Isn't serving supposed to be good?

Of course serving is good! But some of us can forget that Jesus taught us not just to serve, but to serve in a certain way. When Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, Peter flipped out. He wasn’t upset because he was getting his feet washed; lots of people had presumably washed his feet in his lifetime. It was because Jesus was doing it. Jesus was doing something lowly, but He wasn’t lowly Himself. And that made people sit up and take notice.

In the same way, I think, we are going to do lowly things. We’ll wash dirty underwear and clean up after kids puke. But we aren’t lowly. What’s the difference? I show in To Love, Honor and Vacuum that a maid does things for you without you even noticing. A proper servant serves in such a way as to point you to Jesus. If your son walks in the door and drops his coat on the floor and his backpack on the couch and then goes and plays a video game, and you pick up his stuff, you’ve taught him to treat you with disrespect. You’ve taught him to act in an unChristlike manner. And that’s just plain wrong. That’s not Christian serving.

Similarly, if our 15-year-olds don’t know how to prepare a meal, because we are always making gourmet things for everybody, we’re not properly preparing them to leave the nest. Serving doesn’t mean we do everything for people. Serving means we act in such a way as to help them look more and more like Jesus everyday. Ironically, that may mean sometimes that we don’t clean and don’t cook and don’t tidy. That may be someone Else's job. And it’s serving them to let them do it! So put your feet up, get out that chocolate, and supervise as your kids clean the bathroom. You’re doing them a favor!

Are there ways in which the Christian community makes our lives more difficult, even if they don't mean to?

This may sound like I’m about to commit heresy, but just bear with me for a moment. I love my husband. I love my children. I really do. But they are not the sum total of my life. I think sometimes in Christian circles family gets elevated so much that we believe that is women’s primary and only aim. And then, when we have “achieved” it and we have our husband and our kids, we expect that this will make us happy. If it doesn’t, if we find ourselves instead overworked, or tired, or feeling a little lost, we think we’ve somehow rejected God’s will for our lives. I think we should be able to talk more realistically about how hard it can be to be home with kids constantly, and to deal with the laundry and the crumbs and what happens when little boys miss the potty. And we need to remember that our peace comes not from our families, but from our relationship with God. The greatest thing God has ever given me is my family, but there are still times when I get tired. That’s just real life, and by saying otherwise I think a lot of stay at home moms feel really guilty.

Do you have any advice for overworked homeschool moms that receive very little help from their husbands or extended family?

Eat chocolate.

Okay, other than that? Sometimes, when we’re doing it alone, we feel all the more need to jump in with both feet to prove we can do it. But we bite off more than we can chew. Remember that your goal is to raise an independent, responsible adult, not a child who can impress the neighbors. Keep your eye on the future, and let all the other stuff go. Don’t get a curriculum that demands too much of you; get something that teaches the basics and leaves lots of time for family bonding so that you can do the moral character forming activities that are so vital. Don’t get your kids involved in everything under the sun. Get them to help clean up so it doesn’t all fall in your lap. And don’t beat yourself up! We all will have days that don’t work. I had one today! I gave up on school and just read Anne of Green Gables out loud for five hours. My throat is killing me, but we had a great time. The math didn’t get done, but we had amazing conversations about honor and duty and love, and that will matter more in the end than anything else. Focus on small things that will lead to your goal of raising loving adults. That’s what ultimately matters.

To find more encouragement to get your kids to help at home and make your marriage less stressful, you can pick up To Love, Honor and Vacuum ($13.00) at http://www.sheilawraygregoire.com/ Sheila Wray Gregoire blogs at www.homeschoolblogger.com/SheilaG. She also writes a syndicated newspaper parenting column, Reality Check, which she sends out by ezine every week. You can sign up for it here, and you’ll be entered in a draw to win a bunch of Sheila’s books and audio recordings! She’ll make the draw April 30.