Moms often carry a ton of responsibility. It’s a never-ending battle to get everything done, especially when your kids are little. But we don’t have to do it all ourselves! Keep reading for several household chores moms can delegate today!
Who to delegate to
You may know you need to delegate some household chores, but have no idea who to ask. Here’s some ideas:
Ask your husband for help
Many things in your life can be delegated to your spouse. Think about things they are good at and can do well. Be honest and talk with them about taking some of these things off your plate.
Most husbands are willing to help, but they don’t always know how! When they do agree, just be sure not to micromanage.
Give kids some responsibility
Your kids are more capable than you may think. Delegating age appropriate tasks to your children can change your life and give them incredible skills for the future.
Give age appropriate tasks not only to clean up after themselves but also contribute to the work of the household. Encourage them to be more independent in their schoolwork as they get older. It may take a little time to teach them in the beginning, but your efforts will pay off.
This is a vital part of being a mom, especially if you have several kids. Teach your kids life skills. It won’t start out easy but it will make a huge difference as they get older and more helpful.
Other adults in your life can help
Do you live near your mother or have an aunt that loves to be with your family? Or do you have a single friend in your life? Ask them to help you with a specific chore occasionally then do dinner together. You might be surprised who would love to help, they just need to be asked.
You could even just have someone be there with you and help you with chores. Do things together and talk while you fold the laundry. They could read with your kindergartener while you change diapers. Life is better together.
Trade with a friend
A fabulous way to make household chores easier is to trade with a friend. If you have a friend in a similar position, arrange a swap. You take her kids for a few hours so she can get some errands and chores done. Then another day, she takes yours.
Trading time with a friend is a good option if you don’t have family nearby. It’s also very helpful if you don’t have extra money to spend for hiring help.
Pay someone
One of the easiest ways to delegate some household chores off your list is to pay someone else to do them. Of course this is also the most expensive. You pay someone else for their time so you can keep your time.
You can likely pay someone to do anything on your list with a price. But some of the most common are yard work and house cleaning.
Another way to work this is to pay someone to watch your kids while you get things done. Hire a sitter for an afternoon or take your kids to a Mother’s Day Out program once a week. You can clean the house and do the shopping alone during this time.
You could also hire a mother’s helper to watch the kids in one room while you work around the house. A mother’s helper is often more affordable than a sitter. One reason is they are often a young teen. Also because they are usually not left completely alone, but are there to help provide an extra set of hands.
Use online services
Online services can be amazing to help streamline some of your tasks at home. Of course, the internet can’t make your bed, but it can help with grocery lists and automate shopping.
There are great online homeschooling classes and grading services. Online shopping and delivery can be more expensive but is also revolutionary for moms at home.
Take advantage of other services
There are many services that can be helpful for moms. Some of these may already be available in your area, or you could work on setting them up with friends. Here are some ideas of opportunities and services you may want to look into in your area.
- Grocery pickup
- Food and grocery delivery
- Drive thrus – food, bank, pharmacy, coffee, grocery
- Library services – story time, homeschool classes, holds and transfers between branches
- Homeschool classes and co-ops
- Carpooling to activities
- Mom groups – MOPS, mom2mom, churches
- Homeschool support groups
- Field trip groups for homeschoolers
- Swapping with friends
- Mother’s Day Out, Parent’s Night Out – churches, museums
Quick tips
Bringing others into the chaos of our lives can be messy. You may have expectations of others. Perhaps you’re a bit of a perfectionist. Here are some quick tips to help with some of the messiness we can cause with all this.
If you don’t ask, they don’t know
You may be drowning in life and housework with little kids at your feet. But others don’t always know you need help unless you tell them. Maybe you think it’s obvious, but unless they’re at your house all the time, they likely don’t know.
Perhaps those closest to you may think you don’t want help. Or even know how to help. So be brave and ask so you can stop drowning in household chores!
The truth is that we all will fill our time with things. If you don’t have little kids, you don’t know or remember how much time and energy they take. So it’s not always that others aren’t willing or that they don’t have time. They honestly don’t know you need help, so ask!
Be specific
Be specific with others who are helping with your chores. Explain how you like things done and maybe even write it down. Or if it’s professionals coming in, speak with them about how they do things so everyone is on the same page.
You may have certain things you want done in a certain way. That’s ok. Explain the task and procedure and set expectations straight away.
This is especially important with training children. You can’t say to a 10 year old to go clean the bathroom and then be upset if they only pick up the dirty clothes and wipe the toothpaste splatter from the mirror. Give them a list of what needs to be done. Better yet, show them how!
Don’t micromanage
Asking someone else to help you out is hard for you perfectionists. If you want help with household chores, they won’t always be done the way you’d like.
You can give a list and even explain your desired procedures for a task. But then you need to step back and give autonomy. Who knows, maybe they’ll surprise you with their abilities and ingenuity.
It doesn’t mean you’ve failed
Asking or allowing help in my house can sometimes make me feel like I’ve failed. I was raised in a traditional home where mom does all the cooking and cleaning and raising of children. I love to be a mom and stay home with my kids but I truthfully can’t do it all. And neither can you.
Remember that the pressure we put on ourselves is usually greater than what others are expecting of us. It’s impossible to have a perfectly clean house 100% of the time when you do it all alone. Especially with little kids.
Throw in homeschooling and maybe even another job and you’re just done for. Even more so when those littles never leave your side!
You haven’t failed. It isn’t personal. Bring others alongside you. This life is meant to be shared and your life will only be better because of it!
