Have You Ever Thought of Going on Strike?

Tried it for over a week, the only person it made crazy was me. I learned my children are slobs and the only way anything will get done is if I am the one to push the subject.

My husband has a cousin who's wife (who stays home full time) did this a few years ago. Her two girls were high school aged at the time, and her husband had at made the mistake of asking her the dreaded "what do you do all day now that the girls are older". That question pushed her over the edge (after dealing with teenaged girls who did.not.appreciate her". So - she went on strike.

It was fantastic. :)

Her husband and girls had a huge attitude change. She did it out of love, and with a sense of humor, and it worked well for their family.

Not only do I have fantasies of going on strike, I have fantasies of removing EVERYTHING from my daughters' room except their beds and clothing. But I would never do it, so for now I just fantasize about how wonderful it will be when they move out and I have my house back! HA! Only 8 more years!

Nah, I'm a professional housewife. I like it and I'm good at it, it's MY job. And I model it as gracefully as I can. The things I do to maintain my household I do not consider terrible chores, just part of the job. I DO require appreciation for this though, since the pay sucks.

My kids (20, 18, 15) already approach household maintenance with humor and pleasure, since that's the way they've always seen it done, not a nasty obnoxious chore to pawn off on someone else.

If I worked full time I might feel differently.

Otherwise, no thank you, I really don't want those fools messing with the laundry or showing disrespect for my Dyson.

;)

I take it the problem is that they are leaving a trail of stuff behind them and not putting things in their place. no need to "strike." implement some new house rules.

1. food at the table only. No eating while standing up, no toting a mug or sippy hither and tither.
2. table must be cleared immediately after eating. that means food is put away, dishes scraped, and put in the dishwasher etc.
3. stuff must be put away in its place before each meal. anything not put away will be seized and quarantined for 1 day/ week/ month (whatever deels right to you), in the garage, the attic, the crawlspace, your car's trunk, etc.
4. stuff must be put away before bed.
5. stuff must be put away before you leave the house.

If they can't treat their/ your things with respect, they don't deserve to have them around.

To implement, you must- announce the rules. post the rules. remind of the rules, carry out the consequences each and every time. further, you must abide by the rules yourself.

It can be done. I prefer this one to going on strike, because the connection is more immediate. Something gets left out, it gets quarantined.

Good luck to you and yours,
F. B.

Go to a store and ask for 2 large boxes. One for hubby and one for son. Then pick up everything they have laying around the house and hide the boxes. When they start asking for their stuff answer by telling them if they had put it away they would know where it was. After a week take out the boxes and tell hubby he owes you a quarter or fifty cents or $1 for every item you had to pick up. Son can not play on his video games or watch TV for 15 - 20 minutes for item he didn't pick up. The bond hubby has to pay to get his stuff back is YOUR money to do something nice for yourself. Get your hair done, a manicure, a nice new sweater or whatever you want.

MOM niether stands for 'maid of mine' or 'made of money'.

I have gone on strike. Once I did it for an entire weekend. I even told my kids/Husband, "Mommy is on strike, I'm not doing anything, ask Daddy. Mommy is VERY tired of doing everything, my back aches, and I am just going to do what I want, all weekend, even if that means being a slug on the sofa."
And I did that. With no guilt. They took me seriously.

At a certain point, being all sugary about things and explaining "why" the kids need to help and giving them a whole paragraph of sugary reasons why and rewards and reward charts for it... is useless. They just tune you out. And at a certain point, the kids AND Husband...just have to REALIZE that it is their house too... and EVERYONE helps in taking care of it. We don't pay our kids for chores. It is something they should do, out of respect to their home anyway. I don't get paid for it. But if they do something especially thoughtful or did a lot of work, I will give them something. My kids do do things in the house... but they are so active and it is just so irritating sometimes.

AND I TELL MY HUSBAND: I've had it, I am tired, I'm not doing anything right now. I tell him when I am fed up. But mostly, after 15 years of being married... he knows when I am fed up or at my limit or just overspent.

But sure, the Mom/woman/Wife of the family, does most everything.
Right?

