Help With Your Mother's Rule

Help With Your Mother's Rule is a forum for women who want trouble-shooting help with their Mother's Rules or about any aspect of the 5 Ps of the married vocation.

Ask Holly: This blog is composed of your questions. Contact me at the address listed on Holly's Helpers page and I will respond. Please share your unique ideas as well. The more ideas and experience we share, the more successful every mother will be in designing her own unique Mother's Rule.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

It's a Year Later and....

Dear Holly,
Hi there! I love the "Helps for Mummy" on your Holly's Helpers page on the website now. Is that new or did I never notice it before? I wrote you almost a year ago saying I was having trouble getting things together with my newborn, my 5 year old and the house and my life. You told me to be patient and try when I was ready. Good advice but... Here it is almost a year later and I am STILL always running behind. Everything I do is at the last moment in a desperate attempt to finish. I really need a "catch up" time. Before being a momma I always had that in my job -- as a waitress it was at the end of the shift or when the customers slow down, as a teacher it was the weekend or summer break. You briefly mention trying to start your rule with a clean house but how does one get that done? I know I need to start with prayer but it seems like I start each day behind and on the run and never get time. How do I get back to where I should be?
Posted by at 6:50 AM
Labels:

7 comments:

  1. First off, yes Helps for Mummy is new as is the Holly's Helpers page. Enjoy!

    In reply to your question - there are a couple of things that can be looked at. First off - you talk about the need for 'catch up time'. I am not really certain what you mean, but there is no reason why you can't arrange such a day for Saturday, for example. In order to do this, you would have to 'cover' all your major chores throughout the week to enable you to have Saturdays as 'free'... Then you would be able to putz around filling in all the gaps in a more leisurely fashion.

    But secondly, you mention that you wrote last year and that I had counseled you to be patient and 'try' when you were ready. I am puzzled, in honesty. My question has to be - have you 'tried'? By that, I mean two things:

    1. Have you sat down and gone through your life in a reflective fashion, 1st P to 5th P, as I have suggested in both A Mother's Rule and the Workbook Companion? Have you put in an honest intellectual effort to discern your essential responsibilities and figure out what you are called to, as opposed to just having your life be lived so urgently? I have provided many questions in both the book and the workbook to facilitate and make easier this meditation. Without this reflection and forethought, nothing is ever going to come about in any organized or recollected fashion.

    2. Have you even begun to consciously implement a rule of life? Initially, can you not take some time - a week or a month - and drop everything and de-clutter your house? Can you not go through your rooms and ask yourself the questions on the Room Analysis sheets and determine your chores? Can you not put a list in the kitchen and write down the daily chores and make up a chart for yourself? Can you not start 15 minutes of prayer in the evenings, and drop everything to do it?

    These are what I mean by 'try'.

    If you have done BOTH of these things, then part of what remains may be a type of inability to schedule and organize, and for this, you may need to call in a friend who can assist you in making up a basic daily schedule and help you determine what is superfluous and what is essential and when you are going to do it.

    And lastly, but not least - it is VERY important to not dismiss the validity and need for prayer and ask the Holy Spirit to give you the strength and virtue to live your vocation in fidelity to God's Will. Prayer and self-possession remain essential no matter what place you need to start from. I have many reflections on the Thoughts For Mom blog which deal with self-discipline - especially under the 2nd P Person label on the side links.
    ReplyDelete
  2. I have a similar problem. I try and try to get our home organized. But how? I have to work outside the home to get our bills paid, and with five children (15yrs, 13yrs, 10yrs, 3yrs, 1.5yrs) something always comes up and I end up struggling even to get just the laundry and cooking done every day. And when I eventually get down to the decluttering/cleaning work, I just don't seem to advance at all.

    We haven't got an extra room/storage space to put the things that haven't been sorted (three bedrooms for the bunch of us, no laudry room etc.), it seems I'm always interrupted, and often someone goes to make a mess of the work I started while I turn my back. And new stuff keeps piling up, we have real difficulties finding things, it's getting on everybody's nerves.

    I have prayed daily for the grace and strength to be able to declutter our home (and to be a good wife and a mother in general), have thought out what should be done, and have really tried to do it. But I just fail time after time, don't understand why. Sloth, distractions, something? I also know I really should get the older children to do some more chores too, my work load at the moment is just too much. But failure there too. They just talk back to me with comments like 'it's not our job' and 'why did you have so many children if you can't take care of us?' Sometimes they do what I ask, but usually it's just a really depressing fight.

