Why It’s Time to Stop Playing Alone: Household Collaboration

The Mess: Avoiding Household Collaboration and Feeling the Pressure to Do It All Myself Instead

With car keys in my hand, ready to hustle my girls out the door for school, my youngest daughter’s voice broke the list that was streaming through my brain “’Mom, can you do my laundry today, please?’ she asked. It was a Monday, the beginning of the week and she had struggled to get dressed in the morning. It is always tempting in these moments, especially when my husband is on shift, to feel like I have failed her. I should have gotten laundry done the day before, so we could all start the week off fresh. I should have, but I spent the day in a delicate balancing act engaging with my girls and trying to finish an important task for work.

For years, I’ve treated life like a solo game of Tetris—juggling tasks, responsibilities, and expectations alone. But a family game of Block Party and some real-life laundry chaos reminded me that the best way to win is by working together.

So this morning, instead of feeling like a failure, I simply said yes. I didn’t really know how I was going to wash her three loads of laundry; complete the 8 hours of my regular work; fold her three loads of laundry and then also put them all away. Even if I couldn’t do it all completely, I knew I could at least manage to wash them. 

Hyper-Independence: Where Does It Come From?

The reality is, I don’t have to do it all by myself. I don’t know about you’ve but I’ve always put this weird pressure on myself to do everything alone. 

Not sure where my hyper independence comes from. I’m sure there’s something worth googling there…women with hyper independence issues:  Feeling ashamed to ask for help. Being a perfectionist. Difficulty trusting others. Low self esteem. Plenty of problems to choose from 😂. I think quite of few of them have applied to me at one point in my life or another. 

I’m not sure where mine comes from these days but I know it’s exacerbated by the firefighter wife’s life because there are literally times where I have to do everything by myself. 

But as I type that I wonder if that is even true. Do I have to do everything myself or do I have to lean in more to collaboration?

 

The Great Wolf Lodge Reset: Household Collaboration of Rest

After a few harrowing weeks at work, I completely unplugged and fully embraced our mini framily vacation at Great Wolf Lodge. It was restorative and completely what I needed. 

Despite my hesitance to take 2 full days off, I did. Surprisingly, nothing burned down at work. Meetings were held, materials were sent for review, questions were answered, and I didn’t have to engage at all. Our extended weekend getaway was filled with laughter and fun times with our family friends. 

We culminated our trip by playing a virtual game of Block Party. Imagine virtual Tetris, where you are physically picking up the blocks and putting them on a pedestal without gaps to clear the level.  Oh and the ceiling is made of spikes that are coming down to crush you everytime more blocks fall from the ceiling. 

The old me would have over thought this and tried to manage the roles for each member of our family because if I didn’t then surely we would die in spiky-ceiling chaos. 

Today’s version of me though rolled with it and enjoyed the experience. What’s wild is, we won. We cleared every level, we worked together some household collaboration, and we were not crushed by the spiked ceiling. We did this together as a family without yelling or strict rules and roles. Our collaboration was actually fun because everyone was invested and brought their own unique perspective to where the blocks would fit.

Motherhood: The Real-Life Game of Tetris

It was entertaining and also a bit poignant as well. Just the day before, while waiting by the water slide my friend and I were discussing how motherhood feels like a game of Tetris. In our brains we are constantly playing a game of Tetris trying to balance out household chores, kids activities, meal plans, our own personal well being, schedules, laundry, etc. 

We both agreed that every time we feel like we’ve placed the blocks perfectly, it seems that more blocks come crashing down. 

All the clothes are washed, dried, folded, and put away, BUT I don’t have the ingredients I need to make dinner. 

The dishes are cleaned, the floors are vacuumed, BUT the kitchen desk is cluttered with the activities from last week..

I get the girls to the bus stop on time, I get the girls to dance class on time BUT I don’t get to the gym…ever. 

