Dealing With Stuff
  • Dealing With Stuff
  • About
  • Contact

Burnout and the Stay-at-Home Partner

4/14/2015

 
Picture
What do you do when you’re working full time and the stay-at-home parent is struggling?  This is something that happens equally to moms and dads.  You start out with a lot of sleepless nights from nighttime feedings, and suddenly years can go by without anyone getting a night of decent rest.  It’s exhausting.  Little kids are extremely, extremely high maintenance.  And they wake up SO. DANG. EARLY.

Work is no picnic either.  But there are some compensations.  You don’t just get to take a shower every day, you’re contractually bound.  Nobody wants to come in while you pee.  Nobody flings food at you or starts shrieking for no reason.  (Well, unless you work in food service or retail).  There’s generally no biting.  Performance reviews are a piece of cake compared to the judgments of random adults as to your parental competence.  Commuting is no fun, but at least you can swear at top volume when you want.  So when you come home and the house looks like a case for FEMA, remember you’ll soon be able to escape to the relative sanity and order of the workplace.

There are a few keystone habits behind running an efficient, clean household.  It turns out that they can be accomplished in minutes.  Stepping in and changing the household routine in even the tiniest way can be received as a reproach by a defensive, burned-out partner, so it’s best to just silently start doing it.  Under no circumstances describe these tasks as “helping.”

1.       Put away clean dishes.  It boggles my mind that so many households with dishwashers use them so ineffectively.  It goes like this.  Empty the dishwasher or dish rack either early in the morning or late in the evening.  Load dirty dishes into it throughout the day.  Run it at a predictable time on the days it’s full.  We’ve timed the emptying task at 4 minutes.  Putting in an individual dish takes about 10 seconds.  Kids as young as 2 actually enjoy this activity.

2.       Check the washer and dryer.  The majority of the time involved in doing laundry is machine running time.  Loads left in the washing machine sometimes get funky and have to be washed twice.  A full washer also backs up the pipeline for the next load.  Households with kids usually have a minimum of 10 loads a week, so it really helps to keep the hamster wheel spinning every day.  Starting a new load of wash takes about 3 minutes.  Moving a load from the washer to the dryer is about the same, as is emptying a clean dryer load into a basket.  Buying more laundry baskets can be a $20 solution to a billion-dollar annoyance.

3.       Eliminate refuse.  Trash, compost, and recycling can overflow their receptacles, making the task gross and offensive when it doesn’t need to be.  Carrying out these containers is another task that can be done in under 5 minutes.  Sorting through junk mail also helps stop paper clutter from accumulating.

4.       Set clear guidelines for the kids.  What can they do at different stages of development?  Gamify it.  Set a timer or play a song.  Race or compete.  Be the team lead and help train them in what are really essential life skills, after all.

5.       Schedule a regular appointment for the stay-at-home partner to have HQLT.  That’s High Quality Leisure Time.  It probably means total privacy and/or leaving the house for a while.  Whether that’s to soak in a hot bath uninterrupted, play a game, read a book, or go ride the mechanical bull down at the honky-tonk, depends on the partner’s wishes.  Look at it like entertaining a key international client.

These keystone chores are quick and easy… IF you’re reasonably well rested and not being followed by a tiny creature whose very survival depends on you never turning your back for 10 seconds.  Burnout should be regarded in the same way as the flu, or mono, or a sports injury.  It can linger and be resistant to treatment.  The idea is to create some stability and predictability and order out of chaos.  The burned-out partner needs to be able to recuperate and rebuild stamina.  Setting aside 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the evening is no more complicated than managing any workplace assignment.  For you, that is.  Get it out of the way so you can all spend time together as a family, enjoying yourselves instead of feeling frantic and out of control.



Comments are closed.
    New podcast!
    Clutter of the Day

    Author

    I've been working with chronic disorganization, squalor, and hoarding for over 20 years.  I'm also a marathon runner who was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and thyroid disease 17 years ago.

    I have a BA in History.

    I live in Southern California with my husband and our pets, an African Gray parrot and a rat terrier.

    #Questioner
    #ENTP

    This website uses marketing and tracking technologies. Opting out of this will opt you out of all cookies, except for those needed to run the website. Note that some products may not work as well without tracking cookies.

    Opt Out of Cookies

    Archives

    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015

    Categories

    All
    ADHD
    Birdwatching
    Body Image
    Book Reviews
    Books
    Cleaning
    Clutter
    COVID 19
    COVID-19
    COVID 19 Chronicles
    Fibromyalgia
    Filks
    Fitness
    Food
    Future Self
    Futurism
    Goals
    Habits
    Humor
    Languages
    Martial Arts
    Mindset
    Minimalism
    Money
    Motivation
    Movie Reviews
    Moving
    Organization
    Past Self
    Pets
    Preparedness
    Procrastination
    Public Speaking
    Quests
    Relationships
    Resolutions
    Running
    Sleep
    Technology
    The-woowoo
    The-woo-woo
    Thyroid Disease
    Timemanagement
    Time Management
    Tiny Houses
    Travel
    Weight
    Work
    Writing

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Dealing With Stuff
  • About
  • Contact