Sheila Wray Gregoire is a Christian homeschooling mom of two girls (12 & 9). She also had a little boy with Down Syndrome who died 11 years ago, which she writes about in her most recent book. She writes a syndicated parenting column every week, and she has written dozens of articles in Christian magazines, including Today?s Christian Woman and Christian Parenting Today.

Sheila contacted me about hosting a blog interview for her newest book, To Love, Honor and Vacuum. Visit her blog, Sheila’s Musings to see all of the stops on her April blog tour for this book.
Sheila was new to me, but you have love anyone with book titles like hers! This one still has me giggling:
Honey, I Don’t Have a Headache Tonight! Help for women who want to feel more in the mood.

So here we go. My burning questions answered by a homeschooling mom whose house is definitely cleaner than mine.

Sheila, how do you suggest wives keep our focus upon our primary role as helpmeets to our husbands when so many other needs threaten to eat up our time and attention?

Other than put our fingers in our ears and start singing ?I?m not listening, I?m not listening!?, you mean? It is a difficult one, isn?t it?

The thrust of To Love, Honor and Vacuum is that we have to change how we think about things. If we just simply try to change the way we do laundry, or the way we discipline the kids, it won?t work unless we?re reaching for a different kind of goal. We?ll revert back to the old patterns.

So what should be our goal? It?s to raise families that love Jesus. Notice that I said ?families?, not ?kids?. We?re not raising individuals as much as we are raising a group of people who will face life together, in different ways, throughout the years. And the two principal people keeping that family together are you and your hubby. If you ignore your hubby because the kids need you, or because you?re homeschooling, kids get this idea that they?re the center of the universe. And they?re not! God is, and He?s put both of you above the kids. If your relationship isn?t solid, nothing else in the family is going to be, either.

The problem is that as soon as we become moms, we?re naturally drawn to our babies. We want to make life easy for them, and help them, and kiss them, and do all those lovey-dovey things it?s so fun to do as a mom. But if we leave our husbands behind, pretty soon we?re depriving our kids of what they need most: a secure family where the parents are in unity about how to raise them. So remember that your husband comes after God, but before your kids! It?s actually kinder that way.

And relationships always come before dust bunnies. Even big ones!

So take some time everyday, just when you?re quiet with God, even if it?s just in the shower or when you?re doing the dishes, to think about how you can encourage your husband. When life gets crazy our conversations with our hubbies tend to focus on what needs to get done. Who is going to pick up the milk? Who is going to put Becky to bed? Who is going to put the science experiment away? And often the way that we talk to our husbands makes them feel nagged, even if that?s not what you had in mind.

Men think differently than women, and we need to talk differently to them. I have a whole lot in the book about this, but let me give you an example. If you were to say to your husband, ?Honey, can you just help me with dinner? The baby?s pulling on my leg and I?m having a hard time getting everything done,? what would you be thinking? Probably something like, ?I hate to bug you, but I just want to eat, so can you give me a hand??. Nothing bad, really. What he hears is this: ?What is the matter with you? Why are you just sitting there while your baby is bugging me while I?m trying to make your dinner? Are you some sort of insensitive clod??. And why does he hear it that way? Because men don?t justify their requests. When they ask something, they ask it. When we ask something, we feel guilty, so we try to justify it. Then men hear anger when there isn?t anger. So how should you ask? How about ?Honey, would you mind cutting the vegetables?? Then zip it. And see what happens.

Men thrive on appreciation, not condemnation. And they hate guilt trips. It tends to drive them away from the family.

This doesn?t mean you shouldn?t confront him when you have a problem. But do it in a spirit of accepting him, even as you discuss the behavior, rather than condemning him as a person, and you?ll do a lot better.

How much should we focus upon housework? How clean is “clean enough” when others need our time and attention?

Again, let me ask you the question what are you aiming for? If you?re aiming to raise a family full of responsible, independent adults who love Jesus then you have to make sure that the way you live your life is encouraging everyone around you?including you?to be a responsible, independent adult who loves Jesus. We?re all, after all, supposed to be transformed into His likeness (Romans 8:29).

But how do we do that when it comes to the nitty gritty? Let me give you two answers here: one talks about you, and the other about your kids.

