This past August, a red line was crossed in our kitchen. For the umpteenth morning in a row, we walked into a less-than-clean kitchen after the kids’ ice-cream, brownies, or popcorn party from the night before.
 
And yet we knew that we as parents were the authors of this mess. Earlier in the summer—when our two college kids came home and joined their three younger siblings—we had allowed a festive “isn’t this great they’re all together?!” sea of good feelings to overtake a reasonable kitchen cleaning policy. It’s one of the inbuilt liabilities that comes with the changing seasons of family life.
 
In the third week of the month, we turn our focus with you to Level 3—Household Economy, in which we care for the material needs in our Trinity House. This is the arena of family life where your own kitchen cleaning policy gets hammered out against the larger backdrop of virtue, which the Catechism defines as the “habitual and firm disposition to do good” (1833).
 
For a while this summer, Dad and Mom were compensating for the summertime fall-off in our kids’ “habitual and firm disposition” to clean up.Mom would clean the kitchen and Dad would do the dishes while on-and-off recruiting help from various kids.

But seven people at home together can create some massive kitchen messes, so eventually came exasperated questions like, “Hey, who’s going to do these dishes?” It wasn’t too rare for someone to step forward, and this would cause us to fool ourselves thinking, “See? We raised responsible children! They’re going to fill this gap.”
 
Ha. You know the illusion is over when we hook up the laptop to the printer and out comes the new kitchen cleaning schedule, followed shortly by a family meeting. That happened on a happy day in late August—one week into the new school year—and there’s been no turning back.

Now, hanging on our fridge—next to our Heaven in Your Home Flowchart—is a simple print-out detailing whose sole responsibility it is to clean the kitchen each day of the week. Our kids are old enough to do the whole job. Maybe it sounds a little harsh, but we’ve found that if we assign more than one person to a day, that arrangement will inevitably be used to find a way out. “She hasn’t done her part yet.” “He’s in the way. I’ll do my part later.” Well, parents, as we know, “later” doesn’t necessarily happen when you can always cite homework.

Not only did we make the duty hard to get out of, we also didn’t outline any consequences or incentives. There are no empty boxes for check-marks, no smiley-face stickers like we had when they were younger. It’s simple: if it’s your day, it’s all yours. And if you can’t do it, figure out a backup plan.

The Party Days of Summer are over. It’s just the way it is, and it’s working fine—with dashes of firmness, tenderness, and humor all mixed in. In the spirit of encouraging all of you hard-working parents out there, we’d like to share a few notes:

1. After the first 10 days, it got easier. Undoubtedly the kids were hoping that we’d get busy and forget about that stupid chart hanging on the fridge. But we kept verbalizing the expectation.
2. The kids innovate and help each other. The chart has spawned all kinds of little negotiations, trade-offs, and ways they sub for one another as things come up during the week.
3. In the spirit of teamwork, Mom usually helps whoever is on deck. She can’t help herself! But she focuses on things that other people aren’t going to clean (toaster oven, anyone?) and let’s the responsible party take care of the basics. It’s a win-win. The duty-bound child doesn’t have to feel alone and Mom gets an overall cleaner kitchen. 

Yes, like so many we’ve used over the years, this kitchen cleaning policy too shall pass…and we will adjust to a new season, yet again. While we hope this one lasts for a long season, we also know that family life is constantly growing, maturing, on the move. When that time comes—such as with another high school graduation around the corner—we’ll need to find a new arrangement.

It’s so much easier…and more peaceful and efficient to not have to renegotiate the path to a clean kitchen every day. But of course it should be said: our first calling is not to Instagram-level perfection in our kitchens, but to holiness.

“God put us on this earth to know, to love and to serve Him and so to come to paradise” (Catechism, 1721). And if a new kitchen cleaning schedule helps us to know, love and serve Him and one another a little bit more faithfully, then it’s one more small step on our family’s journey to heaven.