On a mother’s website I frequent a woman talked about buying a new teapot every 6 months or so because they get so grungy. I posted how to clean it and keep it looking new inside and out. This was one of the many housekeeping things I didn’t know about either. My mother-in-law taught me this, when one day out of exasperation she asked me why didn’t I clean the teapot (we are big tea drinkers in my house, the teapot stays on the stove). I told her I wiped it off as best as I could but it wouldn’t come clean, it was scorched from being on the stove so much. She was so surprised that I didn’t know how to clean a teapot, and showed me how (get some steel wool and scrub it real good inside and out. Then rinse it real good, then fill it with 1/2 cup of vinegar and 2 cups water. Boil, rinse and voila! sparkly clean teapot, good as new).
My own mother did not teach me much about housekeeping. She was a grad student when she was pregnant with me, she actually turned in her thesis for her Master’s degree the day she went into labor with me. She worked until I was nearly 3, then she had 2 of my younger sisters, adopted another younger sister, and between all this my parents got full custody of my older brothers and sisters by my dad’s ex-wife. So she was a stay-home mom for awhile. When I was around 7 she went back to work full-time, and completely stopped doing housework. But even when she was home I don’t recall her cleaning much, and she allowed a lot of disgusting things to go on, like she claims we were all potty-trained by the time we were one, but all that means is she took us out of diapers at age 1. My little sisters were not fully potty trained until they were 3ish, because I sure remember them pissing and pooping on the floor. and my mom would just leave it there until whenever. We also had roach infestation and the sink stayed full of stagnant water and dirty dishes. The house was always really grimy and nasty. We lived in a nice suburb neighborhood in a nice big house but inside it was like some horrible tenement. I was so ashamed of how we lived.
My dad was/is really sexist and refused to clean up much. Every 4 months or so he would get fed up and make us clean the house from top to bottom and it would stay clean for maybe a week before dirt and disorder would come back full force. I realize now that neither of my parents knew how to run a house and they were both overwhelmed by work and raising so many kids. and my father felt like it just wasn’t his job, it was my mother’s job whether she worked outside the home or not. I remember once when I was about 11 he asked her to quit work and just stay home and take care of the house. She refused, saying it would be a waste of her education and she would be bored staying home. But my mother was a social worker, I still don’t understand why she felt it was ok to be so slovenly, to raise her own children in filth when she often had to take other people’s kids away for living in squalor just a step below how we lived.
Anyway. The other day my daughter ibop, age 18, said something about not being able to boil an egg. I was so surprised but when I thought about it, it’s true that I haven’t taught her much about cooking, cleaning, or how to run a household. I really had assumed that she learned by example, from watching me. There are some specific dishes I have taught her step-by-step how to cook, but I have not taught her the basics of cooking. I have not taught her the basics of baking. I haven’t taught her how to make a bed, or how to dust, or the other basics of house cleaning. I haven’t taught her specifically how to do laundry. I haven’t taught her how to set up a pantry, how to can or freeze food, what spices to keep and use. I haven’t taught her meal planning and how to buy food. I haven’t taught her how to budget. I haven’t taught her how to keep a closet and store seasonal clothing. There is so much to running a home, it really is an art and takes skill; it really is something you have to be taught.
I never wanted to put too much household work onto her so all I’ve ever really required her to do was keep her room clean, vacuum every now and then, and do the dishes. Sometimes I’ll ask her to do another chore and she would ask me how to do it, and you know, I always thought she was kidding around.
I feel just terrible about this because I struggled so much as a young mother and young adult with keeping a clean home and making good meals for us because I didn’t learn how, the way I was raised. I learned so much on my own and it was so hard. I don’t want my daughter to struggle like I did just with keeping a decent home for herself, let alone if she decides to become a mother later. She has said that if she ever has kids, she wants to stay home with them and do the things with them that I do. But how is she going to bake them cookies after school and all and keep the house decent so they can have friends over without feeling ashamed and all if she can’t even boil an egg or know how to dust? I feel like I have failed her in an important, fundamental way.
She is staying home for the next 2 years, going to college locally and then transferring to an art school to finish out her degree. She plans to live in the dorms and then get her first apartment. So I do have time to help prepare her to live on her own. I am going to show her this and sit down with her and make a plan for when I can teach her these things. We both have such full schedules now, but I feel confident we can make the time for her to learn a new household skill every other week or so. I’m also going to write down for her each thing, and put it in a binder so that when she leaves home she has a written guide for how to set-up and maintain a household. Yay! I am positive it is not too late, and now she won’t flounder or struggle with this stuff like I did.
(p.s I have conflicting feelings about doing this with my sons, but that is another blog)
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4 Responses to Do You Plan on Teaching Your Daughter the Houskeeping Arts?
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- I'm Trula and this is my mommy blog. Being the mother to these children has been one of the most beautiful things to happen to me. Trula Kids, formerly Mama Specific Productions, is part of the MSPmedia network ©2002-2011 All Rights Reserved
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I enjoyed reading that Trula. Even though you didn’t have anyone teach you all that basic stuff growing up (either by example or specifically), that is an amazing testament to what a good mother and wife you’ve learned to be on your own anyway that you know you can teach all this knowledge to your kids now.
I never thought about the usefulness of all that stuff our parents taught me and my sister (we thought it was just chores and we grumbled helping mom and dad clean and wash and and all that but we did it) as being something really useful to me later as an adult.
Actually, it was not until I was in my mid 30s and divorced and for the first time living alone. I’d just moved into my old aparment and I realized after the first couple weeks “wow, I actually can survive on my own.” I know it sounds REAL stupid, but I actually got all happy and emotional about this realization and called my mother to tell her “thanks for teaching me and Alva how to clean and cook and take care of ourselves!”
