No idea how to sort this out! Help!!!

[Sotiredofarguing]

I'll try to make this simple and to the point as I'm too exhausted from bickering to do much more.

Basically I'm currently struggling with mobility and awaiting an op. Nothing serious and will be fully fixed in around three months max I hope. The thing is I can barely do anything atm. I can't drive, walk around house only just, housework is extremely difficult due to pain and I can't stand for more than 5 mins so all in all not great.

OH is very good but works very long hours and sometimes away. I have no one who can help as all family very far away. I do have a DD 16 and DS 18. DS works 11 hour days including travel. DD off til September.

Neither of them ever been great at helping. DS will cut lawns after I ask and ask for around 2 weeks. He drives me back and forth, drives DD around, picks up shopping etc with no complaints however does little in the house unless specifically asked. DD looks after her horse and rides and has a part time job at weekends but usually 5 hours each day tops and often only one day.
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If I ask she will eventually help in the house. In fact she will go mad and do lots for a day but then that's it for weeks. I have asked her and asked her to sort her bedroom and throw old clothes out but it's taken her a week up to now. When she isn't with her horse she is lying around on her phone for hours. If I keep asking she says I'm nagging but if I don't she won't move. The bathroom needs cleaning, there is piles of washing needs doing, vacuuming etc but she is oblivious.

When both DC here and I ask them to wash up all I can hear is bickering about how to split it fairly. OMG It's a few fishes FGS!!!!! DD was washing up the things she'd used (latest trial is to just wash your own stuff) and she said "Do I have to do those too" it was one small saucepan, a bowl and one cup. She was just going to leave them, but for who? Me or DH?

How have they got so bad and how do I make it fair as DS works but DD home. I cannot live like this much longer and feel I will have to just get a
cleaner until I am better. I try to be patient but I've finally had enough. It took three months to get DD to write one letter to someone. It meant a lot to me but she just wouldn't do it. If I say anything she just comes back at me saying that I'm also untidy so I feel I have no room to manoeuvre this situation forward.

AIBU To expect better than this?

Sounds like you have a couple of brats.

Get a cleaner. And ask them to contribute financially. They are just taking the P. Especially DD.

It's quite late on and these habits should've been instilled from a young age, DS is working but you need to make sure DD isn't seeing that she's being asked to do household tasks because she's female. Family meeting with your partner also present, agree a rota, talk to them as adults about your health and limitations. If you are messy you need to stop it, you may be limited in what you can clean but you're not limited in not making mess in the first place, ignore if that is untrue and she just said it in spite.

It's a tough one as there are 4 of you at home with 2 working very long hours. You are incapacitated atm which kind of leaves 1 person... a 16 year old daughter. Honestly I think I'd have a chat with her about the bare minimum you expect of her and why, such as being clean and tidy and respectful of the family and shared spaces. Insist she keeps her door shut so you don't have to see her mess (out of sight, out of mind and all that!) and get a cleaner for the time you are out of action. Perhaps sitting down as a family and sorting out some rota might be helpful but if they don't stick to it will this frustrate you even more? Probably would me! If it were me I'd do my shopping online and get it delivered, get a cleaner and not go in the bedroom of shame!! Get well soon. This too shall pass

So your son has two jobs: he works an 11 hour day in paid employment and then he also basically works as the driver for the household. Not saying that's a total get out for him but I would be focusing more on your daughter as she is the one who has no obligations.

Hopefully your son contributes financially as well as the house bits he does? That, with his long hours, is presumably your balance as to why your daughter might be asked to physically do more (rather than her being female).

Assuming that you are financing a bloody horse for her, I'd be asking her if she'd prefer to help out in the house or you sell her horse and get a cleaner with the money LOL. (Obviously wouldn't actually do it, but there would be some robust conversations had.)

Oh and I'd also be making sure they're both aware that this isn't just until your operation is done with and you're back to full strength - they are young adults now, they should be contributing.

Don't ask them to do stuff. Sit everyone down and ask them what they think the solution is. No one gets up until you've (jointly) come up with one.

Let them take ownership of what they are doing. I've found if I treated my teens as adults rather than children they would often do more than I wanted. But ... they might not do things in the same way that I would.

You also need to distinguish between essential (having food to eat; basic level and cleanliness) and can be left for a while/not urgent (cutting the grass; your daughter's room).

The first thing I’d say is pick your battles. Don’t worry about DD’s room and sorting old clothes. Forget the letter… stop nagging her about those type of things. Figure out what is most important and let the rest go.

2nd, get a cleaner, hire someone to cut the lawn, have as much stuff delivered as possible, grocery, cleaners, HH items, clothes, whatever. Cut down on the things that need to be shopped for. Pre made dinners and food delivery. Pay for convenience wherever possible.

