58 | The Work and Heart of Our Homes with Lori Sugarman-Li

Mar 6

58 | The Work and Heart of Our Homes with Lori Sugarman-Li

It’s my pleasure to introduce to you Lori Sugarman-Li, and her new children’s book, Our Home: The Love, Work, and Heart of Family. Lori believes deeply in the power of families and is a passionate voice in the cultural shift aiming to articulate the value and visibility of unpaid work.

She is dedicated to fostering meaningful conversations within families, encouraging them to contemplate how they care for one another and their shared space. Lori, her husband, and two sons are Canadian-born and live steps from Lake Michigan in Chicago.

Join us for a delightful conversation on building connections through care, gratitude, and pride for our homes..

HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS CONVERSATION:

The importance of involving children in conversations about values and responsibilities at home.
The transformative impact of connecting children to the work of the home in a safe and age-appropriate manner.
Finding balance between supervision and independence and the pride and confidence kids gain from preparing their own meals.
The value of connecting tasks to children's strengths, fostering confidence, and building essential life skills for the future.
How “chores” can be reframed as meaningful contributions, which in turn creates positive connections within the family.

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Lori Sugarman-Li, Coach, Speaker, and Children's Book Author

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Intro: Welcome to A Pleasant Solution, Embracing an Organized Life. I'm your host, certified life coach, professional organizer and home life expert, Amelia Pleasant Kennedy. And I help folks permanently eliminate clutter in their homes and lives. On this podcast we'll go beyond the basics of home organization to talk about why a clutter-free mindset is essential to an aligned and sustainable lifestyle. If you're someone with a to-do list, if you're managing a household and if you're caring for others, this podcast is for you. Let's dive in.
Amelia: Welcome to Episode 58, “The Work and Heart of Our Homes” with Lori Sugarman-Li. Today's guest, Lori Sugarman-Li believes deeply in the power of families and is a passionate voice in the cultural shift, aiming to articulate the value and visibility of unpaid work. Her career as a communication strategist combined with a decade devoted to full-time care of her family, community and children's charities worldwide served as the inspirational backdrop for her professional relaunch as a coach, speaker and children's book author. She is dedicated to fostering meaningful conversations within families, encouraging them to contemplate how they care for one another and their shared space. Lori, her husband and two sons are Canadian-born and live steps from Lake Michigan in Chicago. I encourage you to listen for some golden nuggets on family and home and order Lori's new children's book. Make sure you're following our home, our pride too.
So Lori and I met through the Fair Play Facilitator program that was founded by Eve Rodsky and run by the Fair Play Policy Institute. The program offers monthly connection calls where facilitators have the opportunity to share how they see this work evolving. Lori may or may not know this, but I had the pleasure of watching her efforts on her new children's book, Our Home: The Love, Work and Heart of Family unfold. Every so often she'd share an update of her progress on our calls and I was struck by the thoughtfulness she'd put into the project. Welcome to the podcast, Lori.
Lori: Oh, that's so kind. Thank you so much for having me.
Amelia: So I like to ask all of my guests and because this is the topic of your book, I'm excited to hear the answer. What did organization look like during your childhood?
Lori: So, I love your podcast and I'm a listener and I was sort of preparing to answer this question and I got super emotional thinking back. So many of my memories are connected to keeping our home and especially my memories of my dad, who I lost 10 years ago, we were really partners in this work. He and my mom approached it differently and they actually, for the time, had quite a system and quite an effective division of labor. They really knew what they each owned and took responsibility. I think it still had that skew of my mom tending to own more of the daily grind and my day, like changing the filters and the radiators and all this stuff with the car and all of that. But he really was a fabulous contributor in his way. And the way that he really thrived was with a shadow or a partner to sort of encourage him.
