RBC | It’s final production week for our second Adventure Colorado magazine, and that means two things. One, I’ve been at my desk more than anywhere else in my house (including asleep) and two, my house is an utter disaster.
Working from home has a host of benefits (hello, all day pajamas) but it can also be very challenging, especially when combined with parenting little kids. My “office” is in the living room, and my current view is a six foot high couch cushion fortress, a bazillion random toys, somebody’s discarded pants, and goldfish crackers strewn in every direction.
I’d absolutely love to have everything under control all the time, but that’s rarely what actually occurs. The first thing to go? Housework.
Women today are haunted by the specter of a 1950s housewife in pearls and heels, faithfully Hoovering her life away while her husband relaxes after a “hard day of work.”
Nowadays, on top of the more-than-full-time job of keeping small children alive (if you think it’s easy, you’re welcome to come babysit), many of us have entered the workforce. And for most of us, the solution is not “well, just don’t work!”
The ghost of June Cleaver will probably continue to lurk, but we can change the future for the better by raising independent and considerate human beings. The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you (and Appendix A: There is no dishes fairy, B: clothes don’t magically clean themselves, and C: if you dump goldfish on the floor, guess what you’re having for lunch?)
It often feels like the world is crumbling around us. There’s strife and violence everywhere you look and someone somewhere is probably eating a Tide Pod right now, but we can still change the world for the better by raising our kiddos right.
And anyway, eating things you’re not supposed to is not even close to new.
In 1939, the fad was goldfish gulping (and not the cute little crackers you’ll find in every nook and cranny of my house.)
And yet, the human race persists.
Maybe we’ll be okay after all.