11 Household Chores Moms Can Delegate Today
You know you’re overwhelmed but not sure how anyone can help you. Here are some household chores you can delegate. Handing over the entire chore isn’t always an option or even necessary, so I’ve included lots of ideas for other ways to get help with each task.
1. Cooking
Yes you can get help cooking. No, I’m not suggesting you hire a personal chef or eat out every meal. Some ways to take some of the cooking off your plate is to:
- Share cooking duties with your husband
- Teach your children to cook and help you prep meals
- Buy pre-made meals
- Eat out once a week
- Make twice the amount needed for one meal then freeze or reheat another night
- Eat dinner at a friend or family’s house once a week
- Make extra for a meal then trade those extras with a friend.
- Have a dinner party weekly or monthly and rotate who hosts and cooks for the group
- Ask a relative to help you cook occasionally
- Have your husband or friend do prep work for you
- Do large prep days on your own or with a friend for the whole week
2. Laundry
Laundry is the never-ending monster of a household chore that never ends. You may feel like it’s pointless to devote time to so you live out of a basket. I guess that’s your choice. If you don’t want to do that, then getting help can be great. Here are some ideas:
- Have your kids help load and switch the laundry – set a timer and make it a game
- Wash every person’s clothes separately and everyone folds and puts away their own
- Older kids 10+ can completely do their own laundry
- Ask your husband, mom or friend to help fold – an easy job for anyone
- Everyone puts away their own laundry
- Pay to have your clothes laundered
- Hire a friend’s teen to help
3. Cleaning
“Cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow, for babies grow up we’ve learned to our sorrow…” -Ruth Hulburt Hamilton
Rock those babies, mama. But maybe we can get some help with the cleaning this time. Here are some ideas:
- Create a chore list for each person in the family
- Clean together as a family
- You don’t have to do it all at once
- Hire someone to help you – weekly, biweekly, or monthly
- Have a friend or relative come help, especially for the deep cleaning
- Hire a friend’s teen to help
For more tips on household chores and cleaning, check out my post about managing housework.
4. Shopping
You buy the food, then they eat it. Then you have to buy more! Shopping is another chore that never seems to go away. Here are a few ideas to get some help with it.
- Shop online and have it delivered
- Order online for pickup
- Ask a friend or relative to pick up some things for you
- Have your husband grab items on his way home from work
5. Grading/checking schoolwork
Not everyone grades their kids homeschool work, but hopefully you are checking over most of it. Kids can be sneaky and don’t always know when they’re needing help or doing things incorrectly in math. So check over those pages of work.
But if you have several kids doing school, it can be quite the chore to keep up with checking school work, let alone putting a grade to it for the older kids! Here are a few ideas to get it some help with grading.
- Use online classes with built-in grading
- Pay for an online grading service
- Hire a tutor for grading/checking
- Take classes where a grade is given
- Have older kids check their own work
- Have siblings check each other’s work
- Ask a friend or relative to check work
- Check several pages at once
- Don’t grade or check it every time (just occasionally) – gasp!
6. Helping with a school subject
We are not all good at every subject. If you don’t understand it, how can anyone expect you to teach it to your child? If you are needing help teaching a certain subject to your child, you don’t just have to do it anyways. Here are some creative ways to help you get others involved.
- Use online classes and services
- Ask a friend or relative to teach
- Join a co-op
- Hire a tutor
- Have an older child help your younger child
- Pay for a class
- Buy a DVD program
7. Accounting
Doing all the budgeting, accounting, bookkeeping, tax-filing, and money-keeping is a lot for one person to stay on top of while still doing all the other things. So don’t. Here are some ideas to not do all the money stuff by yourself.
- Use budgeting, accounting, and tax software
- Have your husband manage the finances
- Work with your husband on keeping the money
- Hire it all out
- Have someone else just do your taxes
8. Driving kids to activities
It can sometimes feel like you run a taxi service when you have many kids involved in many activities. Free up some of your drive time with one of these ideas.
- Trade off days with a friend
- Have a friend or relative drive
- Have older siblings drive younger children
- Ask your husband to split the duties
- Schedule things in the same area around the same time – get it done in one trip
9. Watching the littles
When you have little kids at home, it can be difficult to get anything done. One way to be able to get other things done is to ask someone else to watch your kids for a bit. Here are a few ideas for watching you kids you may not think about.
- Ask a friend or relative watch your kids
- Hire a mother’s helper (teenager) to come help you with the kids while you work at home
- Enroll in a Mom’s Day Out program or local Parent’s Night Out
- Hire a babysitter or nanny
- Have older siblings watch the younger kids
- Trade babysitting with another family
10. Caring for animals
Having animals can make you feel tied down and create quite a bit of work for you. So don’t bear that responsibility alone. Here are some ideas to get a break from the animals.
- Ask a friend or relative for their help once a week
- Barter with a friend – ie. They help with chickens in exchange for eggs
- Board them at a farm
- Pay for help
- Teach your kids to care for the animals
11. Yardwork
Working in the yard can be hot and sticky and miserable for some and wonderful and relaxing for others. If you don’t like yard work, it can feel like quite a chore. So get some help with the yard work with the ideas.
- Ask your husband to mow
- Work in the yard all together
- Teach your kids to help out in the yard
- Pay for a lawn crew
- Pay a local teen to mow
- Ask a friend or relative to help
Closing
The responsibility that moms carry, especially as homeschoolers, can seem overwhelming. But you don’t have to carry that burden alone. Be brave and reach out for help. There are many areas where you can get some relief with your chores and many ways to get it. I hope this post has been helpful to get some ideas to delegate some household chores!
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