Parenting Lessons through Paint

This weekend we spent a fairly solid day-and-a-half working on our new house. We had a considerable amount of cleaning and painting to do and I found myself growing anxious about the process and pending results. I wanted the job complete. I wanted it done quickly and neatly; so much so that I considered abandoning my typical approach to family life and nearly asked my kids to find activities somewhere other than where the work would be going on.

That doesn’t sound unusual, right? Send the kids to play with friends or, at the very least, out in the yard while the work takes place?

It’s not the way our family typically functions. My children’s contributions to our lives and the day-to-day care of our house have always been valued. We try not to coerce or assign random awards to chores. Messes are never fussed over, we just take ownership and clean them up. This is probably why my table or my floors often look like they’ve been cleaned by a five-year-old. It is also why my kids happily grab a towel and clean up their own spills and put their own dishes in the sink (usually) when they are through with them. One of the earliest things I learned about cooperative family life is that you don’t “redo” what a child contributes. Perhaps it sounds like an excuse for messy housekeeping, but it’s valid if you think about it. Would you find any pride in your work if someone was constantly coming along and correcting you and, in fact, redoing your job in order to make it right?

The kids, thus far, have shown an amazing amount of patience and endurance in helping get this new house in order. They’ve scrubbed walls, peeled old shelf paper out of cabinets, cleaned cabinet doors, and spent inordinate hours on their hands and knees cleaning floors. (“Now I REALLY feel like Cinderella,” I heard one daughter telling the other.)

They would take breaks to venture out into the yard to explore. They played some games and spent some time up in their rooms planning how they were going to organize their furniture and decorate. When we were to the point where we were ready to pull out paint brushes and rollers, I was honestly hoping they’d stay occupied elsewhere. I was thinking of the drop cloth I had so neatly taped down and all the borders and crevices that would prove to be a challenge. I was thinking of all the cabinet surfaces they might miss or the streaks and drips their rollers might leave.

This is one of the major advantages of two-people parenting, however. While my anxiety level (as well as my inner obsessive compulsive) was rising, my husband was calmly passing out brushes and rollers and directing each kid to a wall.

It took me a while to relax and come around. Luckily, I did remain mindful enough to keep my mouth (mainly) shut and allow dear hubby to do the majority of the teamwork coordinating. Nearing the end of the primer coat, however, I was starting to feel quite relaxed about things.






How can you look at these faces and NOT feel relaxed?

They were SO happy painting. They would have gone on for hours and hours like this. My son, age 5, starting flagging as the sun set, but he came back late as I was putting some final touches on the trim. In fact, as he climbed the ladder to help me, and he used this gigantic brush to paint a “trim area” I really hadn’t intended to paint, I finally found my peace. I was watching him with this big old brush swinging back and forth across the ceiling and this enormous grin of satisfaction on his face.

I think my hubby used the term ownership. It’s not just my house we are moving into, after all, it’s OUR house. It belongs to the five of us… and I will have years to look up at that streaky patch of white paint my son contributed and be reminded this is a wonderful place I share with them.