As a SAHM keeping the house clean and orderly is a big part of my job, so I just do it.
However,
I have always taught my kids to take care of their personal stuff (putting their toys/clothes away, hanging up their wet towels, etc.) and when they were 12/13 they started doing their own laundry. Just make clean up a part of your son's daily routine and he'll get used to it.
When we moved to a much larger house I got a housekeeper to help me out a few times a month. Sure I could force my husband and kids to "help" but there's no way they would clean to my standards! (and yes I know how lucky I am that we can afford that luxury :) )

I fell running the other day and severely strained my ankle and scraped up my knee. Despite that, I was on my feet all day yesterday running errands and taking my art class. But I didn't get as much done as I usually do and the house was even more of a disaster than usual last night. My husband noticed, and it occurred to me how much I'd love to go on strike. But then again, because I was down and having a hard time the past two weeks, he and the kids gave me a necklace and bracelet that say "you are loved" -- just because. So it's off to cleaning I go...

I walk around the house and call each kid to pick up what ever item I find that is theirs.

I would never go on strike cause that would be awful for mostly me. I am a clean freak and couldn't handle it.

My husband works very hard and I don't expect him to do any of the cleaning BUT I don't let him leave a mess for me either. He may call it being a nag but I call it being respectful of my office. He sure wouldn't like it if I went to his office and made a mess.

yes, I went on strike. Doing so didn't change my family's attitude or behavior but I felt better about doing the chores. I realized that I was resenting what they didn't do instead of focusing on what I enjoyed, a clean house. I went back to being the primary house cleaner with less animosity while continuing to give myself breaks. I realized that I had become a martyr, forcing myself to do the housework without adding some joy to my world. During the strike, I went out to eat after fixing a meal for the family. My mother and mother-in-law were not able to fix meals. This brief daily break felt so good. After I went "back to work" I made sure that I did at least one thing every day just for me. I also focused less on having a really neat house and more on enjoying my family.

After reading the blog cited by you, I have to say that my family did not care that the house became a disaster area. Striking did not improve their involvement in keeping the house clean. lol I did enjoy the story, She's an excellent writer with a keen sense of humor.

I ask politely and when that doesn't work I will raise my voice. My kids are 8 & 5. They are expected to clean up their own plates after dinner. Scrape them into the garbage and put them in the dishwasher. It's something we've always done and they just do it. I will usually say "thank you for putting them away". Clothes need to go down the chute. If I find something laying around I will say "why is this sitting her? Where doe it belong?" They usually get dressed in the bathroom anyways where the chute is and so it's expected. Also rooms need to be picked up before bed otherwise we can't read a book. We also have cleaning day on Saturday where everyone helps pick up.

I don't think I could go on strike, it would bug me too much to not clean up a mess.

Yes, and I did. We were stationed overseas and the kids were old enough to help with dishes (no dishwasher) and picking up. They were asked and they just didn't want to do it.

I told everybody at dinner that I was going on strike. Of course the kids thought mom wouldn't. Dad got involved and did dishes and made the kids do them as well. This lasted a good week.

Laundry was not a problem because they were doing their own by the age of 9.

When I came off strike there was a complete change in their attitude about what mom did. I never worried about there being more to do just that the kids had to leran to care for themselves because I was not going to be there forever to do it.

To this day, they are better cleaners in some areas than me. I don't have to worry about visiting and being a cleaning lady and can enjoy them.

The other S.

P., I haven't read the story you mentioned yet, but I wanted to give you this link for the children's book Pig Sty.

http://www.best-childrens-books.com/pigsty-teague.html

You might want to get this book and read it to your child. I think you'd both enjoy it.

My younger son is pretty messy, but he's older. When he didn't take care of putting his clean clothes away (as a teen, mind you), I started picking up what he didn't put away and storing them somewhere else. Pretty soon, he didn't have many clothes and he had to wash them more often. Then he started asking where his clothes were. I reminded him that I had told him that if he kept laying them around, that he wouldn't have them anymore. I stayed true to my word.

As he has grown out of clothes or as they got holes or tears, I didn't replace them. He doesn't need a ton of clothes, and he "gets" that too many clothes are hard to take care of. He's better about picking up his room now.

As far as toys go, I'd box up what lays around and put it up too. It's better to cycle through toys than for them to have all of them accessible at the same time, anyway. If they haven't seen some toys for a long time, they'll play with them more.

Dawn

About 8 yrs ago, I was out of commission for 3 weeks because of a surgery I had. My husband had to do EVERYTHING. I couldn't even get myself a glass of water. Our kids were 7, 4 and 2 at the time. He was exhausted even though we had a cleaning service come in once a week (which continued for awhile after he went back to work and I was still recovering).

