Last week, we had a rare, bliss-filled moment as parents. It was a Saturday Family Chore Day with glorious weather—and not only were none of our kids on screens, but each of them was helping around the house and yard!

And yes, that bliss lasted probably 10 minutes! Ha.

That said, we all worked for the better part of that Saturday, and there were slices of time when things were humming, when the trademark “shared work” of our Household Economy was palpable. And when we say “humming”, here’s what we heard—the lawn mower, vacuum cleaner, and washing machine—a symphony of sounds that will lift any covid-fatigued parent’s heart!  

While the moment is fresh, we’d like to reverse-engineer this Family Chore Day to motivate ourselves and, we hope, you too. Looking back, we see 5 ingredients that went into that Saturday:  

1. We all had a good breakfast and identified goals together. Instead of heading into our family chore day thoughtlessly, we focused on stoking the necessary good energy—physically and psychologically. We fueled them with protein and got their input and buy-in on what needed to get done before we could welcome Sunday in the late afternoon.  

2. Dad and Mom put skin in the game. We were hands-on (but not overly so), visible, and doing tons of communicating. And we did a decent job (though not without slips) of resisting the urge to check email, news, etc., since looking at a screen sends the message “If Mom and Dad can vanish online, so can I.”  

3. We disabled the kids’ screens with our online monitoring app. If one of our kids had slipped away to unwind on their chromebook, it would have been demoralizing to the team. We needed to be in it together—all choosing the one reality of our messy household over the million available virtual realities.   

4. Humor, course-correction, affirmation, snacks, breaks, time-outs, hands-on tutorials, and shoulder-to-shoulder togetherness were all ingredients that went into the day being a success. Seven people working more or less for six hours equals 42 hours for just about anything to happen. One minute can look very different from the next, and we both had to put aside our inbuilt tendency to perfectionism and 24-7 family unity, and deal with moments as they came.   

5. We pushed through frustrations, moods and little conflicts by directing those moments to God. Like any family, ours sees maybe a dozen skirmishes a day, and Family Chore Saturdays easily see double that amount. None of us were angels, but by offering it up, praying spontaneously (and yes, desperately) with simple words like “Lord, give me patience”, forgiving quickly, or looking for the best in one another, we all had a productive and satisfying time together. 

[Bonus #6]. You can always promise something sweet when the work is done! 

“Flow” is that state of “deep work” or immersion in activities when we lose track of time, when we’re in the zone. That’s a rare kind of state to achieve in your Household Economy.

In fact, forget it—along with the Instagram-perfect images of a Sound of Music family breaking into song as they sweep the floors and dust. It’s best to just put ideals aside, and to discover the rhythm that the Lord has for your family in this season of life. However choppy or chaotic it seems, it’s still a gift from Him!