Hopeless Cause?

[teacherdani]

Hello my sisters:

I am going to be baptized March 22, and I am SO excited. I just wanted to share that until I found this church even though I had been married for almost 7 years I never cooked, cleaned, or did laundry simply because I didn't know how to do it. I never knew how to sew, or do crafty things. Now that I have found the church I am cooking every night, cleaning, taking EXCELLENT care of my family, and putting myself after them. Previously I put myself first. I have a 2 year old daughter and a wonderful husband who has put up with my ineptness. I still don't know how to do many things- I am not a good mom as far as being able to entertain my daughter in church or elsewhere. I never know what I need to keep her entertained, I still don't know how to do laundry, and I still need help with learning to cook. I need more help with sewing and knitting and other household skills. Some of you may be wondering why I never learned these things- to keep in short and simple I lived in a family where I was expected to do everything- I was seriously neglected and expected to raise my brother who was 5 years younger than me. My mother didn't teach me anything about household things, except not to do them and that they aren't important. She also didn't teach me how to be a good mother because she wasn't. I won't go too far into all of that as I love her and I am grateful for her bringing me to Jesus (even though she is anti-mormon). I saw myself in the window reflection about a week ago cooking and cleaning for my family- it felt really weird to see myself doing it. My family is SO grateful though, and I know there are blessings in doing it. I feel like I still have so much more to learn and that in some ways I am a hopeless cause. What would you suggest? Am I a hopeless cause?

Thank you and I love you sisters so much!!!!

God Bless,

Dani

[teacherdani]

PS- I was taught that motherhood was an unsuccessful life choice and that it ruins your life. I kept my mother from earning her degree since she was pregnant with me. Therefore, I viewed children and hassles and never as blessings growing up.

[WANDERER]

Hi Dani,

Help is out there for the generation that missed out on a bit of domestic nohow.

There are 'How To' video download sights (kind of like youtube but useful) for whatever. Nothing is considered to simple, from how to change a lightbulb to how to do laundry : ).

I recently taught myself to knit and crochet using the net.

It helps to join a parenting forum. One click help to 'my pikelet batter hasn't turned out quite right/what do I do'.

With entertaining kids you can subscribe to a few home schooling or parenting sites that will give you ideas for activities to do with your kids.

It's never too late to become a domestic goddess ; )

[Gwen]

though knowing those things can be fulfiling and make some tasks easier...............but, good thing my salvation isn't determined by it. can't sew, can't knit, or anything of the like. i do have a bit of a crafty mind but it's more ideas not much actually gets created. my home is ......... almost always messy........yeah i guess that is the best way to say it. somedays i'm quite proud of my kids others i want to pretend they aren't mine. lol cooking.....well we don't starve, i figure that's a good start. lol

i assume since you didn't do these things before that your hubby helped out a lot? that's ok, if it's working for you then go for it. not saying you shouldn't learn those things, they are good things to know. but teaching your children and having them know you love them is most important. they are also good things to learn so you can teach your children, the value of work is important.

in many ways it can be good for kids to see their parents learn new things. even if they seem simple. my mom had a deprived childhood and i got to watch her learn to swim and ride a bike. lol it was great and i learned a lot from seeing that.

never to late and never a lost cause........................well my orginazational skills might be but that's neither here nor there. lol

[Alaskagain]

No, you are not a hopeless cause! My house is messy a lot too.

It helps if you can set a schedule, on mondays do the dusting, tuesdays scrub the bathroom, etc. etc. If you work outside the home, don't try to do it all every day, you will only exhaust yourself. After dinner, just take 15 minutes and you and hubby and 2 yr old race around the house seeing who can put the most things away.

One family I know cleans the whole house together top to bottom every saturday morning - even moves the furniture around so absolutely no square inch is missed. It can get messy by the next Wednesday, but it is clean underneath the clutter.

Whatever works for your family, that is what you do.

And that's great news on your upcoming baptism!

[WANDERER]

Gwen, having your kids know you love them is definitely the most important thing of all : ).

I slip up in the cleaning dept all of the time: the stick to a household routine. Crisis cleaning used to be what I would do and still do to some extent. I'm working on it. Current status: not good LOL.

[RachelleDrew]

Your husband didn't marry you because he thought you could make some good dinner or keep his shirts white. He married you for the things you CAN do, not the things you can't. A lack of skill in certain domestic areas does not mean ineptitude.

But those skills can be very helpful when it comes to running an organized household. Luckily, the basics are very easily learned. You may not ever be Martha Stewart, but anybody can learn the very bare essentials of cooking, sewing, cleaning, etc. Ask your friends from church for some pointers! I've found that most of the women there are very helpful when it comes to stuff like this.

And don't feel bad. I couldn't scrapbook to save my life, and quite frankly I could care less if I never knit a sweater. I still feel like I do my job in the home.

