With so many opportunities to hire professionals these days, why do we take the DIY route to housekeeping and yardwork? I ask myself this question all of the time, especially when we become crazy busy with the kids' activities, or I just feel like there are so many other things I would rather be doing, or when Mike seems to be traveling nonstop and the yard begins to look like a jungle. Why don't we just hire professionals to come to our rescue? Believe me, we have. Once upon a time, I was in the corporate world. I hired a housecleaning professional to help me make the house a haven, so I could come home to rest instead of just do more work. With my husband's career, we have moved a number of times. Each time we move, I find a professional housecleaner to help keep the house "show-ready", inside and out, while it's on the market. Once we settle into our new home, I seek the help of a professional once again, to help me clean while I am unpacking and organizing and making our house a home. I let them know it is temporary and after a few months, I am on my own. Each time we move, Mike decides that THIS is the time he is going to do the yardwork all by himself. Usually, this lasts just about 2 months and then we decide he needs help. This move was no different, except this time, we ran into a few hiccups when we had landscapers take over and recently, we have decided to promote different values in our home. So, why have we taken the DIY route?
1. If you want something done right AND for the right price... Sometimes you just have to do it yourself. When we moved to Florida, we were incredibly busy and yardwork was just not going to be high on the priority list. However, we have a mostly low maintenance, indigenous landscape and so, we really only needed help with the lawn and some periodic weeding. We went through a few services because they hacked our beautiful natural and lush plants and trees and turned them into perfectly manicured little balls and twigs, even after we were very clear that we only wanted lawn service. We could not find another service that would adjust their price for "lawn only". It just wasn't worth their time. We didn't want to pay for services we did not want or need and they did not want to accept less, so, we were on our own.
2. Practicality. We have decided to make practicality a value in our home. Why spend the extra money on a service when it is something that we can do or learn to do ourselves? We will not take on duct cleaning or roof repairs, but we decided to start with things like landscaping, housecleaning, garbage disposal replacing, handyman type stuff, and we are adding things to this list all of the time. We are not the handiest people in the world but we are learning.
3. Time. I'm a stay-at-home mom by choice and I have extra time...on purpose. When I was a part of the corporate world, Mike and I were rarely home and our lives were somewhat scattered. Mike is in the restaurant industry and the hours and travel schedule is unpredictable and relentless. I was a brand marketing professional with an increasingly demanding travel schedule as well. I had my first child and just knew that the only way to continue my career was going to be to hire a nanny and that just didn't interest me. I wanted to be the primary caretaker of my child and my family. It was a choice. Every time I have attempted to re-enter the rat race, I am reminded of why I left. I wanted to simplify my life. Now, I have time. So, I clean my own house. It's not my favorite thing to do but I do it. I enjoy the routine, the order, and the way that it slows me down and forces me to stay home for a few hours because for being a stay-at-home mom, I am rarely ever home.
4. Role Modeling. We want our kids growing up to see us "doing" things, not hiring people to do things. Of course, when they become adults, they can make their own choices, but for now, we would like to do our best to reasonably role model practicality, initiative, and ingenuity. We don't want them to grow up seeing us hire-out for everything and then expecting that this is how the world works. Learn to do what you can, for yourself. Sometimes, we all need help, though. We want to role model humility as well, and so, we have no problem admitting when we might need help with something, like changing entry locks or faucet fixtures. Oh, the funny stories I could tell. But we want to show them that we tried to help ourselves first.
5. Work Ethic, Personal Responsibility, Pride of Ownership. We want to instill a strong work ethic in our kids, and a strong sense of personal responsibility, as well as a pride of ownership. We do not want to hire people to do everything for us and for our kids and then have them leave the nest not knowing how to fend for themselves or looking around for someone else to do everything for them. We want them to learn how to take care of their own messes and to take pride in themselves and those things that they work hard to provide for themselves. Those values start at home, and are up to them to carry on. If they make a mess, they need to clean it up. They need to help take care of their room, their clothes, their bathroom, their yard, their dogs, and their house. It is all of our responsibilities. When we do a chore, it isn't always fun but we learn to do it because it needs to be done. If there ever comes a time when we do hire, we all still have chores that we do to bridge the gap. So, the kids are learning to vacuum, wash cars, do laundry, clean windows, clean bathtubs and toilets. We are always working on graciousness and patience. When we send our kids into the real world, our hope is that they will take pride in their work, even the boring, tedious, dirty parts. We hope they will be role models of personal responsibility and be more than capable and confident in how to take care of themselves and their place of residence, even if their first residence is a dorm room.
These are our reasons for taking the DIY chore route. I will not rule out ever seeking help to ease the daily load but for now, this is our plan. It isn't always pretty. Our house isn't always the shiniest. Our lawn isn't always the most perfectly maintained but we manage. As part of this experiment, I have decided that we need to focus on a few more values: teamwork and conscientiousness. We have a family chore chart. My kids are very focused on doing their chores but ONLY THEIR chores. They don't really look for ways or take initiative to help out with a task if it is not on their chore list. So, we need to work on doing chores more family-style and I have a few ideas on how to make that happen. But that's for another post... until later... Keep Calm and DO YOUR CHORES!
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