Looking back with what I know now about the beautiful ways that different brains are wired, I feel like maybe he did have some special kind of wiring that made him thrive better when he had a partner in this work. He wasn't as much of a self-navigator with it, but I had endless patience for my dad and I loved doing things with him, like cleaning the garage, cleaning his home office, taking out and putting away the lawn furniture depending on the season. I grew up in Canada, so it was a short season for lawn furniture. He loved the hardware store, he loved contraptions and all kinds of systems for keeping his tools organized and hooks from the ceiling of the garage that we would hang bikes from and all this kind of stuff.
And I really was his collaborator and his motivator in all of this. And I learned a ton about keeping a home in this way from him. Of course, I learned so much from my mom as well from the things that she owned, but the time with my dad was so special because he did not see the work as gendered. I had my own toolbox. He got it for me when I left home and I've been using it ever since and just really filled my heart to think back at it. So I love that you open with this question.
Amelia: What a touching tribute. And of course we always form connections when we're listening and it brought back memories for me of spending time outdoors with my dad as well. I grew up in the country and I remember on the weekends like sweeping out the garage and I loved the dirty work of pulling weeds and I'm sure I wasn't excited to do it necessarily when I was little, but I do remember that special connection of father daughter efforts around the home.
Lori: Yeah. It was so bonding. And I have some great photographs of us and our trucker caps, like sweeping the garage. Great memories. And this is something I like to touch on when I'm talking about my book, not to jump ahead, but this idea that sometimes we believe that family connection time has to be during a fun leisure activity only. Like you have to go to the park or you have to go to the museum or you have to go to the beach. But all these memories that came pouring back to me were of putting together like a backyard table with my dad and him standing on the ladder pushing stuff up into our attic while I was holding the ladder firm so he didn't wobble. And just all these great bonding moments happened during those times.
And we'd laughed and we always had his radio on. We were listening maybe to the baseball game or whatever made him get excited to do the work. And that's why I think we have to remember that these things that we sometimes perceive as chore work, which we'll talk about that word, are family bonding connection opportunities as well. And when you contribute in this way together towards the health and safety of your home and towards the maintenance of these beautiful investments that you've made in cars and houses and things and whatever, there's such a feeling of pride connected to that and they will be memories.
Amelia: That is so beautifully said. And being a member of the sandwich generation, like you're pulling from me the emotional connection to my parents as well as my kids are now teens but looking back to perhaps the connection and the memories that we made when they were much younger. So let's talk about the importance of involving children in critical conversations around values in the home. I had three kids in four and a half years and because of that I knew it was necessary for my survival, let's be honest, to teach them how to contribute and care for their belongings at a young age. I often really try to direct them to see their impact. So when we talk about young people and that parent child dynamic, share with us a little bit of your own experience, how you came to this work and why you think in particular it's important to invite children into this dialogue.
Lori: Right. Oh my gosh, so many things to unpack there. So I came to this work, my bubble bursting moment was one of a systemic devaluing of my contributions. To make a long story short, I had a 15 year paid career in marketing and strategy, pivoted into the unpaid work of care and community, moved our family internationally twice in support of my husband's paid career. And when we settled in the US I needed to renew all of our sort of family foundational documents. So wills and insurance, etcetera. My husband said to me, let's obviously get you life insurance and health insurance, but let's also try for disability insurance as well because if anything, God forbid were to happen to you, he said I would take a leave. He has always valued the unpaid work of home and community that I've contributed. And this has been a dynamic in which we have thrived as a family.
So we went through all the rigamarole of the disability insurance applications and all the health forms and medical forms and everything, only for me to be summarily rejected and told by the gentleman insurance agent that they don't value homemakers that high. And because I don't receive a salary for my work, there is no tangible loss, no measurable loss if something were to happen to me. And it was like you know those cartoons where you can see the smoke coming out of the ears and like the flames coming out of the eyeballs, that's how I felt after hearing that. It was such a bubble-bursting moment and such a recognition of the way that this work is not valued and not counted beyond my family and community.
Amelia: And to be honest with you, I'm trying to hold it in myself. I'm trying to hold in like my own reaction.
