When my house is trashed, my anxiety goes through the roof and I can’t think straight.

Last January, my husband was just starting a demanding and stressful job, which came with a pay raise. One of the ways we hoped to offset his increased hours and responsibilities was to hire a housekeeper.

My increasing inability to keep the house up to my standards coincided with a sharp decrease in help from my big kids. I was pregnant with our seventh baby, and I lacked the energy to enforce the chore list. It was so frustrating. Recently, I said, “I don’t have enough people to help me!” and my six year old sagely observed, “Oh, you have enough people. Them just not helpin.’ “

I still haven’t figured out the right approach to get better results in that regard. Now that I’m not pregnant, I can think and have more energy for being consistent, which helps. But the fact remains that our household has grown to a size that is too large for a one-woman operation.

I had a light bulb moment one day as I was searching online for housekeeping services and experiencing sticker shock: I could hire my own kid, who is motivated to make money to pay for his (expensive) interests. I could pay him more than he would make anywhere else with his age and skill level, but significantly less than I would pay a housekeeping service.

I offered him the job, with a start date of January 2017. The stipulations were that it was not to interfere with his standing chores, or schoolwork. He would work two hours every two weeks, completing tasks on a list I created for him. This included cleaning both our bathrooms, vacuuming the entire downstairs and our upstairs hallway, mopping the bathrooms and kitchen, and dusting.

First, we did some training. My son has been doing chores since he was very young, and cleaning the bathroom since he was seven. He knows how to clean. But for $15/hour, I wanted him to take it to the next level. He watched a best practices video, and a couple of videos about cleaning bathrooms and mopping.

It was a huge weight off. Knowing when the house would be clean and knowing I wouldn’t have to do it was an amazing feeling. It freed me up to take care of things I couldn’t even think about before, but as a pregnant lady were driving me crazy: the dust on the tops of windowsills, cobwebs, and wiping down the kitchen cabinets.

Every two weeks, he would do the job, and I would inspect it. He touched up any areas that needed a little more attention, and then I would pay him.

Over the summer for a month or so, he started doing a sloppy job. I would find myself redoing his work. When I finally asked him about it, I found out the last two times he’d cleaned, he had done it in an hour. We had a talk. Now, he takes the full two hours and does it right.

He graduated from our homeschool and started attending ninth grade at a local charter high school this past fall. His school day is long, from 8 a.m.- 4 p.m., and he has homework. I initially gave him off the first month of school. I planned to see how the transition went and gradually get him back to cleaning regularly.

In reality, it was two months before I was able to get him back. And while the job wasn’t supposed to interfere with his chores, he no longer does his other jobs. He IS independent with keeping his room clean, at least. I had a feeling the chores would fall by the wayside once he started attending school, and while it doesn’t thrill me, I understand his time is much more limited.

These days, he typically goes 3 weeks between cleans instead of two. I have threatened to fire him multiple times because he is waiting so long in between. With my other responsibilities and the baby, I still rely on his services.

Recently at the dinner table, we were talking, and I mentioned I was having trouble getting my housekeeper to show up for work.

The next day when I got home from our homeschool coop with the other kids, he was cleaning. He did an especially good job.

Going forward, I’m not sure what will happen. I’m getting better about asking my kids for what I need from them, and following up to make it happen. Despite the irregularities of my housekeeper, I  appreciate having someone I know cleaning our house instead of having a stranger come in. I plan to keep him until he gets a “real” job… and then I will hire one of the other kids. They’ve already expressed interest in the position.