Choosing Household Collaboration Over Independence

In order to make this crazy game of Tetris work, it feels like I have to manage every aspect of every hour of every day or our family won’t be successful..but maybe that in and of itself is the problem. 

I don’t have problems anymore asking for help when we have schedule conflicts like I used to. Something though, holds me back from asking for personal help…the Tetris game of managing the household. 

I think part of it is that I don’t have the energy to assign tasks and roles for everyone in the family to make the household run accordingly. I barely have the energy to manage daily life as it is, let alone monitoring how three other humans contribute to getting it all done. 

Our virtual reality game of block party though is making me question if individual roles are needed. I don’t think any family is going to be able avoid the time scheduling game of Tetris, especially a firefighter family with school aged kids. 

I do think though that maybe I don’t have to manage it all alone. After all, collaborating with my favorite people to clear blocks was wildly successful. 

Seeing the Blocks Together: A Path to Household Collaboration

According to google (lol) “To collaborate is to commit to the possibility of producing an outcome greater than one that would be developed in a silo.”

When I attempt to independently assign roles and responsibilities to everyone to make our house run, I’m not actually engaging in collaboration. I think I’m being more of a manager. That’s an exhausting role for a single person not being paid to do it 😂

“A greater outcome that I couldn’t do alone?” Hmmm…Maybe the key is making the needs of our household known to everyone and allowing for collaboration to happen so we can all work through it. 

My harrowing work weeks led to some slippage in my usual weekly chores that I keep going in the background of our lives. 

So when after my daughter asked me to do her laundry while she was in school, I asked her to drag her hamper to the laundry room.  

While I worked feverishly to complete my tasks for the day, I also took out a few minutes every couple of hours to switch over the laundry.  I washed and dried all of the little girl clothes.   By the end of my workday there was a very large pile on the couch…my TBF (to be folded) pile. That evening I managed to fold some of her clothes and she managed to put some of them away.  

The following morning my oldest daughter had the same request. “Mama, can you wash my clothes while I’m at school today?” My answer was a resounding yes and my TBF pile grew even larger. 

My husband came home from his shift and took the girls to the bus, so I started my regular work and continued to wash and dry every few hours. My TBF pile grew larger with each beep of the dryer.  It was a Tuesday which meant we had at least one hour of activities. We also needed to eat an early dinner.

 Laundry Collaboration: My Favorite Household Collaboration

After coming home from the day and the evening activities, I sat by the couch and started my tbf pile. My husband came in the room and sat down to fold with me. Then came my youngest daughter who also began to fold. Finally my eldest, after her shower came and began to put things away.

In less than 30 minutes we had completed my tbf pile and the living room couch was cleared. Our lives weren’t ruined because I didn’t do all of the laundry on Sunday. Nor were they ruined because I didn’t assign the chores to be done by someone else. I let go of my hyper-independence and opened the door for collaboration. My family saw me working on the needs of the house and came together to help me get it done. 

Maybe I don’t have to do Tetris in my brain. Maybe it’s best if I put the blocks all out on the table for everyone to see. 

I think my version of Tetris has been so hard because I’ve been playing from a limited perspective. Hell-I’m not even sure the rest of the family even knows that I’m playing Tetris. 😂 Problem number 1.

I’m not sure how I’m going to let go of my hyper independence, but I know that I want to try. 

A New Approach: Putting the Blocks on the Table

This week, after a suggestion from my therapist, I’m going to take 60 minutes on Sunday to lay all of my Tetris blocks out on the table. 

• For each day of the week, I’m going to block out non-negotiables, like work, appointments, deadlines, school, and activities. 
• Then I’m going to list out all of the tasks that need to be done for the week like meal prep, laundry, cleaning, personal goals and aspirations. 
• Finally, I want to categorize these tasks and share them with my family. 

What Are the Tetris Blocks in Your Life?

What are the Tetris blocks in your life? Take some time this week to write down your blocks and share them with your family. You might be surprised at how willing they are to help you clear the level together and develop household collaboration.