The Tyranny of Doing: Household Management and Parenting

I recently saw a video contrasting how German people will correct someone by providing information, but Americans will use shame to achieve the same goal. This achieving change via shame pattern is especially present in the domestic sphere of housekeeping and parenting. And it affects mothers most of all, due to patriarchal gender roles around parenting and home making.  

American societal standards tell mothers that we should parent like we don’t work and work like we don’t parent. The nuclear family, the push to the suburbs and the evaporation of the “village” that traditionally supported families has made child-rearing exponentially difficult. Add in increases in cost of living and the reality that most households need two adults working outside the home in order to make ends meet and the ideals of a spotlessly clean house and actively-parented children are out of reach for most people. That doesn’t mean that they don’t want it, and will often feel ashamed or guilty for not living up to some set of real or imagined standards.

Tidiness Is Morally Neutral

I am the first to admit I’m a mediocre housekeeper. Our small house is sanitary and functional, but by no means neat and tidy. “Lived in” is a good descriptor, and it’s clear that some of the people who live in the house are children. Before I had a steady stream of videos in my hand, I would have had to go buy a magazine, or tune into the reveal of a home improvement TV show project to see an example of a perfectly clean, clutter-free space. It would have been a more intentional consumption of that kind of idealized home environment. Now, if I’m not careful while I scroll, I get multiple videos in a row about restocking a perfectly clean and organized refrigerator, or the importance of deep cleaning my bathroom every day, or something else equally absurd. And as a result of the idealized, all-or-nothing, “nuance doesn’t exist” approach of social media that presents the edited sliver of someone’s home, it can create guilt and/or shame when someone’s house doesn’t measure up to the imaginary standard. These are videos who would have us believe that a house with young kids can (and should) stay clean, and that toys and shoes and outgrown clothes will somehow disappear.

One resource I have used to help find balance is KC Davis’ book “How to Keep House While Drowning”. It, and her social media feeds, have helped myself, and some of my clients set aside guilt and shame about housekeeping tasks. Her mantra of “tidiness is morally neutral” can be so helpful in terms of managing the overwhelm and connected shame of a busy, chaotic, messy space. Her focus on function over form can help push past the all or nothing thinking that is so easy to apply to household tasks. Emily Feret’s social media pages are also helpful in normalizing what a house with kids looks like, and pushing back against narratives that all houses are perfectly spotless.

 It is helpful to remember that our societal standards of cleanliness are based on a time when many women did not work outside the home, and that those that did, often were working cleaning the homes of other women. It’s a lot easier to keep a house clean when you have multiple hours a day to spend on cleaning while there is nobody else in the house. Keeping up with household tasks while also working, parenting, getting some sleep, and trying to have a social life is incredibly difficult, if not impossible. And yet we persist in perpetuating these standards of organization and cleanliness and feel shame and guilt for not “keeping up appearances”.

The reality is that many of the people who appear to “do it all” are actually not doing it all, and are outsourcing at least some of that labor, either in the form of paying for housecleaning, child care, or laundry service. And if it’s not in the budget to pay for extra help, then the burden falls to the adults in the house to ensure a functional living space. As children grow they can (and should) participate in household chores, like picking up their toys and putting their dirty clothes in the hamper, but in general kids under 5 can’t do much in the way of cleaning.

In our two-income, neurodivergent household, my husband and I split chores along the lines of “what bugs you most when it’s not done”, which means he does most of the cooking and almost all of the dishes while I handle the floors, laundry, bathroom, and cat boxes. While that may look unbalanced, the reality is that dishes are a daily task, and the rest of them are less-than-daily for us. Your household may have different priorities and that is totally ok! Recognizing that you put your energy where you care the most is the first step towards allowing yourself to create a system that works best for you.

It's All Hard, Even When You Love It

I’m a child of the 80s, and the myth of “doing it all” has been somewhere in the background of my understanding of mothering since I could read. I had my first kid when I was in my mid-30s. I had the privilege of having a healthy, egalitarian marriage, owning a home, and having a thriving private practice by the time I got pregnant.

