Help? I'm not sure I know that word.

My home health aide, the woman that cleans my house, did not come this week. She had a bad back injury and is on bedrest. Instead of sending someone else, the agency hemmed and hawed and told me they would get back to me about a substitute. I'm still waiting, the very early morning of Thanksgiving. Oh, and my dishwasher is broken. So we have piles and piles of dishes that have been "washed" by my son, but need to be sterilized before I would eat off them. I'm just sayin'.

So, it's a holiday and my house looks like a cyclone struck it. No big surprise when you live with two slobby teens and a disabled mom who just can't clean.

Today the Boy helped me clean the fridge, which was beyond disgusting and apparently had not been properly dug out since July, seeing the container dates of the stuff I pulled out and tossed. Gross!  He was pretty good about helping me with that chore, but according to him, that was the ONLY chore he had the energy for today. Let's see, he didn't go to school yesterday or today because he was feeling a bit 'off', which  means that senior-itis struck. He slept most of the time, or sat eating popcorn and watching tv. He didn't do anything to actually help, because help is kinda a foreign word around here.

His sister has been working long hours at her job, due to retention issues at her workplace. So she's gone most of the time and when she's home, she does NOTHING. I mean it, nothing. I have to beg her to do the slightest things, and then I threaten to take away her phone and Ipod. And this is to get her to do her assigned chores. Somewhere along the line she decided that chores were for suckers and you could avoid them indefinately if you just make a lot of excuses and hide in your bedroom.

So the deal is, nobody eats Thanksgiving dinner unless the house is clean. I know! I have freaking had it and I'm not putting forth any effort for a dinner that will be inhaled in 20 minutes. They will have assigned rooms to straighten up, and a time limit. No clean, no food. Including pies. Because I am MEAN.

But what I don't get is why teenagers (not just my kids, most teenagers) don't seem to understand that they are part of a family and therefore they have to contribute to the family. This is a concept I've told my kids since they were teeny tiny. We're a family where everyone does something to contribute to our well being. That means that the kids have assigned chores, and that we help each other. If someone is sick, we pitch in. If mom can't do something, then one of the kids needs to step up to the plate. This isn't new information for my kids. But in the past couple of hormone inflated years, it has gone right out the window. Everything I ask for is either ignored or argued about.

My standards have lowered to the extreme. I used to have a spotless home that looked like a nice family lived there. Now, not so much. Piles of magazines, papers, and various and assorted junk sit atop every piece of furniture. My son has decided that the front hall is his dressing room and now leaves his clothing, dirty AND clean, on the chair in the hall. Suitcases used months ago are still awaiting transport to the attic. My son's computer monitor and TV are in the middle of the living room floor because he will not get them out into the car to go to the recycling plant. Why? Because it means taking the sand chairs from the beach out of the trunk and putting them into the basement for the winter.

I need Ty Pennington to come and scoop up the whole house and put it in the dumpster. Because my kids won't help and I can't do it myself.

When will they become responsible again?

Comments

[Laura]

Frustrating, isn't it? I know that as far as teens go, I've had it pretty lucky so far. (She's rapping on wood madly as she speaks...) My kids will do what I ask without backtalk -- but I have to ask, and every.single.day they strew the living area with their private stuff, and every.single.day I ask them to put it away. And they do! No fuss! Which is good, so far as it goes. But why do we have to go through this EVERY. SINGLE. DAY?

Frustrating, isn't it?

In my experience? They get good about the housework only after they move out. All those good lessons you taught them down through the years really only get applied once the home they're living in is *theirs*.

FRUSTRATING, isn't it?

[Daisy]

Sending you hugs and good wishes. Hormones and teen attitude can be the PITS.

[Jennifer Krieger]

Funny you should write about this just now. I've been watching my 3rd child, 21, always the most distant and LEAST helpful, and he's become a human being when I wasn't watching! He moved back home recently, and we're glad, and he pitches in and initiates chores, life is good.
Just so you know we're norman, my youngest son, 19, who has always been good and thoughtful, seems to have checked out. Never talks, never volunteers; he still is agreeable and says "yes" whenever I make a request, but actually DO it? Not so's you'd notice. So we're waiting for his return.
Just hang in there.
Jenny

[jenny]

nooooooo! I thought it got better! I'm doing this at ages 7 and 14, I havnt to sergeant major them around the house and all in one go, they dont do anything on a day to day basis even if reminded or asked so they have to lose a whole weekend morning doing it!