Long Pity Party, help!!!

[DDH]

Oh I made that sound like I am with her 24/7, I'm not. She is home alone much of the time, it's just the constant interuptions of my day with appt's and grocery shopping for her and lawn mowing and such. She needs her house cleaned because she is not taking care of it anymore like it needs anyway, and it's a mess, but I told DH I refuse, because if I do it just one time, then it will be expected of me from then on. We have enabled her to not have to hire anyone because of us doing it all and it's just expected now, and once that starts it's hard, very hard to get out of.

And to answer your question, yes, ds is old enough. He is 13 and needs to take some responsiblities here to help me. I have enabled him to be lazy too. I am in such bad habits of doing everything for everyone and I need to stop it. Bad habits are hard to break and where do you begin.

[Brandi]

Oh I made that sound like I am with her 24/7, I'm not. She is home alone much of the time, it's just the constant interuptions of my day with appt's and grocery shopping for her and lawn mowing and such. She needs her house cleaned because she is not taking care of it anymore like it needs anyway, and it's a mess, but I told DH I refuse, because if I do it just one time, then it will be expected of me from then on. We have enabled her to not have to hire anyone because of us doing it all and it's just expected now, and once that starts it's hard, very hard to get out of.

And to answer your question, yes, ds is old enough. He is 13 and needs to take some responsiblities here to help me. I have enabled him to be lazy too. I am in such bad habits of doing everything for everyone and I need to stop it. Bad habits are hard to break and where do you begin.

Baby steps! Start with one thing and work your way up. I have a friend who has three kids. Ages 4,7 and 11 and she always cleans thier rooms. I don't understand why she doesn't make them do it? She says they won't do it right. Well I think then she should do it with them and show them what to do then let them try. What kind of adults will they be if they don't know how to clean their rooms?

[DDH]

See that is why I do everything because of my being particular on how it is done. Rather that go back and have to re-do it, I just do it the first time myself to avoid the headache or to make anyone feel bad about the way they did something.
I do make him clean his room but he never does it to my specifications and I have shown him, but I have learned to just grit my teeth and not say anything. We are not doing our children any favors by doing everything for them, and I am one of the worst. He has no chores other than cleaning his room, or once in a while, gathering up the trash.
Same thing with my MIL, she decided to quit doing anything for herself and thinks she can do nothing anymore and complains about life and has a terrible attitude, she is a sweet lady, but very hard to be around. EX: Her older sister died Thursday and her remark was "well I'm going to be next I just can't make it anymore. I dont' understand why I have to stay here".
It just became easier and quicker to do her gorcery shopping rather than taking her along and making her do it. It takes her 2 hours to go through the store and then she questions everything she buys and once when we went together, she was suppose to be getting hers while I got mine, and she had me paged because she couldn't find something and then couldn't find me. ARRGGGG Needless to say, I ended up doing both.
It's a vicious circle I tell you. Are women just natural enablers because we are the caretakers? Or is it a learned behavior and a bad habit!! LOL

[KnottedYet]

And to answer your question, yes, ds is old enough. He is 13 and needs to take some responsiblities here to help me. I have enabled him to be lazy too. I am in such bad habits of doing everything for everyone and I need to stop it. Bad habits are hard to break and where do you begin.

With my DS, I started with one thing and made him completely responsible for it. (emptying the dishwasher) I worked with him on it, reminding him, showing him all the *hightly* complex ins-and-outs of putting dishes on shelves and sorting silverware . Once he had a good grasp on it, I stopped reminding him. And I didn't go along behind him fixing things. ("Yo, dude, get over here and put the cups on the shelf, not stacked on top of the plates!")

Gradually I've added more things (learning to load the dishwasher, another highly complex task... sigh, running the dishwasher; folding the clean laundry, running the dryer, running the washing machine, sorting clothes into darks and lights; taking out the garbage. Now we're working on remembering to put a new bag into the garbage can after taking the old bag out. Sheesh, the cogitation it takes to remember that detail is HUGE when you are a teenager!)