Lori: It's outrageous. And once you hear someone say it out loud, then you start to see all the other markers of that sentiment. I started by writing what at the time was a journal entry. It then became an article. It then became a conversation I wanted to start, I didn't know where to start it as a "stay at home mom." And this was 13 years ago. I wasn't active in spaces like LinkedIn. It was a job matching site at that time. It wasn't a resource that I needed. I didn't have a LinkedIn profile, but I thought, you know what, if I want to talk about how this is work, this is where I need to be. So the first thing I did was I put together a LinkedIn profile for me and it was the most valuable exercise to reflect and sort of curate all of these things that I knew I had learned and contributed and developed in myself and achieved for my family into a resume for this work ostensibly.
And positioning it in a way such that it couldn't be overlooked as a simple resume gap, so then I posted this article and it started a conversation among women who, all these women of course in the LinkedIn environment are working outside of the home for pay, but they may have each had their own experience, focused on unpaid work or even if they didn't, they all felt the same way that you and I are connecting on feeling right now about what we know is an inequitable load of work on women being devalued. So long story short, that brought me to Eve Rodsky and the book Fair Play and the opportunity to become trained in it as a coaching system.
And I just felt so deeply that I wanted to be more involved in Eve's movement and what my platform felt very credible in after 13 years of raising two boys and very deep involvement in their schools and very deep involvement in children's charities, I thought, you know what? Credibly I can speak to kids about some of these concepts and some of these lessons. And I made a very uninformed decision that I would write a children's book. I didn't know anything about the publishing industry. I then went on a journey to learn all about it and I joke it took me three and a half years to get to publishing this book and it only takes three and a half minutes to read it.
Amelia: Oh, that's amazing. And for listeners, you can pop over to the website and see the cover of her newest book, Our Home, which we'll talk about more in depth here in a minute, but it's just three and a half years. Wow. So you're inviting children into the dialogue through the book.
Lori: Right. So I think I was really driven and motivated by the ethos. If we seek to change adult behavior, let us show our children a better way. And the opportunities are many, but really it's in taking this work, which is so often described as invisible because so much of it happens as it relates to kids when they're at school or when they're asleep or when they're playing and not noticing or otherwise engaged. And they may not be really aware of the scope of all the things that go into their love and care, what they might be aware of, they may not understand why. Why are we doing all of these things? What is the impact? What is the commitment that we're making to caring for ourselves when we do this?
And then also the energy, if you want to engage kids in this work, that energy has to be right. And we come back now to this word chore, which I struggle with so much. It's such a downer of a word. I mean it really describes things that are dreaded and difficult and I'm not sure that's the right word to describe the work of nourishing and nurturing and organizing and keeping our homes safe and healthy and protecting our investments. I mean, these are things that really are acts of gratitude and love.
Amelia: And I think highlighting this particular word chore, really it speaks to the generational divide as well as generational changes. So perhaps when you and I were young, that was the most common word for work and love put into the home. We use the word chores, but when we talk about engaging kids in this dialogue and speaking to the next generation and for listeners, this is one of the primary benefits of fair play, is that we can have language, we can talk to our children and help them see the impact that they make. And as a society, we take a step forward, we evolve, we change when we teach our children to look at things just a little differently.
Lori: Yes. And so much of this work that you and I do is founded in values. And I think children can be so thoughtful and they have so many things to contribute to a conversation when you ask them, what about this space is important to you? What do you love about it? When do you feel safest and most comfortable in this space? What are the three most important things that you love to look at in your space? Those are all questions that kids can answer and can answer beautifully and meaningfully. And it gives us so much insight into them. I may approach a space from quite a type A lens. I like things to be just so, anything that can be tucked away, I prefer for that to be the case.
My older son is 13 and he loves to live in a more nostalgic space. He loves to have a whole bunch of important things surrounding him at all times. Trophies, photographs, little certificates or pieces of paper that he has notes on that remind him of special times. And what I've learned about involving kids in these conversations is it is so important to understand in what type of environment they thrive because they will then be more motivated by a standard based on that, than by a standard that a grownup might impose based on what feels right to them.
