One of the things that Dorothy does each week is clean up the shoes in the garage. We do not wear shoes in the house, and it is really convenient for everyone to leave their shoes in the garage, since we come in through the garage (into the laundry room) and there are too many of us and too many pairs of shoes to make leaving them in the laundry room sustainable. We have 2 shelved alls in the garage on either side of the door to the house: one for kid shoes and one for grown up shoes. Plus we have a boot matt and a carpeted space on each side for boots.
The shoes get SO MESSY because if one person doesn;t put their shoes on the shelf when they take them off, then no one does.
Dorothy is supposed to clean the shoes up twice a week, once on Sunday and once on Tuesday which mirrors Cooper's take out the trash chore (he empties inside trashes on Sunday and puts the cans on the curb on Tuesday). On Tuesday this week, she tidied up the shoes before she left ofr school in the morning, but when she got home from dance that night, she kicked her Uggs off her feet, one flying under the snowblower and the other lodging itself under the stairs to the house, and pranced inside without a care in the world.
I was like why are you making a mess with the shoes when you are one who has to clean them up? And she shrugged and said what does it matter if they get messy-- I have to clean them up in a couple of days?
This is FOR SURE not my approach to chores. But you know what? It's not wrong, and offloading some tasks onto Dorothy and Cooper has given me the space to slow down and process that idea.
Now if only I cold talk her into wearing a coat.
Why is wearing a coat so objectionable to the middle school set?
ReplyDeleteSarah, there are three people in my house and the shoe situation is OUT OF CONTROL. I am very interested in your garage shelves. We have room on one side of the stairs leading into our laundry room for shelves. Should we install shelves and start removing our shoes outside? (My parents and in laws will not be on board. They all give us a hard time already about having to remove their shoes in the house. I can only imagine if we asked them to remove their shoes OUTSIDE.)
Hahahaha... well you can't really argue with her logic! I guess if she's the shoe cleaner, she only has to answer to herself. By the way- consider yourself lucky. My daughter likes to take off her shoes and leave them in the middle of the living room.
ReplyDeleteWow!! You don’t wear shoes in the house? That’s very “Canadian”! It’s weird that it’s common in the US to wear shoes inside (I believe) and in Canada we tend to take them off. My son & DIL enter their house through their garage and everyone leaves their shoes on a set of shelves there. It makes so much sense.
ReplyDeleteHa ha, I was thinking the same as Pat - but Wisconsin seems quite Canadian-ish to me in several ways (none of which I can really remember right now, it's just vibes, whatever, leave me alone). That is a great job to delegate to a kid, and yeah, I can imagine the critical shoe mass gets crazy. Also, I never wear a coat, so I had zero ground to judge in that respect.
ReplyDeleteWhen does someone graduate from child shoes to adult shoes? 18? HS graduation? Paying bills?
ReplyDeleteWe also don’t wear shoes in the house. Instead we are *supposed* to leave them in the hallway closet where our jackets live as well. Often they are in the center of the hallways with me tripping over them and raging. Then they get put away real fast.
ReplyDeleteAlso- a coat is a problem in elementary school, too.
Daria
Momofchildren.com