So, probaby a silly question really but here goes...
Hubby works full time, i study full time at home.
I cook dinner and do most of the cleaning every day amongst everything else you do for a big family, i do it all. i cant keep up with everything alone, we have 5 children between us, 2 being bio mine, 2 being bio his and 1 together.(3 younge)
The two older children 16 and 19 clean the kitchen every night after dinner, they do an ok job but half the time they dont do it properly, like wont clean out the sink, wont wipe bench properly or will only fit what they can in the dishwasher and leave the rest, or will wipe all the shit off the bench onto the floor. This shits me to tears, on a few occasions i have told them to come back and do it properly, this always causes an argument between me and hubby, he says im anal and should just do it my self if im not happy. I hate waking up to a dirty kitchen!!
I think they are old enough to realise when a kitchen is cleaned properly ( its not rocket science) i think they know that their dad will have a go at me about it before he will have a go at them?
Am i overreacting? Or am i in the right? How can i change this?
Dirty kitchen
Dirty kitchen
Posted in:
Behaviour, Teenagers, Tips and Advice
6 Replies
One night - You, a teenager and another child does the after dinner clean up
Next night- Partner, a teenager and another child clean up after dinner.
Everyone is helping and you're teaching them how to do it properly 👍
Have you shown them how YOU want it done? People have different standards of clean. You are making a big thing out of something small if you haven’t shown them what you want
You would expect most 16 to 19 year olds to have the common sense to know what's "clean" but often they don't. Especially if they've been pandered to all their lives, which I'm gonna go out on a limb and say these two have been.
They will need to be shown at least once, your expectations need to be clear, perhaps a whiteboard with dot points, eg:
1. Stack dishwasher (insert best strategy so everything fits).
2. Wipe bench with cloth, catch crumbs with hand and empty into sink.
3. Rinse sink when done.
4. Take out rubbish.
Sounds like you need to start delegating more of the house work around the family members too just quietly...
Or perhaps part of the clean up includes sweeping once everything else is done. Also, if not everything fits in the dishwasher then they have to hand wash what’s left. They might then pack more efficiently so everything fits in.
You're in the right to ask them to come back and do it properly, a half assed job in the workforce wouldn't cut it so he's not doing them any favours by letting them think it's ok to do a crap job if it's not good enough someone else should clean it.
I think you need to do it with them for a while, one child one night, the other the next. Show them how you want it done. How old are your kids? They should be helping too unless they are toddlers, even young kids can do the basics like pack plastics away. If the teenagers are the only ones to clean up every night they might feel a little used or resentful especially if the only attention they get is when they haven't done something properly! I know you do everything else and they really should be helping to clean up and more, but I just know how teenagers exaggerate their actual efforts 😂 So they might be rushing through the cleaning or half assing it because they are a little resentful they are the only ones doing it. Make cleaning up a family thing, get hubby onto it too.
We have a rotating roster of jobs for our kids and one job is to clean the kitchen and stack the dishwasher after dinner. Most of the time it is done to bare minimum standards just like you described. I expect more from my kids and they are 10 , 12 and 14 so, no, I don’t think you are being too picky to expect a better job to be done my older teenagers.
As I was typing this though I remember my husband telling me one of the biggest things he remembers growing up is feeling like he could never do anything right in his step mothers eyes, and cleaning the kitchen was one of them. There was a lot more going on there though so I guess if you have a pretty good relationship otherwise asking them to lift their game isn’t a big deal. It’s probably not going to get better until you and hubby are on the same page though, kids do a great job of playing us off against each other if they sense a divide. How do you usually work out that kind of stuff if you have a difference of opinion in parenting? Could you sit down with him and let him know you are pretty overwhelmed with what you have on your plate at the moment and having that little bit of extra help makes all the difference to you? Good luck , I know working this stuff out is hard enough when all kids are bio ours, I can’t imagine what it would be like bringing the step children factor in to the equation.