Amelia: Yes. And that brings me to, if we shift to the parental perspective, so as facilitators, we often talk about, back to this word chore, the chore gap, which is the difference of the number of minutes that each gender spends on care tasks, household responsibilities and chores. And this divide begins as early as those teenage years where they're finding comfort in their space and understanding once we highlight to them the impact that they make and how they contribute or can contribute to the household.
Lori: Yes.
Amelia: So how do you see this notion of chores actually being rebranded? And perhaps you can give us an example from the book. How do you illustrate this for readers and families?
Lori: Well, I think going back to this notion that this work can be a time for family connection. And I don't want to suggest that this work is always fun. It is a lot, it's a huge commitment. We're sometimes doing it when we're exhausted. So I'm not suggesting that the work of the home and all of the things we have to do to keep us safe and organized and healthy and whatever is always like a blast. But just to shift our perspective a little bit to see what an opportunity for teaching and empowerment and connection it can be. And there's always a ramping up stage when you're empowering kids with tasks. But once they get going and build that muscle, then you see them demonstrating that ownership that we really want to see through fair play or whatever mechanism we're using as a system, is that full and complete ownership of a task. My 11-year-old fully owns folding laundry.
Amelia: Yes.
Lori: It is put on his bed and when he goes into his room, he sees it, he knows what to do, he never questions it. That's his thing, that's his jam. And he feels so good about the way that he does it. It works with how his brain works. He likes to organize things. It's neat as a pin, the towels are organized by color coding. He takes so much pride in it, he never complains. Also, he knows that while he is folding the laundry, he gets to have his headphones on. So he is listening to music or listening to a podcast or watching a premier league soccer game or whatever it is. And so it really, really works in terms of energy and empowerment and in terms of the learning, yeah there was a little ramping up stage, but now he's fabulous. It's just a matter of finding that sweet spot in that match for kids where a task really matches their skills or their passions or sometimes their opportunities. My older one is a boisterous eater, a very passionate eater, so he's the guy that vacuums the floor in the kitchen.
Amelia: I love that.
Lori: It just connects. He also loves listening to music while he's doing that. We're big on the headphones during the chores. And if you have a child who really loves to eat, loop them in on recipe selection and grocery lists and cooking skills. There's always going to be something where a child feels safe and connected. I should say this is an important point, obviously connecting kids to the work of the home, first and foremost needs to be age appropriate and safe and you also need to know where a child can take full ownership of a task and where maybe they're more likely to thrive with a partner.
Amelia: So what we are doing right now, my son is 14 and he's loving learning to cook and like watch shows and like cooking shows and put things together, but giving him the independence of me supervising from afar, him putting particular ingredients together, using a knife, using the stove. And yeah, I think he feels that pride in eating something that he has prepared.
Lori: And interestingly to your point. I just wanted to say you're quite right because I used to work in the food business and there is research to show that when children are involved in cooking, they are more likely to eat and enjoy what they've prepared and to try new foods. So there's data to back you up.
Amelia: Perfect. Everybody loves a little data. I wonder if it's the same for cleaning the bathrooms because, so he and I live together, my girls and my husband live in our household in Detroit. And so because there are just two of us, we split the responsibilities of caring for our own bathrooms. I'm cleaning this space. You clean that space. That's the one you make an impact in, this is the one I make an impact in. So it's nurturing and scaffolding, teaching them the steps along the way, stepping back piece by piece. Talk to me a little bit about why playing to kids' strengths is a valuable strategy when engaging them in these tasks of care.
Lori: Well, ultimately we want them to succeed. We want them to be able to complete the task in a way that makes them feel, oh yeah, I got this actually, my son emptied the dishwasher the other day and he said to me, oh, that actually wasn't that hard. And I was like, I know, you have to just do it for that first time to understand. And I think when kids are involved in something that connects directly to something that they feel confident about or that they know that they have an instinct for, they're not intimidated by it. They maybe don't dread it as much and then they build the muscle probably more quickly than they otherwise would. And so I always love to start there connecting a child with something that is of interest to them.