It wasn’t just mom it was dad too. Although he was and is rather traditional in most ways, his take on it was “we have to teach you the basics cause you’ll have to do it for yourself and your own family if you have one later on. we won’t be here forever.” I seriously did not even get that concept until 34. Duh!
When I called my mom to thank her that day, she laughed and said she was glad I realized it and was grateful.
It must have been rough on you and your siblings, but I’m glad you’ve grown past it and have learned from it too. My folks were not perfect but when I hear about other people’s lives, I realize they were pretty damn good and did the best they could with what they knew themselves.
My friend Su had a baby on her own (in vitro) 5 years ago … and her parents both passed before the baby was born. She knew a lot of housework kind of stuff except for cooking.
I was really glad that I was able to help her learn the basics: she found out when the baby was about 2 that she had a lot of food allergies. She’d been just buying already cooked everything, and I told her “with all those food allergies its gonna get expensive and take forever to buy stuff, you need to learn how to cook.”
My mother father and I got her some basic cookbooks, and me and a couple of her aunts also gave her a lot of start up recipes. She said she was so happy that the rest of us kind of took over for her parents in helping her learn a basic useful skill she needed and it made us happy to do so. Me so especially cause I dont have my own kids and also we’ve been friends for 30 years.
Anyway her kid is doing well, and she’s so proud that she cooks for her and herself now (and as she told me “rosie! its SO much cheaper to make your meals! thanks!!” What a circle of learning right!
I like your site and eveyrthing you share about your life and learning and experiences on here. You’re great Trula.
(It’s me, Rosenda in Calfornia.
You know I have a son. He’s 6 years old. He’s completely enthralled by everything I do. From my job to domestic duties. On one hand he like playing sports with me, on the other he wants to help me wash dishes all the time. I teach how to TRY and stay clean. He’s in charge of cleaning his own room. I teach him how to organize his books and put things in their proper place. I’ve taught him how washing works, he knows how to separate whites and colors. He knows u use detergent to clean, etc, etc. I think it’s important for him to know how to maintain a household because he may marry a women who’s not so into those things. I figure he’ll have some domestic qualities to offer the relationship as well. In addition, he may not marry. Or he may get married when he’s like 40 or something (i doubt it, my son will be quite a catch) so he should know how to take care of himself and his home.
I’m saying all this to encourage you to teach your sons basic domestic duties. I’m pretty traditional about some gender roles and other things I’m quite liberal about it. When it comes to the upkeep of the home I feel like there is enough for everyone and everyone should know how to do SOME things.
My Kingman cooks and cleans occassionally. Certainly not more than me, but it’s nice getting a break every once in a while since be both work outside the home. I guess the what if’s run thru my mind with respect to what roles and duties I’m going to instill in my son. He keeps begging me to teach him to crochet. lol. I keep putting it off because I’d rather see him playing his basketball. I get the feeling he asks me how to do these things only because he sees me doing them and he likes to bond with me by doing things with me.
So I like the oppurtunity to bond with him, even over some domestic duties.
P.S. Thanks so much for your response to my question a few weeks back.
I think that every adult should know how to handle the basics: feeding, clothing and sheltering yourself.
It’s possible that they might have a spouse that would take care of that for them, but not everyone gets or stays married, or if they do get married, they might marry late.
So I think all your kids would benefit from learning the domestic arts.
I think, unfortunately, that the idea of household work gets undervalued — probably because it was “women’s work”. But everyone values the result of that work, which is to have a nice home. But it’s hard to get the benefit if you’re unable to put forth the effort. And I think that if a person doesn’t do the work, they don’t really appreciate the effort or benefit it brings.
Oh — and as a woman, it’s a total turnoff if a guy has a grungy house, but a total turnon if they can cook, so you should absolutely teach your sons as well as your daughter how to manage a home.
Finally — I think it’s great to teach your kids these things, because you value that work yourself. So teaching them these things teaches them about you and your choices/values.
And this is a selfish reason, but I don’t care: you should teach your kids this stuff because I think the world would be vastly improved with more people doing the things that you like to do. Kind of like a Trula army, lol.
Oh — and the guys in my family do a great job w/the householdy chores, because you learn that stuff in the military!
Thanks for responding ya’ll!
I also want my sons to know the minimum/basics of housework, and they actually do already. I have been conscious of doing this with my sons whereas with my daughter I assumed she learned/absorbed this knowledge from watching and identifying with me. I’ve taught my sons how to do laundry, how to make basic meals (sbop is 12 and cooks at least once a week) and how to clean the bathroom. I am talking about the full-scale running and managing a household I probably will not teach my sons. This may change though.
My sons receive training for how to be a man from my husband, including that they have to work to support a household. At their ages, 12 and 9, they already know that should they choose to have or adopt children, they need to be the primary provider for those children. There are grown men who do not know this or who do not seem to understand that their children need to eat or that the mother of their child(ren) needs their financial support, at the very least when their child(ren) are minors. That is where our primary focus on their training is right now.
And while I do understand that not everyone marries or stays married if they do, we are not raising our children to expect abandonment or being alone in their future. Should it happen, we are raising them with the understanding that it would be a temporary situation. Unless they choose to be single and live alone, there is no reason for them to be alone and have no one to depend on especially in the care of their children. We show them this not only by our own relationship, involvement with family and friends, but also by the intentional community we are a part of and plan to live in a community setting with. This community includes non-traditional households so my children are exposed to other ways of life. However, we are teaching them our way of life and passing on our belief system to them.