No Pain, No Gain

This morning, Beth, our seven-year old daughter, asked if she could do her own laundry. A friend came by yesterday to let me rest on the couch while she fed our family lunch and helped get the laundry sorted. I can't lift the laundry basket (and I'm supposed to be taking it easy, remember?) She had the children help her sort. While they were in the laundry room, my friend taught the kids how to run the washer.

I love my washer and dryer. They are a set of those huge front loaders that I got a couple of years ago when our smaller set started putting rust stains on the laundry. I have loved doing laundry ever since, and so I do the laundry for everyone but the teenagers. It never occured to me to teach the 7,8 and 11-year olds to do their own laundry.

Well, last night Josh asked for a laundry basket of his own so he can do his own laundry, and then, this morning, Beth went down and did a load of her own clothes. Amazing!

As I explained in my previous post, I have been ordered to "take it easy" by the doctor--and everyone I know seems to agree except my own family members, who I think at this point are wondering when on earth things are going to get back to normal around here?! Since I have been laying around trying to rest more, I had some time to ponder this strange, but appreciated, request of my children to do laundry, and I realized there is a very practical explanation. It's not because they are concerned about me doing too much or because they have some magnanimous impulse to help more. It's because there is a huge, overflowing basket of dirty clothes in their room, and a bunch more clothes all over their floor that don't fit in the basket. And their favorite clothing items are in that big pile. And they want to wear them. And they are tired of waiting on Mom. So they figure the fastest way to get those clothing items clean is to do the laundry themselves.

It's interesting because it seems to me that, as hard as it is to be unwell, whenever over the years I have been unable to do the work I normally do, like keeping up with the laundry, because I am newly pregnant or just had a baby or have something like this cyst which throws me for a loop physically, my family is forced to pick up the slack. Maybe it's good for Mom to have some things that take her out of the picture now and then.

Now, I'm not saying it's easy. You are supposed to be "taking it easy" and you happen to wander around the house and see all the work left undone. That's enough to make anyone go back to bed. (And it makes you really hope that the nice Relief Society ladies bringing dinner drop it off at the door.) But when Mom is out of the picture, the family eventually gets a little uncomfortable. All those things that are usually just done are not getting done. So they decide to do them, sometimes to be helpful, but more often than not out of self-preservation.

Now I'll admit this is a very, very slow process. And a child's effort is often still a child's effort, which means you have to overlook some of the things they don't do the right way when they try to help. But I love the idea that something so long-term as children learning life skills that they will keep forever comes in the midst of what is really a short-term trial. Because I can't do it, they suddenly have the motivation to do it themselves, and they learn some pretty important things in the process.

This process has been especially painful to me when I have been newly pregnant and am thoroughly sick and exhausted, with no energy or desire to do anything. The house falls apart, and I feel terribly discouraged. But eventually, slowly, everyone helps more. Amazing, afterwards, my fatigue and sickness go away but they get to keep what they gained. They are a little more capable and a little more knowledgeable about how to do some important things like cook, clean and care for themselves.

Often, it 's hard in the swirling of life to slow down and teach. But when life forces you to slow down, then you sometimes have no other choice but to teach (or to have a good friend teach.) In this way, I have taught children to cook while sitting at the table with my head laying on my arms. In this way, I also have taught children to change diapers and do dishes and how to do a good job picking up a room. I have even taught a child to mow the lawn while resting in a lawn chair watching nearby. And apparently, in this way, I am now teaching children to do their own laundry.

That's what I mean by the title "No pain, no gain."

Just a thought.