First, you: if your job is to raise a good family, then you?re going to need time and energy to do it. And nothing drains us more than feeling like our homes are out of control. We have to maintain at least a semblance of organized chaos, rather than chaotic chaos. Besides, this saves a lot of time! If you plan your housework and grocery shopping, then you won?t be stuck in line at the grocery store at 5:30 at night with three toddlers in tow because you forgot spaghetti sauce. What I suggest doing in the book is to figure out everything in your house that needs to be cleaned, and divide it into daily tasks (like sweeping the kitchen floor), weekly tasks (like cleaning the bathroom), and monthly tasks (like dusting all the ceiling fans). Write it all out, and try to keep on track. You?ll likely find that there isn?t actually that much to do each day if you keep up. The problem is that we don?t, and then the house gets out of control that we feel so defeated we turn to the chocolate! [me: Whoa! Wait a minute. What's wrong with chocolate?] Concentrate instead of trying to stay organized, and you?ll have more time to read to your kids, and play with your kids, because once you?re done your work for today, you?re done. You know everything else will get done in its time.

And how do you decide how clean is clean? That?s always a personal call. But my rule of thumb is that if cleaning is preventing you from having a meaningful relationship with your kids and your hubby and your friends, you?re cleaning too much. Relationships matter most.

Of course, there?s a wonderful way we can kill two birds with one stone, and that brings me to the second part of our equation. We can turn housework into something that?s relationship building by making the kids do a lot of it! One reason we don?t, I think, is because kids don?t do it as well as us, and it takes us time to supervise them, so it?s easier to just do it yourself. But remember our goal?to raise a family filled with responsible, independent adults who love Jesus? That means those kids need to be taught how to clean! And if you get them while they?re young, it?s amazing what they?ll be able to do once they?re 10! A pre-teen can easily make a simple dinner. A 9-year-old can dust everything in sight, and a 3-year-old can Windex the bottom of the ovens and the fridge door. It?s not that hard.

Once you get kids doing chores, you?re helping them learn valuable skills, but you?re also helping them to think outside of themselves. They realize that they are not the center of the universe, and that their role on this earth is also to serve within their families and communities. That?s key to learn! So don?t try to do it all yourself, bring the kids into it, and try to get organized. You?ll find that it goes a lot more smoothly!

What else does your book deal with other than housework?

When I originally conceived of the book I was thinking about all those Christian women who had achieved their dreams: they had gotten married, they had had children, they had everything they had ever wanted, but they found themselves run down, exhausted, taken for granted, and even mildly resentful. Not everyone, of course, feels that resentment. But it comes upon all of us sometimes, especially since women tend to be doing the kind of jobs that are never done! If you vacuum, there?s always someone walking behind you eating crackers. If you do the laundry, you just know someone somewhere is busy throwing up. So there?s very little sense of accomplishment, because you don?t see your great deeds until your kids are adults!

So what can we women do to encourage ourselves and make sure that our families are working well? I talk a lot about how to organize our time, make sure housework isn?t the focus of our life, but instead a tool for making our home a place of ministry, and then I turn to how to ensure that the relationships in our families are running smoothly. In a lot of families I talk to, the mom is the primary caregiver of the children. There?s nothing wrong with that, of course. But there is something wrong if dad comes home and eats dinner and then sits in front of the TV for most of the evening and spends very little time with the kids. What can moms do to encourage the relationship between dad and the kids?

And what can moms do if our kids are really demanding our attention and outside work is out of the question, but money is tight? How do we make decisions about work and about how we spend money? But probably my favorite chapter is the last one??in the mood?. It?s 10:00. You?re exhausted. The kids have been hanging on you all day and you want nothing more than to take a bubble bath, eat chocolate, and fall into bed. Your husband?s really interested in that falling into bed part. He just isn?t so keen about the sleep you?re already dreaming of. When making love is that last thing on our minds, what can we do?

I like to say that my husband liked the research on that chapter, which was probably the most autobiographical for me! In fact, he liked it so much that my next book was all about that chapter: It?s called Honey, I Don?t Have a Headache Tonight: Help for women who want to feel more in the mood, and tells us Christian women how we can increase our libidos, even when we go through life with banana mash on our jeans and dried play-doh on the bottom of our socks!

Oh great. Now I have another question: how did Sheila know what was on the bottom of my socks when I emailed her yesterday?
Hey, Sheila…

Too late. Maybe next time.
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To find more encouragement to get your kids to help at home and make your marriage less stressful, you can pick up To Love, Honor and Vacuum ($9.99) at Christian Book Distributors (CBD). Sheila’s other books are also available at CBD.

WIN A BUNDLE OF SHEILA?S BOOKS!
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