And then ultimately what you're illustrating with your son is he's going to be an independent soon. And so he's definitely going to be cleaning the bathroom then. So this is a fabulous training ground for skill building, but also the realization that this isn't actually that hard and it benefits me directly and I feel like I contributed something. I feel proud of that and that's really meaningful. And when my mom comes in here and sees what a great job I did, like that's a point of connection for the two of us in this space that we share. And she didn't have to do it.
Amelia: Yes. And I am busy chuckling to myself, so for every Friday this year I'm going through the hundred cards of fair play and just giving my personal perspective on my blog. And this week I wrote about the auto card. Through the perspective of I now have a teenage driver and I didn't realize how much invisible the work there was around caring for a car until I started writing the blog. But I am passing that information along to her. But she loves it and is enjoying it because of the freedom associated, the independence of finally reaching that stage where she can drive. So the maintenance, getting the oil changed, new tires, gas, thinking about the budget, all of that, she is almost eager to take on and I am appreciative because she can drive now.
Lori: Yes. The car is an example that I love, and I'll just share this quickly - I love it for little kids too. if you are a family with a lot of activities and your car is very well used and often in use, there's probably wrappers and crumbs and all sorts of good stuff and all the crevices. And instead of just saying to your kids, don't make a mess in the car, it's really helpful to explain this concept of the maintenance of an investment like a car and the impact that will have when you maybe go to sell or trade in the car. It will be worth more if you keep it clean than it will if you don't. And what is the impact to your family in five years of having a car that's worth as an example, $2,000 more than if we get crumbs and wrappers and french fries and all that stuff all over the place. And so just them having a sense of that, having a sense of not just like, don't make a mess, but you know what guys, if we keep this car tidy, this is the impact for our family. And what would we do with $2,000? Would we go on a trip? Would we get a dog? Whatever it is.
Amelia: Don't say that, we know where that leads.
Lori: That's a whole other card.
Amelia: But what just came to my mind is the excitement on a six year old's face when you hand them the hand vac and you ask them to go and get the crumbs. And just letting them be free of like, you are now in charge of the backseat crumbs.
Lori: Yes. And so if you don't have that energy of dread around chores, then they don't have that energy to absorb and they just see it as like, yeah, of course I want to vacuum, especially if you have one of those cool Dysons or something. It's fun, it's great and we can do it together. You wash the outside of the car, I'll wash the inside of the car, whatever it is.
Amelia: And I can imagine that there are listeners who are thinking, oh my kid will never do X, Y, and Z. Like I struggle to get them to do their homework, let alone sweep up the kitchen floor. How does your book just touch on both the work aspect and the love aspect? Because I think that is an important element as well.
Lori: So the one thing that I wanted to just give as an example of the way that you started the question is sometimes it helps when you're dealing with kids who are not quite interested yet in participating, it helps to engage them in how a task might directly affect them. So here's an example I like to use. If I were to say to my 13-year-old, okay, you have to change your sheets. He might sort of give you that groan, that you were just articulating. People very often will see, especially with, like, a tween or a young teen. But again, the why behind the work can be so meaningful. So if I sit them down and say, hey buddy, actually I just read an article about how sleeping on clean sheets and clean pillowcases especially will help facilitate clearer skin. So what would you think if we had a regular schedule for changing your sheets to make sure that your pillowcases are always clean?
There's a different investment in that task then and almost a reward for doing it. And I'm not even talking about allowance and financial rewards because that's a whole different topic and we can chat about it if you want to, but just understanding the personal implication of the effort can be really powerful. And in the book what I've really done with the book is to shift the energy and to make this work about gratitude and love, which I do feel at its heart that it is, we are grateful for this roof over our heads and this car that works and the fact that we have a washing machine in our home, or even if we don't, we have access to one and we have clean clothes and we have food on our plate and this is precious.
