Hello, friends!
Today I am excited to explore the topic of household rules and routines. As a young homemaker, I am slowly building a lifestyle that fits for our family and our life at home. As someone who is always striving to have a peaceful home and life, it has been important for me to develop different rules and routines that keep me sane. Even though it isn’t always easy to be consistent, I know that I always feel more grounded when I follow some sort of structure within our home. I am definitely still learning though and so, it is very helpful for me to see how other families run their households. Of course, you don’t always see that clearly when you go over to someone’s house for a dinner, so I have been trying to have more intentional conversations with the women in my life about the things that work (or don’t work) for them. And so, today I am bringing that conversation to this Substack community. I hope you feel free to share your ideas and suggestions, either via comment or by replying directly to me via email.
To start, I should probably briefly describe the season of life that I am currently in since there are a lot of new faces here.
My husband and I live in a small town in Manitoba, Canada and have one very active 20-month-old son. We are expecting baby boy #2 in November. My husband works at a local school, and I am at home with our son, balancing domestic life and freelance writing jobs.
So what are our current household rules for maintaining peace?
Art by Robin Pieterse
Do laundry everyday.
This is one that I am striving for, but have not yet perfected. I can’t believe how quickly laundry builds up, even though there’s only three of us. What do people with five kids do? It really helps my sanity if we do a load a day instead of leaving it for a “laundry day” every week.
Never leave the house without pants.
This is kind of a joke….but also kind of not. My toddler does tend to like hanging out in his diaper and it’s easy to just let him. However, I have put my foot down - he cannot leave the house for a walk or even to play in the yard without pants. The deck is currently a grey zone. This one just helps me feel good about myself as a mother, especially since we live in town and our yard is not private at all.
There must be bread around.
In the past year, I’ve started to make all the bread that we eat around here. At first, I was kind of sporadic about it, which meant that we would run out. DISASTER! I have learned that we must always have bread around. It’s a staple for breakfast, quick lunches, snacks and dinner. Lately I’ve been making a loaf every second day, and that seems to keep things rolling. Unless I happen to make a loaf of particularly good sourdough, and then poof! It’s gone in one day. I’m slowly trying to build up a freezer store for postpartum as well. So far only have one extra loaf so, we’ll see…
Meal flow instead of meal plan.
I have tried to meal plan. Really, I have. And naturally I am a planner type so I don’t fully know why it seems impossible for me to stick to the schedules that I make. However, recently I have been embracing the idea of a meal flow instead of meal plan and wow, it has been so…. peaceful. I basically set myself up at the beginning of the week by putting a bunch of different meat to thaw in the fridge and cooking some kind of large batch of beans in the crockpot. That, along with a weekly CSA vegetable box that we get from a local farm, are the building blocks for a week of meals. I just pick what I want to feature the day of, and go from there. Lisa Bass at Farmhouse on Boone in my original inspiration for this. She explains the idea in more depth in this video if you are interested.
Get out of the house every morning.
Again, this is one that I am still working on, but I know that it needs to be prioritized for my peace of mind and for my toddler’s. I sometimes have very low motivation to leave the house as an introvert, but my little guy thrives on being around other people. Now, there isn’t always a ton to do in our little town, so I am trying to be creative about what to get up to. Currently, my list includes nature walks at the provincial park that is ten mins away, going to the park, play dates with cousins or friends, mommy and me groups, or even just running errands. I am kind of worried about the winter though….. what will we do when it’s -20 and I have a newborn as well? Please send help.
Be strict with nap and bedtime.
Ah yes, I am that Mom. As much as I would love to be more flexible around sleep, it just never seems to be worth it! We had a pretty rough go of it for the first year and a bit, so now that our little guy has begun to sleep well, we are pretty strict about keeping his routine. That means we are pretty much always at home between the hours of 1 PM - 3 PM and at least one parent is home in the evening after 8 PM. Our home and life is so much more peaceful when we all have a good sleep.
Family prayer time.
Growing up, we always had a family prayer time after dinner and this tradition has continued to work well in our household. Usually, it is just ten minutes or so - some intentions, gratitude and a few common prayers. Maybe a song. It’s lovely and I look forward to continuing it for the many years ahead.
No phones in bed.
This one has been around since the beginning of our marriage. Very simply, my husband and I don’t use our phones in our bedroom (with exceptions of when the other person is gone, etc). We have old-fashioned alarms and our phones stay downstairs at night. This has helped make the quiet times before sleep and when we wake up more available to each other, instead of just being extra scrolling time.
