Sabbath for Working moms. Limited Chores time

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momof2angells said:
Side question- do you recommend I have them wear the disposable gloves for meat handling. I’m getting too excited over the details now. 🙂
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As someone with servsafe training. No. While disposable gloves can prevent cross-contamination between say, veggies, and meat they give you a false sense of security. If you don’t already, I would suggest getting a set of color-coded, stamped cutting boards. Cutting boards with meat type

I’d also recommend getting one of those wave your hand soap dispensers. They never last long but it can be good to help a kid learn how to manage washing hands when they don’t know how to get the soap and water going with their elbow. (so they are not touching the soap with a dirty hand)

Nothing replaces good food-safety habits and correct hand washing procedures. It is far more dangerous to use disposable gloves and not wash.
 
By age 10 our son could cook a simple meal like pasta with browned hamburger and sauce from a jar, scramble eggs, make toast. You do your teens no favors by acting as their chief cook and bottle washer.
 
Yes, Xanthippe mentioned this. My teens lack in these domestic skills due to my fault. I will remedy this as much as I can now.
 
0Scarlett_nidiyilii said:
LOL, I’m in awe of those kids, and I’m a COB!
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When I was seven I was furious that the library cooking contest was for kids 11-15. I LOVED to cook. So I marched up to the librarian, told her I was going to bake cookies myself and I should be allowed to enter.

She looked at me and told my mother that I would be disqualified if she helped in any way.

I made my famous peanutbutter cookies. Except, that day I mixed up my tablespoons and teaspoons and put in a teaspoon of vanilla and a tablespoon of salt.

Needless to say, I did not win.
 
Xanthippe_Voorhees said:
You are going to do fine. Like Xantippe the great suggests, a slow ramp-up may be better, but I do think a “Come to Jesus/Things are going to change around here” would be beneficial to set things off.
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We did the “Things are going to change talk” when my big kids were 9 and 7 and I got put on bed rest when I was pregnant with their baby sister. That’s when they had to start making their school lunches and putting away their clothes.

Another thing–each of the bathrooms in our house is set up with one of these:


I set the big kids up with that in their bathrooms when they were 10 and 7 and I was way pregnant and wasn’t feeling up to waddling into their bathrooms. I gave them a lesson and put them in charge of scrubbing their toilets. (We also have regular cleaning help.) I don’t go in and check much, but I notice that the refills do get used.
 
momof2angells said:
Thank you, would you be willing to share some examples of simple meals, this is what I’ve just been pondering over just now. I was thinking now I have to buy gloves for when they handle raw chicken. (Then my anxiety reminds me of how easy it is for them to get sick if they don’t handle raw meat well then I have to be in the kitchen monitoring which defeats the whole purpose of them helping me). Ack.
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A possible cheat is to use sausage or rotisserie chicken or turkey.

Here’s a simple (but not super inexpensive) dinner recipe that a tween/teen kid could handle.

–one jar Indian curry sauce (Patak’s or similar)
–one package sausage, sliced,
–one bag frozen veggies, microwaved

Simmer together. Serve with couscous (you add the couscous to boiling water and let stand 5 minutes) and/or warm tortillas or naan if you are feeling fancy.

Our 15-year-old has been making us French toast for dinner for years.

This is also not a budget idea, but whenever I have the chance, I put my big kids in summer cooking classes. They always bring home new recipes.
 
momof2angells said:
Side question- do you recommend I have them wear the disposable gloves for meat handling. I’m getting too excited over the details now. 🙂
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My husband does that, but he’s kind of paranoid about raw chicken. You’re not the only one.
 
Xantippe said:
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Xanthippe_Voorhees:
You are going to do fine. Like Xantippe the great suggests, a slow ramp-up may be better, but I do think a “Come to Jesus/Things are going to change around here” would be beneficial to set things off.
Click to expand...
We did the “Things are going to change talk” when my big kids were 9 and 7 and I got put on bed rest when I was pregnant with their baby sister. That’s when they had to start making their school lunches and putting away their clothes.

Another thing–each of the bathrooms in our house is set up with one of these:

Clorox Toiletwand Disposable Toilet Cleaning System - Toiletwand Storage Caddy And 6 Refill Heads : Target

I set the big kids up with that in their bathrooms when they were 10 and 7 and I was way pregnant and wasn’t feeling up to waddling into their bathrooms. I gave them a lesson and put them in charge of scrubbing their toilets. (We also have regular cleaning help.) I don’t go in and check much, but I notice that the refills do get used.
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Luckyyyyyyyyy. Mostly because we can’t use any of the Clorox products with our septic. The anti-bacterial stuff is just too powerful for how frequently we need to clean the toilets because of the water.

