Organizing books
This has been the week of organizing books for me. Books about organizing, that is, and not actually organizing the books themselves. The timing is serendipitous since with spring coming I always get the spring cleaning itch. This is despite the fact that it snowed very lightly last night.
Anyway, last Monday when A. and I were at the thrift store, I found a copy of Confessions of an Organized Homemaker: the secrets of uncluttering your home and taking control of your life
. This book has been on my list of books I want to read for a long time. But since the library's copy is listed as missing, I have never had a chance to. (Does anyone else find the idea of a book on organizing being lost slightly ironic?) I was thrilled to see it sitting on a shelf as I walked by and happily paid my quarter for it.
Then on Tuesday, Large Family Logistics: the art of science of managing the large family
by Kim Brenneman arrived. J. had been given a gift certificate and had used some of it to buy me this book. (Sweet, huh?) Being a brand-new hardcover, it was unlikely that I would shell out the money for it, and even more unlikely that it would ever appear in my library.
Of the two, I am liking Large Family Logistics better. While the Confessions of an Organized Homemaker is full of useful information, it is really stuff I already knew, but is helpful to be reminded of. But the Large Family Logistics book is written by a mother of 9 who is a little further on her journey of child rearing and homemaking than I am. I appreciate her insights and have picked-up some helpful ideas. I think it would even be helpful to a mother of fewer than 9 children as well since she spends a lot of time on raising children. And she has some great quotes in it, such as this one by Elisabeth Elliot:
"The principal cause of boredom is the hatred of work. People are trained from childhood to hate it. Parents often feel guilty about making children do anything but the merest gestures toward work. Perhaps the children are required to make their beds and, in a feeble and half-hearted fashion, tidy up their rooms once a month or so. But take full responsibility to clear the table, load the dishwasher, scrub the pots, wipe the counters? How many have the courage to ask this of a ten-year-old? It would be too much to ask of many ten-year-olds because parents have seriously asked nothing of them when they were two or three. Children quickly pick up the parents' negative attitudes toward work and think of it as something most sedulously to be avoided."
Anyway, last Monday when A. and I were at the thrift store, I found a copy of Confessions of an Organized Homemaker: the secrets of uncluttering your home and taking control of your life
. This book has been on my list of books I want to read for a long time. But since the library's copy is listed as missing, I have never had a chance to. (Does anyone else find the idea of a book on organizing being lost slightly ironic?) I was thrilled to see it sitting on a shelf as I walked by and happily paid my quarter for it. Then on Tuesday, Large Family Logistics: the art of science of managing the large family
by Kim Brenneman arrived. J. had been given a gift certificate and had used some of it to buy me this book. (Sweet, huh?) Being a brand-new hardcover, it was unlikely that I would shell out the money for it, and even more unlikely that it would ever appear in my library.Of the two, I am liking Large Family Logistics better. While the Confessions of an Organized Homemaker is full of useful information, it is really stuff I already knew, but is helpful to be reminded of. But the Large Family Logistics book is written by a mother of 9 who is a little further on her journey of child rearing and homemaking than I am. I appreciate her insights and have picked-up some helpful ideas. I think it would even be helpful to a mother of fewer than 9 children as well since she spends a lot of time on raising children. And she has some great quotes in it, such as this one by Elisabeth Elliot:
"The principal cause of boredom is the hatred of work. People are trained from childhood to hate it. Parents often feel guilty about making children do anything but the merest gestures toward work. Perhaps the children are required to make their beds and, in a feeble and half-hearted fashion, tidy up their rooms once a month or so. But take full responsibility to clear the table, load the dishwasher, scrub the pots, wipe the counters? How many have the courage to ask this of a ten-year-old? It would be too much to ask of many ten-year-olds because parents have seriously asked nothing of them when they were two or three. Children quickly pick up the parents' negative attitudes toward work and think of it as something most sedulously to be avoided."
Comments
While I don't agree with Alfie Kohn about a lot of things, I think his book Punished by Rewards has some fairly thought-provoking ideas. The things that has stuck with me is the study someone did on the effect of money. The really short synopsis of it is that money as a reward completely decimates any intrisic reward for a task. As a result, I try to be very careful about what I pay for. Cleaniny my bathroom because I don't want to do it? Yes! Reading books? No. My message would be that there is nothing intrinsically rewarding about reading and needs to be coerced. The same for personal jobs and duties around the house. We do them because it makes the home a nicer place to live in and because there is some satisfaction in a job well-done.
I could go on and on... and I'm not sure I've been entirely clear. Take what is helpful.
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Megan