Now onto some things that aren’t working.
Keeping the kitchen clean.
It seems impossible. I swear we clean the kitchen and thirty minutes later it is a mess! Also, dishes? Do you actually wash them after every meal? Or let them stack up til the end of the day? How do both of these feel like bad options currently?
Screen time.
In a perfect world, I would love my toddler to have zero screen time. That went pretty well until the beginning of my second pregnancy. Now we are all over with it, and I don’t know how to set healthy boundaries. I don’t want shows to be part of our daily routines, but I’m struggling to find other activities that will keep him occupied for more than ten minutes when I need to get something done or just need a mental break.
Personal prayer time.
I’m so used to having my prayer time in the morning, but that only works sometimes if my toddler happens to sleep in past me. I could wake up earlier but ugh, third trimester fatigue. If you’re a mother of young children, when do you fit prayer time in? Do you do it with the kids around? In the evening? For some reason, it just never seems to happen unless I do it in the morning.
So yes, there are some household rules and routines that work for our family, and some that don’t. Please join the conversation if you have any thoughts or ideas to share.
Art by Bryers Duane.
Things I’ve enjoyed this week:
There are so many thoughtful pieces on Substack, but this one, entitled Better Than Skinny Feels from
really touched me this week. It talks about body image, religion and disordered eating and learning to love food.“The kitchen is still a mess, as I finish typing this essay late at night, but I ate a good dinner, my own small feast. I’ll probably eat protein bars and peanut butter toast and leftovers tomorrow, and, if I’m honest, for most of the week. But I know I won’t starve.”
We had a lot of extra eggs and milk floating around this week so I made homemade vanilla pudding. Wow! A hit with the whole family. Recipe note: I substituted raw honey for the sugar.
Trent Horn posted a video about The Heavy Burdens of Catholic Fundamentalism and I felt like clapping after. I think he knew he’d make a lot of people angry, but it was such a good and close read of the issues with over rigorism in Catholicism.
Have a beautiful and peaceful week,
Hannah Chartier
Oh, Hannah, my heart pours out to you! I have four children, and my youngest is seven, so it's been a while since I was in the trenches like you, but I remember it so vividly.
A few things:
You're doing it all right. I mean, obviously not *all*, we all make mistakes, but from this piece alone, I can see that you love your babies and your husband and your home and have beautiful, loving, peaceful intentions for all of them. And thank God, so many of these particulars will get ironed out over time (many of them before your kids are old enough to form memories of the mistakes!) -- but your intentions are something you can't fake, so take comfort in the fact that yours are strong and good.
Please do yourself a favor and remember that there will come different seasons. You'll have months when everything is just rolling along and months when it feels like everything takes *work*. Neither your salvation, nor your status as a "good" mom (whatever the heck that is), nor your family's love for you rests on the season you're in. I wish I'd learned that more quickly than I did.
Screentime is a Godsend. As long as it isn't too much (for a 20-month-old, he probably can't sit still for more than one episode of a show anyway -- if that!). Seriously, don't worry about that. Figure out the time of day (it can change, depending on the day) when it's most helpful for *you* to have him occupied, and sit him down with no regrets. (You'll have plenty of time to agonize over screentime when he's a preteen and has actual opinions about what he watches, believe me!)
I'm in awe that you do laundry -- AND BAKE -- more than once a week. Can you come to my house, please?
Motherhood is not a job; it's a life. And in life, we give each other grace for making mistakes, having an off day, being lazy for a spell, not being clear, changing our minds, etc. -- all the things that, if you're like I was, you worry might damage your kids. Barring the obvious exceptions (abuse, abandonment, addiction), your family just living its life won't ruin your kids...even if you make mistakes, have off days, etc. (And the opposite won't save your kids, either -- that's an important thing to know, too!)
Your kids will remember the most random, wacky things from childhood, so go ahead and go all-out on planning festive holidays or perfect family days if you want...just remember, they'll most likely be telling the story of the time you left the coffee mug on top of your car and then drove away -- for years! And *that* will be the story that brings you all closer.
(If you can't tell, *all* of this represents some very hard-learned lessons in my own life!)
But what if there just is no chunk of quiet time, no alone time? As a young mother I practiced praying “micro-prayers” as simple as thinking or saying out loud the name of Jesus or Come Lord Jesus or Jesus I trust in you. I did this often when pushing the grocery cart! In this way we share our whole day with Jesus. Jesus with every breath.