Yeah, not feeling the need to ever go on strike. My husband is pretty good at appreciating me and helping out.

I have the same problem. :/ I am not a clean freak but not crazy dirty and though my husband is cleaner than me I feel like I am the only one cleaning. If you find how to train them PLEASE SHARE! lol.

Cute story! I have never been on strike but I would definitely choose it over the 3 weeks of beatings that another poster thought appropriate.

No... I think it's incredibly passive aggressive & just a negative way to try to get help. Have you asked either of them to help, or come up with a fair plan? I think you need to try everything before going to this extreme.

You don't need to train them. You ask them, very literally, to do such & this & put this over there, etc. Your son is more than able to help. Make it fun for him.

My son was GREAT. Awesome helper since he was little (although the 10yo version who spends half his time at Dads is slipping).

My exHusband, however, was another matter.

We finally figured out he was doing 'it' on purpose (my sister came over for a music blaring, pizza eating, 3 person (auntie, mom, & kiddo) deep clean one day. I took kiddo to an evening sport, and she went out to smoke out back. When she came in the house was a mess. WTH??? And my husband was apologizing, "You know R., she just can't keep a house neat." JERKFACE. He'd come in the front, and proceeded to mini-trash the house.

((laundry dumped all over the table & floor, food left out on the counter. Something sticky spilled on the floor, coffee grounds and some kind of grit crunching in other places. Mail all over the couch. Shoes all out from the cubby. Drawers open and stuff hanging out of them, towels all over the bathroom floor, beds unmade. Toys spread all over the floor of my sons room. SMALL stuff... the stuff that takes 5 minutes to do, and an hour to clean. My sister was livid. PART of why we'd chosen that day to deep clean was that my ex had some friends coming over any minute (at that point). My sister said she never knew how good a liar my ex was until she found him up to his elbows in soapy water 'doing dishes' (that We'd already done), the stage all 'prepped' to make him look like the poor working dad whose SAHW never did anything and left everything up to him.

JERK.

And my sister has pictures.

SO FIRST: Make sure its not active sabotage. (ROFLMAO ... So JADED round these parts).

But, yes. I have gone on strike a few times. BEFORE I knew he was just a manipulative, lying, Jerkface. It 'worked' for brief periods of time. Which is something of a hint.

People can just be clueless (not realizing all the stuff it takes to keep a house when you're in it raising kids... Instead of the kids at school and parents working... But if you have to go on strike more than once, in my experience, that's EITHER willful ignorance, power struggle, or outright sabotage.

No, I wouldn't go on strike.
No, my wife hasn't gone on strike and we had 8 kids.

My wife taught the kids to pick up after themselves and I backed her up. It got dicey when my oldest three sons refused to pick up their dirty clothes and you couldn't even see if their room had carpet or not. When their mom washed and folded their clothes for them and told them to put them to put them in their drawers, they would walk past their dressers and put them on the floor where a day later you couldn't tell what was clean and what hadn't been washed.

So I told them nicely, then I told them not so nicely, then I told them loudly and mean to pick up their clothes and put them away in their dressers. Then I told them I was coming back in 30 minutes and they would get one swat for each piece of clothing that was left on the floor.

In thirty minutes I came back and they hadn't moved. I gave each one 10 swats. I told them I would be back in 30 minutes and count the clothes and the swats would be hard. In 30 minutes most of the clothes were picked up. I counted the rest of the clothes and gave the owners swats depending on how many of the clothes were theirs.

I had to do that for about 3 weeks before the clothes were in their drawers where they should have been or in the dirty clothes hamper. After that I just had to remind them. One of the sons is still leaving his clothes on the floor, but his wife does too. The other two cleaned up their act and are still clean.

I didn't want to use corporal punishment, but they had to learn and that was a last resort.

Good luck to you and yours.

I stopped doing my daughter's laundry when she was 12, because I got sick and tired of her bringing me a week's worth of dirty school uniforms at 10 pm on Sunday. I showed her how to use the washer and dryer, and told her that from then on, she was responsible for making sure she had clean clothes.

don't-you'll need a rake and a shop vac by the end of the week-training is imperative-nag all you want-you only get one shot-don't blow it!

I wouldn't, because I think it's stupid and then I would be 6 days behind and it would just come back to bite me in the butt.
I don't know about you, but I enjoy wearing clean clothes. :)

Very funny. There's a movie like this too. I haven't done it but I felt like starting one last night...