Throughout most of her married life, my mother was a housewife. She is now pushing 80 years old, extremely overweight, and ridden with arthritis and other health troubles. She is often tired. Whenever I talk to her on the phone, she almost always complains, I’m not doing what I need to do around here or I’m not getting my work done. She always expresses guilt because she has supposedly left the house in a mess.
My parents live in another state but I was able to visit them awhile back. Since my mother had complained so frequently about not doing her housework, I decided to see if a great deal of dust had accumulated in the guest room in which I stayed. I took a paper towel and carefully rubbed it over every solid surface in the room.
When I finished, the paper towel had picked up only a small modicum of dust.
The home was cluttered but it was quite clean and neat.
My father worked as a taxi driver before retiring. In all of the years he has been retired, I have never once heard him express the slightest guilt for not picking up enough fares.
One of the major drawbacks to fulltime homemaking is that there is no clear and official retirement from it. Thus, despite her age and ill health, my mother feels that she is falling down on the job.
I have listened to self-talk tapes and used self-talk cards. These are positive messages that a person is supposed to repeat in order for them to sink into the unconscious as well as the conscious.
I made up a card for my mother that reads as follows: I give myself permission to retire from fulltime homemaking.
People using self-talk messages are advised to repeat the message at least three times, giving stress to different parts of it each time. For example, in the above message one might stress the I and the myself in one go-round. Then one might stress permission and homemaking. A third time, one might stress retire.
I don’t know if that card is doing my mother any good.
However, I mailed it to her and she told me she has it.
So at least I know I’ve done my part to help her retire from fulltime homemaking and, hopefully, enjoy her retirement.