3rd bare minimum… don’t expect your son and daughter to keep the same standards as you. The world will not end if you don’t Hoover as much as you normally do. Unless you are all disasters, a swipe and wipe clean will get you by for awhile.

Take the cables from the modem. hide them or keep them on your person
Charge them rent & pay a cleaner

I think this needs a proper group discussion, no-one is happy and it's not working.

Plan a schedule and stick to it.

You say neither of them are great at helping yet you seem to be belittling what your son is doing aka being taxi driver to you and your dd, plus shopping.

If you can afford a cleaner then get one for the communal areas plus your room as you are the one paying. Children do their own rooms or as they have jobs they pay the extra.

Who pays for the horse? Ultimatum time, either you buck your ideas up or we sell the horse and get a cleaner. I have Dds who ride. The horse is a very useful tool.

But don't worry about Dds room. Shut the door and ignore. Concentrate on the common areas. And it sounds like you don't have a dishwasher, get one.

Another suggestion get a stool for the kitchen… you say you can’t stand* very long, but what about sitting while doing food prep or washing dishes? Same for wiping down the bits that need wiping.

After having foot surgery years ago and living alone, I used an office type chair to roll around on and could stand with my knee on the chair for things like food prep and light cleaning.

*I’m assuming knee injury or something similar here as you haven’t said what the problem is.

@KingdomScrolls This is all my DH fault! He has waited on them hand and foot, still carries food and drink upstairs to them, still goes into their rooms to take rubbish and dirty plates and cups. Then when he isn't here I can't do it. Even if they offer, which is once every three years, to wash up he'll say "it's ok I'll do it" it's so frustrating because he's caused this but I've been left with the issue as he's hardly here

@starfishmummy

Sorry I'm confused. You say I seem to be belittling my son. Not sure how you have got that idea. Can you point out where I've belittled him please?

I’m sorry your incapacitated at the moment but I do think you need to get a cleaner or your DH needs to take on more of the housework himself. How many 16 year olds are going to be spending their summer doing housework? I know I didn’t clean the bathroom when I was 16. It’s fair enough that they should keep their own rooms clean, perhaps do their own laundry and do their own dishes but you made a rule that everyone should wash up their own pots and then expected her to wash someone else’s! That’s not really fair, yes the person who used those pots should have done them, especially if it was you or DH as that’s not setting a very good example. If you weren’t able to do them yourself, you could have asked her nicely to do them for you rather than just leave them.

Perhaps if you don’t want to get a cleaner, you could offer to pay her the minimum wage for 16 year olds to do jobs that are over and above what a standard 16 year old does.

Then your DH needs to help to resolve this shit he's created!!

@Kalvinette I would never ask him to drive me anywhere unless desperate. It so happens that he absolutely loves driving and hates doing anything in the house or garden. It takes weeks of nagging to get the lawn cut which would be 40 mins a week if he'd just do it. He won't though and it takes him hours and then it puts him off doing it and we go round and round.

I do really appreciate his help with lifts and always thank him

@Sotiredofarguing you are belittling what he does. Hes taxi driver to you and his sister and shops yet you say he does nothing. I am not sure how much of these he is doing but it does sound like he is contributing a lot more than his sister.

@Whitney168

We used to do all horsey jobs between us. Often I would do them whilst she rode but now she has to do them all herself.

Who pays for your DD’s phone/horse? Cut those and pay for a housekeeper to come in 2-3 mornings a week and do tidying and washing up as well as cleaning.

To be fair I think you need to lay off your son. He drives you around, he has a job. You have to nag him to cut the grass every couple of weeks. Seriously, how often does the grass need cutting? You can easily leave a lawn for a few weeks unless you're obsessive over having it perfectly trimmed all the time. (You might be, your son doesn't have to be.)

Maybe your daughter could do more but at the same time she's only 16. You say you can afford a cleaner, so have you considered paying the children for jobs around the house? e.g. if she washes up the dinner you give her a tenner, if he cuts the grass once a week he gets twenty, that sort of thing?

I may be misinterpreting but you seem to be quite “traditional” in what you’re asking your children to do - boy to mow the lawn; girl to do the housework.

Have you tried asking them how they’d prefer to split the chores, both now and in the long-term?

Ok I think there's confusion here as some are saying I'm belittling my son by saying he does nothing. Nowhere have I said he does nothing. I've already said he's being taxi driver by giving me lifts and DD and will pick up shopping. I am not talking a full shop, it's like "do you mind bringing a milk home and some biscuits"

Of course I am grateful and absolutely not belittling. What I did say which is true, is that he will barely do anything in the house. Before he could drive he did nothing hardly. It's just a fact

Is your dd at school/college? Who's making all the mess?

And the letter you asked her to write that took 3 months, who was that to? Is it a letter for you that you dictated to her, or something that was for her benefit?