[SMG]

Hon, you are NOT hopeless! Your salvation and worth as a person are NOT determined by how well you can cook, clean or make any crafts. Everyone has to start somewhere, no matter if they are age 2 or 92. If you want to learn how to do things, like cooking, there are many many resources you can consult. It can be as simple as asking a friend for lessons or heading to the local library.

God loves you very much. I somehow doubt He'd want you to be putting yourself down just because you aren't the best cook or don't know how to make sock puppets or something of that nature!

[WillowTheWhisp]

Of course you aren't a hopeless case, far from it. It sounds like you are doing great and it's so exciting that you are getting baptised. Don't let yourself get discouraged by trying to do and be everything at once. I did, but finally I saw sense. Enjoy life, and enjoy learning new things. I'm sure there will be sisters only too happy to share their skills with you.

Have a grest day when you get baptised.

[Misshalfway]

I frankly hate to clean. Hate the dishes. Rebel against the whole dish thing and get paper plates as a little gift to myself once in a while. I think one needs awesome music and a release of any perfectionistic thought! Then cleaning becomes a whole lot easier.

I don't know how old your kidlets are but mine help me out a lot. I make them scrub toilets and wash walls and do dishes and help with dinner. We are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. (My mother in law helps me remember that) but we do just fine. And my kids are learning responsibility and housekeeping skills and I am learning too. Now my house stays fairly clean. And when it is not looking like a show room then we try not to sweat it.

Another thing that helps us, is to be organized. Everything has a place and a label. Then the kids know where to replace an item and I can remind them without repeating myself eight-hundred times a day. Job charts help too.

Over the years, I have observed my girlfriends to see how them manage their households. Crock pots are the best things in the world. And so are super capacity washer and dryers!!!

[FairChild]

Dear Teacherdani,

One website I use is FlyLady.net: Your personal online coach to help you gain control of your house and home.

FairChild

[Elphaba]

I am going to be baptized March 22, and I am SO excited. I just wanted to share that until I found this church even though I had been married for almost 7 years I never cooked, cleaned, or did laundry simply because I didn't know how to do it. <snip> I feel like I still have so much more to learn and that in some ways I am a hopeless cause. What would you suggest? Am I a hopeless cause?

I find your post concerning. What did finding the Church have to do with learning household skills?

I’ll be blunt. I think your priorities are more of an issue than your lack of skills. IMO your daughter should be your top priority. Everything else can be addressed but needs to be prioritized by importance.

For example, I would think laundry would be a priority, as would cooking. Only you can prioritize these skills, but when you make the list, you need to put the unnecessary things, like knitting and sewing at the very bottom of the list, because they are simply not important right now. Only focus on the important things. You have time to knit later.

As I said, IMO your daughter is the number one priority. You talk about not being able to entertain her. Two year olds are notorious for this and it’s not your fault, but you don’t know this because, like you say, you weren’t raised with the skills you need to be a mother.

There are many resources on child development and if you were to access them, specifically about toddlers, you would understand why your daughter acts the way she does. You would learn that she is seeking autonomy, but at the same time she is not yet ready to let go of you. It is an important phase in her development that you need to learn how to handle, for the both of you. In fact, child development does not end at two; rather, it continues all of our lives. You’ll have her until at least 18, so now is a great time to learn about the phases of her life, and be prepared to be the mother yours was not. I hear from you the desire to do that.

Only you can decide what the real priorities are. But you need to ask yourself, who is demanding these things of you? Is it the sisters from the Church, or is it you? I get the feeling that you are demanding more of yourself than is realistic. Your language, such as “Am I A Hopeless Cause,” is fatalistic. But you’re not a failure. You’re very brave in my opinion.

Elphaba

[Iggy]

What is knitting, sewing, scrap booking going to get you? That is something you can learn much later in life, after your children have married and moved out.

Learn to do the laundry and to cook. If you lived in my Ward I would love to teach you how to do the laundry. Go to your RS pres and tell her that you need to learn how to do laundry- can she recommend one of the sisters in the ward to teach you? OR ask your VT to help you. Not to do the laundry for you, but to come to your house, explain why you sort the laundry, how to sort it, what temps to wash them in, with what soaps, kinds of bleach, etc. THEN take notes, and follow them.

Check out your county extension office and see if they offer cooking/shopping classes/instruction. Parenting too. Three sisters in our Stake teach Parenting for the county.

I won't offer to teach you how to cook. I cook, am a good cook. But I know my limitations and I know I can not teach cooking.

When they teach you to cook, they better teach you how to shop for food. I only shop the sales- Last week I bought $363.00 worth of food for $247.00. I won't need to shop until next week and that will be just to replace the fresh vegetables.