…Ahhh the joys of country living…
 
At that time Jesus went through the wheat fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry so they were picking heads of wheat and eating them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are breaking the Sabbath law.” But he said to them, "Haven’t you read what David did when he and those with him were hungry? He went into God’s house and broke the law by eating the bread of the presence, which only the priests were allowed to eat. Or haven’t you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple treat the Sabbath as any other day and are still innocent?
Matthew 12:1‭-‬5
Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. A woman was there who had been disabled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and couldn’t stand up straight. When he saw her, Jesus called her to him and said, “Woman, you are set free from your sickness.” He placed his hands on her and she straightened up at once and praised God. The synagogue leader, incensed that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, responded, “There are six days during which work is permitted. Come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath day.” The Lord replied, “Hypocrites! Don’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from its stall and lead it out to get a drink? Then isn’t it necessary that this woman, a daughter of Abraham, bound by Satan for eighteen long years, be set free from her bondage on the Sabbath day?” When he said these things, all his opponents were put to shame, but all those in the crowd rejoiced at all the extraordinary things he was doing.
Luke 13:10‭-‬17
 
Xantippe said:
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momof2angells:
Thank you, would you be willing to share some examples of simple meals, this is what I’ve just been pondering over just now. I was thinking now I have to buy gloves for when they handle raw chicken. (Then my anxiety reminds me of how easy it is for them to get sick if they don’t handle raw meat well then I have to be in the kitchen monitoring which defeats the whole purpose of them helping me). Ack.
Click to expand...
A possible cheat is to use sausage or rotisserie chicken or turkey.

Here’s a simple (but not super inexpensive) dinner recipe that a tween/teen kid could handle.

–one jar Indian curry sauce (Patak’s or similar)
–one package sausage, sliced,
–one bag frozen veggies, microwaved

Simmer together. Serve with couscous (you add the couscous to boiling water and let stand 5 minutes) and/or warm tortillas or naan if you are feeling fancy.

Our 15-year-old has been making us French toast for dinner for years.

This is also not a budget idea, but whenever I have the chance, I put my big kids in summer cooking classes. They always bring home new recipes.
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I’ve heard that, while not a budget option, big kids do really well with the “Blue Apron” and “Hello Fresh” and they are super duper easy to replicate with the detailed instruction cards time and time again.
 
Thank you, not sure what Blue Apron is or Hello fresh , are the’s books with recipes?
 
That’s a great idea, 8m putting that on my phone reminder for the summer, thank you!
 
Ok I’m not sure if this is to show me not to worry about observing so much as taking care of my family which I understand but does this mean we should no longer observe the Lord’s Day on a special way. Is the Lord’s Day no longer a day of rest? Thanks
 
Thanks everyone, if anyone has any special way they spend the Lord’s Day, if they don’t do certain chores, spiritual reading, anything purposeful, I’d love to learn. Thank you all again.
 
momof2angells said:
Thanks everyone, if anyone has any special way they spend the Lord’s Day, if they don’t do certain chores, spiritual reading, anything purposeful, I’d love to learn. Thank you all again.
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I’m a SAHM, so I don’t have nearly the pressure to squeeze everything into one day, but here’s how we do the weekend.

Friday night
–plan Saturday maintenance chores (ideally)
–family fun

Saturday
–scheduled kid activities
–home repairs/maintenance in AM
–ideally all of kids’ homework
–possibly Sunday Mass
–plan Sunday (ideally)

Sunday
–Mass (if we didn’t go to vigil)
–basic survival chores (NO PROJECTS)
–family fun (ideally)
–youth group
–baths in the evening
–plan Monday

In the interests of full disclosure, we don’t have to cook a lot, I have cleaning help twice a month, and my husband loads the dishwasher, so our weekends are normally pretty streamlined. But the basic philosophy is to shift as much unnecessary toil to other days of the week. Toil does occasionally happen on Sunday, for example if a kid has a particularly big school project, or if my husband has grading to do.

I don’t make kids do chores beyond dish unloading and tidying up after self on Sunday, and I don’t require music practice on Sunday (although a kid might volunteer to cook). From their point of view, Sunday is a sort of “safe zone” from a lot of chores.

My husband is also rather strict about not allowing unnecessary shopping on Sunday, so I don’t buy groceries on Sunday except for emergency supplies like medicine, Gatorade and Saltines.
 
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Great resource for teaching kids (and adults!) about not only cooking but safety and science behind it… Alton Brown’s “Good Eats”. You can stream online or order DVDs or buy entire seasons streaming.
 
If you spend the time teaching them all of these skills before they go away to college, they will thank you later! My daughter was just home for a week and was busy helping in the kitchen making meals to take back for her last two weeks before Christmas break. Fun to see her working in the kitchen without having to assign her the task, she just came in and started helping!

Agree with everyone who is suggesting have the teens pitch in more. They can certainly do laundry and basic cooking, even some of your grocery shopping once they are driving! I loved being able to send DD to the store when I needed something!

Good Luck and hang in there!
 
It is but I am pretty sure with the rapid decline of weekends when 30 % of the population works on weekends now, it doesn’t matter. If you make it to mass that’s what matters.
As for sitting around doing nothing on Sunday like it’s some obligation is utterly ridiculous.
 
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