Things you don't do
Kathleen Donahoe on "slovenliness" vs. priorities
Today’s post is brought to you by witchy community member , a writer in Seattle. Subscribe to her free Substack or follow her on Instagram for more invitations to ditch dumb chores and/or videos of her pizza-loving dog Larry.
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Last week, a man called into a radio show I was being interviewed on to tell me I was failing my children because I don’t fold laundry. I have a long list of ways I am failing my children, but it doesn’t include an unfolded underwear drawer. The caller then asked, “What are you teaching them? To be slovenly?” And because I am a woman living in the year 2024, I am practiced enough to respond, “Oh! You seem to have missed the point entirely.”
He’s not the first. I have made a bit of a name for myself for, well, laziness as a mother. I don’t fold clothes anymore (laying them flat in the drawer or hanging them up works great for me), and I have made a rule in our home that I only “prepare” dinner, I don’t cook (I save that for our dinner parties and guests that will appreciate it; my kids get frozen food fare). As I’ve shared these non-traditional chore choices, I’ve had some pushback, but my favorite responses have been the messages saying, “I have this secret chore I don’t do either.”
It feels like a sign of the times: Mothering and domestic duties have always been a firehose of expectations, especially for those of us who survived lockdown with small children. Is there a better generation of women set up to reconsider the “shoulds” of domestic chores? Covid lockdown is certainly my “lazy” villain origin story: here in Seattle, my kids were home from school for 18 months. As I quickly lost my mind managing work and kindergarten Zooms, I was forced to reevaluate what chores I could drop. Also, I have multiple sclerosis, and my diagnosis is a (horrible!) gift that has taught me the importance of rest. I have an intimate awareness that my energy and capacity are limited.
I don’t think you need a pandemic or autoimmune disease to cross a chore off your list, though. Because — and this is something I think my fellow Evil Witches will understand — despite what that man in Toronto said, I am actually quite aware and proud of what these chore choices are teaching my children. They are teaching them that a mom’s job is not to have a perfect house and homemade dinner on the table every night. My choices are teaching my son and daughter that they get to examine the rules that I have given them about how to create a home and eventually make the call for themselves about what of those rules they want to follow. And that, dear radio caller, is exactly the point.
I’d love to hear what domestic duties you have dropped. Do you actually OWN an iron? (I don’t.) What chores did your family of origin or society, in general, insist on that you have given up?
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This is Claire again. Here are some things I don’t do that I suppose in another world, a more traditional person would think I, as a mother who works from home, should:
Iron any clothes. If one of my sons needs an ironed dress shirt, my husband does it because he knows how to iron men’s clothes, and I don’t, nor do I think I should. (I hang my things in the shower if I need them de-wrinkled.)
Wash my husband’s or older son’s clothes. I pettily sort them out of the general family laundry pile.
One day per week, I send out a bag of laundry for washing, drying and folding ($30 per week, well-spent). My husband and son’s stuff are not allowed to be a part of this pile unless they happen to enjoy using a communal cloth napkin or dish towel from the returned load.
Buying the kids holiday/birthday gifts. My husband I had a big Christmas fight about this one year and the resolution was that I wash my hands of it completely and, in exchange, provide no input. Sometimes I help with a bit of wrapping.
Help anyone find their missing water bottle, ever.
Per Kathleen’s cri du coeur, what’s something domestic you have quit, downsized or outsourced?
End credits
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, here are some future issues I’m mulling over/working on:Talking with witches who got into, quit after, or decided to return to running after motherhood/their 40s
Chats about picky eaters’ dealbreaker foods and (separately) how our kids’ relationship with their siblings stacks up to our own experiences with siblings
A chart or illustrated ranking of the kind of messes my kids make, from least to most enraging to me personally
What kind of survey or poll I might try sending out that would be fun or interesting for witches to learn from each other
Another round of classified ads!
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One witchy thing
A witchy friend and me talking about our fantasies of quick healthy ways to address our daily lethargy and ennui:
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my husband does most of the pickups and dropoffs and I only do them if he absolutely can't. He says he likes getting out of the house and I think he likes tooling around in his pickup truck. Beep beep.
What I really love about this piece is that it very clearly IS NOT about how women should do less and their partners/men should do more. I so rarely see the blanket advice of “do less” without increasing expectations of people you share a life with.