Forget the knitting, crocheting, needlepoint, scrap booking, sewing (except for replacing buttons and hand sewing simple repairs). Get busy learning to do the most important basics: Child care, cooking and laundry, with house cleaning tacked on there near the end. When you have those skills under your belt, then pick one of the above to learn and learn it. Go to the older sisters in your Ward and ask them to teach you.

[Gwen]

have someone teach you to do the laundry???? lol that's much more fun with the trial and error method. hubby loves it too, guys need a good pink shirt on occassion, keeps em humble.

for me i find "learning how" isn't so much the actual doing factor, it's the organizing the schedule to stay on top of it part. with all the little ones i have it only takes about a day or so of neglect before the laundry is 6 loads behind. but as with all chores of that nature there will come a point when it screams top priority and you have to do it.

kids getting older and being able to help is making a huge difference. my 4 yr old recently took upon himself the chore of vaccuming. all i have to do is mention it and he gets excited, will get the vaccume out and go at it, even puts it away when he's done. may not be a perfect job but it's his job and i'm not about to take that away from him. lol

[Iggy]

I used to like to do the cleaning and laundry. I would go do the grocery shopping as early as the stores opened.

Get home, put the groceries away. While I was repackaging the meat and cleaning the vegetables, I would be doing the laundry too.

I would have piles of dirty laundry lined up from the laundry room out into the dining room.

My days off were not Sat and Sun. I had Wed & Thur off. So Wed was my shopping and laundry day. In the summer, I hung the clothes out on lines. Once all the food was put away, that is when I started in on the vacuuming and dusting.

Once every three months I did Deep Cleaning. Washed walls, inside windows, vacuumed furniture, moved the furniture and vacuumed behind and around it. Took the curtains down and washed them. Super scrubbed the bathrooms. Ceiling, walls, floors too.

Thursday was my ironing day and watching TV all day day. It was also the day I could spend with girlfriends. Go to the movie during the day, out to lunch or breakfast. Go shopping for clothes, to thrift stores, used book stores. I would iron clothes at night while we watched TV.

After I left my husband, Thurs was my bread making day. I switched laundry day to Thurs so the washer and dryer would warm the house up. It helped the bread rise faster too. I would iron for an hour every night until the clothes were done. I wear mostly natural fabrics. Those need to be ironed, and I really do enjoy doing it. I get a great satisfaction out of seeing the wrinkles disappear after a swipe of a hot iron. Magic!

It is nearly impossible for me to clean the house now. My shoulders hurt so bad at times that I can barely push the vacuum. NO way can I scrub the walls or ceilings. I have to scrub the tub after I have taken a hot shower and am still in the tub. I don't do a good job, but I do keep the scum down to a very dull roar. In between scrubbing I spray the entire tub with bleach water before I shower and after I shower. Husband has chronic athletes foot and the bleach kills the germs.

I also mixed up a spray bottle of 1/2 Listerine and 1/2 water for him to use on his feet. He sprays his toes and feet before he gets out of the shower. THAT also kills those germs. We have a bottle of 1/2 Listerine and 1/2 water in the shower to rinse our hair with too. No more dandruff and rashes. Actually I have always rinsed my hair with Listerine since I was 13 years old. My hair was long, very long and Listerine got all the soap out and prevented me from getting dandruff and rashes or fungus.

[Elphaba]

In between scrubbing I spray the entire tub with bleach water before I shower and after I shower.

Hi. My name is Elphaba and I am a bleachaholic.

Seriously, I believe bleach will bring world peace. THAT is how much I love bleach. I love the smell of it on my hands after pouring it in my laundry, cleaning the shower with it as you do, and pouring it straight onto whatever surface will tolerate it.

Think about it. Kids who join the Peace Corp. could go to Third World countries, and as they help build water sources, they could also show the people how to add bleach to a separate water source to clean with. Drinking water AND cleaning water that smells of bleach. Seriously, can't you see the possibilities?

I also mixed up a spray bottle of 1/2 Listerine and 1/2 water for him to use on his feet. He sprays his toes and feet before he gets out of the shower. THAT also kills those germs. We have a bottle of 1/2 Listerine and 1/2 water in the shower to rinse our hair with too. No more dandruff and rashes. Actually I have always rinsed my hair with Listerine since I was 13 years old. My hair was long, very long and Listerine got all the soap out and prevented me from getting dandruff and rashes or fungus.

Iggy, you always come up with the weirdest stuff that makes so much sense! It never fails to crack me up.

Elphie

[Iggy]

Hi. My name is Elphaba and I am a bleachaholic.

Seriously, I believe bleach will bring world peace. THAT is how much I love bleach. I love the smell of it on my hands after pouring it in my laundry, cleaning the shower with it as you do, and pouring it straight onto whatever surface will tolerate it.