And so unpacking the groceries is in honor of our gratitude for that and making our beds is in honor of our gratitude for that. And even going through our toy room at various stages of childhood and taking out things that we're not using anymore and finding a better home for them, that has an impact on our community and that is a value that we can talk about and see and feel as a family. And it's really just a reframing of what all of this work means to us and again, that opportunity for connection while we're doing it.
Amelia: Oh my goodness. So well said. And how do you employ organization now?
Lori: So I thought of two neat examples to answer this question, and the first one is, just to share the story of how we moved internationally twice. And that was really a masterclass in becoming organized. You don't realize how many steps there are and we know that moving house is noted in studies as one of the greatest stressors to people. So there were so many skills that I developed around all of the systems and the layers of the tasks around moving that I have really held onto in terms of, first of all a regular purge, for lack of a better word, is there a better word than purge, a decluttering?
Amelia: Decluttering, letting go.
Lori: Yeah. And then also bridging now to us living in an apartment building, so we have downsized with each move. So we used to live in a house in Toronto and then in London we lived in what's called a muse house. So it was a house but half the size of our house in Toronto and now in Chicago we live in an apartment building. So each step of the way we've had to sort of really think about what truly brings us use and joy and that energy that we're looking for in our space. And we are so regularly curating that and decluttering that. And it has become something that my kids don't even question. We're constantly going through our wardrobes and trying on things and seeing what pants are too short and what sleeves don't come to your wrist anymore. Especially when you have kids, at this stage they're growing so fast.
So it really has become a part of our family sort of cycle, the decluttering. And we do it in tandem and we do it with music. And my kids are so independent now that they don't even need me sort of with them to go through their wardrobe. And we have a saying, is it keep or give? Is it keep or give? And they know automatically we're doing keep or give, and we do it with toys, we do it with books, we do it with clothes, we do it with kitchen utensils that we realize we're not using, but this circular economy that we can be a part of, if you keep things, well, going back to this lesson that we talked about earlier, about teaching our kids how to care for things and maintain things.
When you have things that are either too small for you or too young for you, but they're in beautiful condition and you can find a meaningful place for them, it's very gratifying. So all that to say, we do that very frequently with all of our moves and all of our downsizing and it's become a skill that we all really embrace.
Amelia: It sounds so familiar because it is a similar process that we have employed in this household and downsized from a house into an apartment and then split into another apartment. And I just want listeners to know that with practice it does become easier. And again, your children will learn, it just becomes automated the more that you offer them the opportunity to do so.
Lori: It does. It really does. And it's a great skill for them to carry forward. Kids are always learning, they're always watching and always learning and always absorbing. And I feel that kids want to be trusted, want to be empowered, they want to be a part of important things and they have so much to say about it and so much to contribute. And so when we invite them into these conversations about what we value as a family, what is important, when do we thrive, when do we feel most safe and comfortable? I think a lot of your listeners will really enjoy what their kids can bring to those conversations.
Amelia: Just phenomenal. So Lori, you've had a tremendous career as a marketing strategist, community activist, parent, and now author. I am so excited to see this book get into homes and into libraries all across the world. Please tell everyone how they can follow your work, where they can order the book and connect with you around your coaching services, which you also offer.
Lori: Thank you. So the book is available almost everywhere that books are sold on Amazon, on Barnes and Noble, at Target, at all sorts of Indie books sellers. So I hope it's easy for everybody to find. And I am primarily active on Instagram. My handle is @ourhomeourpride. And when I speak about pride, it's about really feeling safe and happy in your own space with whatever that means for you without fear of judgment, without expectation. Just a feeling of being in a space that really works for you and for your family that you have actively curated and thoughtfully set into place, into motion.
Amelia: Thanks so much again and we will link everything in the show notes.
Lori: Thank you. This was great.
Amelia: Before you go, I wanted to share with you that I write a weekly Fair Play themed blog. Head on over to www.apleasantsolution.com/blog to follow along. I'm breaking down each of the 100 cards of Fair Play in totally random order, sharing how we handle the cards in our household. Thanks for reading and of course, thanks for listening.