This is the second in my three part quest to make cleaning a little less painful for someone. Anyone. Why am I doing this? Because those Saturdays my parents taught me how to clean have to mean something. Because the little voices in my head should be shared to make me feel less frightened. What?
So after you know what it is your ideal is--or what you like--I think you should acknowledge the dark side of cleaning. A mental dusting out of your brain, if you will. Go ahead and name the reasons why you hate it, but be specific:
Make a constant effort to rethink the way you want to think about cleaning by first acknowledging how you feel about it and why. I think the best way to do this (identifying how we feel about homemaking) is by revealing the stories we tell ourselves, sometimes unknowingly. For example:
*How did you feel about cleaning and organizing when you were a child?
*What did your mother teach you about this?
*Your father?
*What role does is have in your life now?
*How does it make you feel?
*What's the first thing you think of when you hear "homemaking?" Why?
I'm sure some kind of specific story could be generated from one or more of these questions that may reveal the genesis of your true feelings about cleaning and organizing today.
At different times in my life, I have felt different ways about homemaking, and that can be a freeing idea because it means that if you have a bad attitude about it, it also means that it doesn't have to always be that way. These are the shortened versions of the dialogue I had in my head when I discovered myself to be a mother of young children with demands of cleaning and organizing becoming, oh-how-do-you-say?-OVERWHELMING, and I started rethinking all of it:
*I don’t deserve this. (I'm too educated to have to do this all day.) What am I modeling to my children about feminism and women's roles by taking on 90% of the cleaning and organizing?
*I have better things to do. Reading/Watching tv is a better use of my time. It will just get messy again, but the information I learn will be with me forever.
*I’m alone in this, I’m the only one who does this. It's not fair. At the beginning of our marriage all of this was 50/50. It's like it was when I was little and the girls always did more housework than the boys. It's not fair.
*My mom ironed the pillowcases and sheets?! How do I live up to that!? She made it look easy. What am I doing wrong?
*I should keep this stuff because it's wasteful to throw things away and I might need it later. Plus, we're kinda poor and I could make something unusual and useful out of it. A different purpose for this sour cream container!
Identify these stories so you'll be able to address what specific roadblocks you have when it comes to cleaning and organizing. That way you know what you're looking for in order to resolve these issues, or at least change them in some way. Otherwise, the list seems overwhelming.