Think about it. Kids who join the Peace Corp. could go to Third World countries, and as they help build water sources, they could also show the people how to add bleach to a separate water source to clean with. Drinking water AND cleaning water that smells of bleach. Seriously, can't you see the possibilities?

Iggy, you always come up with the weirdest stuff that makes so much sense! It never fails to crack me up.

Elphie

Yeah, I crack me up sometimes too- I learned a lot from my Grandma and Mom.

You are so right on about bleach and 3rd world countries. Heck, bleach and the ghetto and slum areas here in the US!

When my sister came home from the hospital after her toe amputation, the Home Health Nurse went through her cleaning supplies and brought out the jug of bleach. She told her that she could toss the rest of the stuff (toilet bowl cleaner, tub cleaner, floor cleaner)- because all she was going to use now was bleach and TSP.

Simple household bleach- 4 parts water 1 part bleach. That is all she was to use to clean the entire bathroom. The shower curtain was to be taken down and laundered once a week. The kitchen and the bathroom were to have a spray bottle of bleach water= 4 parts water, 1 part bleach. After EACH person used the shower/tub it was to be sprayed. After each use of the sink and toilet they were to be sprayed. NO rinsing, let air dry.

In the kitchen, DO NOT MIX BLEACH WITH LIQUID DISH SOAP. It is toxic. Will cause deadly fumes. After all the dishes have been washed, rinsed, put away and all surfaces washed and rinsed, then you spray the sink, faucets and counters, stove top with the bleach water. Sweep the floor, and damp mop with the bleach water.

My sister lost her toe to gangrene. She had diabetes and she was cutting her toe nails and because she couldn't feel the clippers cutting into her skin she did nothing about it. Her house wasn't as clean as it could have been. She had glaucoma and didn't see a lot of the dirt.

With her second visit to the hospital- pneumonia this time, I made a trip to housekeeping and talked with the people there. All the hospital used to clean with was BLEACH. In the OR they used a stronger concentration. BLEACH is the only over the counter product that will kill the HIV virus, bacteria, body lice on CONTACT.

Hot water and bleach will drastically slow down most strains of staph.

Oh, yes I did mention TSP- why add that to bleach? Because TSP cuts and cleans grease, requires no rinsing and it retards the growth of mold, mildew and fungus. When you use bleach and/or TSP always wear gloves. Most especially when you use TSP. It will remove the body oil from your hands and make them hurt. Been there, will NEVER do it again. Took a month for my hands to heal.

[sixpacktr]

Great advice, Iggy,

I have noticed that too few girls are learning the homemaking arts anymore, as it isn't considered 'cool' or even necessary. It is too bad. I don't excuse the YM from learning these as well (my mother made me learn to cook, clean, do laundry, simple sewing, etc. Granted, sometimes the laundry sometimes had a similar color to it when I was done, but...). The ability to make a house a home thru developing these arts is being lost, and it is sad. Too often our youth think that they can just slip into the same lifestyle as their parents without any of the struggles, so they don't think they have to learn to make a budget stretch beyond the breaking point etc.

Thanks for your post.

[Iggy]

Great advice, Iggy,

I have noticed that too few girls are learning the homemaking arts anymore, as it isn't considered 'cool' or even necessary. It is too bad. I don't excuse the YM from learning these as well (my mother made me learn to cook, clean, do laundry, simple sewing, etc. Granted, sometimes the laundry sometimes had a similar color to it when I was done, but...). The ability to make a house a home thru developing these arts is being lost, and it is sad. Too often our youth think that they can just slip into the same lifestyle as their parents without any of the struggles, so they don't think they have to learn to make a budget stretch beyond the breaking point etc.

Thanks for your post.

I can't believe they are not teaching homemaking in middle school and high school any more. Half of the year you learned sewing and the other half cooking, cleaning and shopping.

I know that in my Ward, the YW are NOT learning homemaking skills. They would rather go to the movies or text each other.

When I was in MIA - we were taught to cook and sew also. The MIA leaders taught us how to cook from our food supplies. We were also encouraged to sew our own clothes. Every other month we cooked a meal for the parents and the YM served the meal, the YM cooked the meal and we served on alternating months.

Thank goodness for most of the US States County Extensions - most of them teach this and do so for free or a very small fee.

You mothers out there with teenaged girls- do they actually know how to cook - from scratch? Can they take eggs, flour, water and make noodles? Dumplings? Can they put together a meal without using a telephone to call the pizza joint, or any other take out place?

It is not being Molly Mormon to learn and know these things. I learned them and knew them long before I ever heard the phrase Molly Mormon.

Six, it is wonderful that you learned to cook, clean, laundry and simple sewing from your Mother. Mom taught my brothers that too. My oldest brother is quite the cook when it comes to desserts. Actually my little brother cooks some great cakes and cookies. They have taught their children too.