    How do I discern what is God's Will for me? I'm so confused. Sometimes I feel I should really try to make an effort to stay at home with the children, but my husband is opposed to this, and it would also mean we would have to sell our home + other sacrifices nobody seems to be willing to make. Then I just try forget it and do my job to the best of my abilities both at home and at work, thinking that perhaps I was not meant to be a stay-at-home mother. But I constantly feel that I'm doing a really bad job at both fronts :(
    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow! I thought I was overwhelmed but you, my dear, are far busier than I. Maybe we could pray for each other? Thank you for making me see that I'm NOT the only person who doesn't have it all together. It requires LOTS of financial sacrifices to be a stay-at-home mom but I wish every woman had the right to choose to be or choose not to be. I will pray for you and am sending you a hug right now because I could always use another friend. Take care.
    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for your comment! Let's pray for each other! Perhaps we'll get it all together some day, to some extent at least. I think it was around four years ago I first read MROL, and I've re-read it several times. I love the book, this website, and I've gone through the workbook too. But it seems I'm pretty hopeless at implementing it into our day to day life... The chaos is just getting worse, but on the other hand we've had two more children too to spice up things :)

    One of my favourite Mother Teresa quotes: "God doesn't require us to succeed; he only requires that you try." Gives some hope, and courage to keep on trying.
    ReplyDelete
  5. I am writing to the mother who has the children aged 15 and younger...

    When I read your post, I must admit, yes, my heart goes out to you. What I found most striking however was your genuine perplexity about the situation and the blame you place upon your self regarding home management. Your questions about your own 'weakness' - sloth, distractions, etc - is not exactly the reason why your home is the way it is, at least not in the area of home management...

    The area of weakness that I see pertains to your parenting and what you have been willing to put up with, erroneously...

    First of all, your children are being (and have been permitted to be) rude and disrespectful to you. They have NO right to speak to you like they are doing. They have no right to call the house & meal & laundry work 'your' work: Since when does motherhood by definition mean doing ALL the housework? Is this not the home of the children as well? Do they have no real responsibility to assist in it's care? On the contrary, they have REAL responsibility.

    But for some reason, they have been permitted to guilt you into assuming it all by yourself. I cannot imagine tolerating such sauciness as "Why'd you have us if you can't handle it?" This is insulting. For some reason, you have tolerated it. You need to examine 'why'...

    You say that your work is being undermined as you try to sort it out... This is the disrespect of your children (and perhaps husband) towards their mother...

    You say that there is a 'fight' that wearies you when you try to get them to work... I bet they also weary your pocketbook - I would bet you fund all their entertainment, their social life, and pay for everything they own... I suppose if I were a kid, I'd think I have a good deal too... Just be rude to Mummy, get out of your work, and still have her pay for everything... Great fun...

    To put it quite bluntly - your children are a large part of your issue, and this stems from your view of parenthood, both yours and your husband, for both of you tolerate this situation. The heart of order and peace in your home and your life has nothing to do with sloth in your heart toward your housework. It has to do with your parenting. Peace and order in your home and life is only going to come by altering your parenting outlook and practices...

    Parenting is not about slavery at all... I strongly recommend you read two articles I have written for the National Catholic register on "Teenagerism" because I fear your family may be suffering from a case of it...

    To read these necessary articles, click:
    Teenagerism
    ReplyDelete
  6. Thank you Holly! I think I've read those articles on Teenagerism before, and reread them now, and I agree my family is suffering from a bad case of it. What would you expect from a mother whose favourite author as a teenager was Jack Kerouac :) My comment was perhaps unclear but I have felt for some time already that the area where I'm most slothful is probably parenting and it really breaks my heart to think what a disservice I'm doing to the kids. I'm just overwhelmed and don't know what to do about it. And where to get the energy and time to do it, there's all the day to day running of the household to be taken care of too. I just feel I haven't got time to do anything properly, that I'm just drifting, trying to get by somehow.

    I know with Grace of God anything is doable, and I've been praying and praying about this and the situation just seems to get worse, so I guess God is indicating there should be a profound change, that He doesn't want us to continue on this path. But I'm totally confused as to what I should do in our circumstances, there are so many issues involved. I think I'll send you some e-mail and stop burdening this string.
    ReplyDelete
  7. Dear Anonymous with the five children aged 15 to 1.5 years,

    I want to say that my heart is with you and that you are so precious to the Living God. When the people came to Jesus, they were so weary, so beaten down by the laws of the Pharisees and Scribes and the injustice of the tax collectors and the Romans. Today, so many of us are just as weary and unsure where to turn. Although I don't have has many children or mothering years as you do, one profound truth I have learned on my spiritual journey of more than 20 years is that we best serve ourselves and others by starting from a place of gentleness. While it is important to recognize the areas of weakness in our lives that shut us down and keep us holding God at bay, we need to be tender with ourselves, like we are with small children - tender like Jesus is in scripture with the weary men and women who come to Him. Often we are treated poorly by others because we do not respect ourselves. You are a gift to the world, a gift to your husband and family, and you have a responsibility to cherish yourself and nourish yourself so you can serve your family and community. Jesus heals so we can serve and perhaps instead of worrying about all the things you are not doing in your life, you could put your attention and prayers on yourself, using centring prayer (the prayer of quiet) to simply be present to God; speaking gently to yourself in your own mind; taking time for your own personal care - exercise that you enjoy, fun with friends, massages or yoga to relieve the tension held in your body - so you can be a vessel filled to overflowing and give from the fullness of yourself instead of trying to give to others when you are already depleted. How wonderful that you are alive and so present to your need and desire to change.
    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)