Once I had my daughter, I kept feeling like I wasn’t doing “enough”, despite my husband, my midwives, and my mom all telling me I needed to rest. In those first few weeks postpartum, I could care for my baby and myself, but not much else. My husband is an active and involved dad, and once he returned to work, he had to remind me that keeping baby fed, changed and safe was enough. (The cognitive dissonance involved in being able to do nothing but nurse a cluster-feeding baby for hours is tough to square with a world that wants tangible proof of “doing”.) Even towards the end of my maternity leave, there was this feeling that I “should” have been doing more. While it was possible to have done more, it was improbable, and honestly, I really liked hanging out with my baby figuring out the new rhythms to our lives, not to mention that “more” would have meant less sleep.

Once we added a second kid when the big kid was almost 4, the amount of time I had to do anything beyond keeping up with the basics evaporated. Playing a game with the big kid was infinitely more inviting than mopping the floor while the baby napped. Small children are forces of entropy, and absolutely will make a huge mess 2.5 seconds after a space has been cleaned. Parenthood and the never-ending stream of tasks that go with it creates a constant juggle of what to prioritize, and what to let go of. The fact that there is never enough time in the day, and that to choose one thing means that three or four other things are going to be left un-done is hard to manage with the expectation to “do it all.”

The Intensive Parenting Challenge

The Tyranny of Doing rears its ugly head in the realm of parenting.  Parents now are expected to be actively involved in all aspects of their children’s lives, lest they be labeled a “bad parent”. Kids are supervised constantly, and are given freedom from supervision at much later ages than previously. This kind of intensive parenting practice is exhausting, and may be harming our kids by not letting them build the confidence to try something and possibly fail. (I’m looking at you helicopter parents!) The push to be in multiple structured activities starting at an early age so that there can be some future payoff in terms of scholarships absolutely takes its toll on kids. That deserves its own post.

There have been books on parenting for decades, but the recent proliferation of books, podcasts, social media accounts and courses, with conflicting advice, can make it overwhelming for any parent. The fearmongering around parenting choices can be overwhelming, and can create so much noise that it’s hard to figure out what the best option is. The reality is that "best" is different from family to family, and from kid to kid. Parenting is hard, scary, and lonely, even when it is incredibly rewarding. You're going to mess up and make mistakes. Kids are resilient and can generally bounce back from a well-intentioned flub. (Although they will absolutely remind you of your mistake at the most annoying time.)

It can be helpful to remember a few key pieces from decades of developmental psychology research:

The Idea of the Good Enough Parent: a parent who is warm and supportive of their child, responds to their needs most of the time, makes mistakes and repairs them, but is not perfect. Parent the child you have, not the one you wish you had. And it may take a lot of trial and error to figure out what works for you. My kids are very different, and have been since birth. Temperament absolutely has an impact on how a kid reacts to the world.

The Process of Rupture and Repair Is Important: Yelling at your kid when you’re on your last nerve isn’t fun for anyone, but if you then apologize for losing your temper you are modeling what it means to take accountability for your actions when you cause harm. It’s also not going to scar them for life if you lose your cool, or if your baby who hates the car seat won’t stop screaming until you take them out. Attachment styles are impacted by the overall experience a kid has, not one or two difficult transition phases.

Authoritative Parenting Appears To Be The Most Effective: Communicating clear rules, boundaries and expectations to your kids, as well as clear consequences for failing to meet those expectations leads to generally well-adjusted and functional big kids and adults. Gentle parenting and responsive parenting are offshoots of this style of parenting, with more focus on emotional regulation for both the parent and the child. Authoritative parents absolutely hold their kids accountable, they refrain from shaming or scaring their kids into compliance.

I absolutely tried to separate the Household Management from Parenting, and failed. Keeping a home clean while it's full of tiny things belonging to tiny people is a sysiphean task. Teaching tiny people how to be reasonable humans can feel like a sysiphean task, but they do actually grow up and remember what you're taught them. Feel free to take from this what you need and leave the rest. I'm currently finishing this while looking at a coffee table covered in books and toys, and a pile of Legos on the floor. They're going to stay there while I take a break.

Take good care of yourselves.