Up on the Soapbox

This small rant could also be titled :Entitlement.... this is where it starts or Eyes on the Prize ... how long do you want your kids to live with you?

I overheard a mom at the Y talking to another mom about chores, her four-year-old boy was sitting next to her? She was chatting away about cleaning her house and sarcastically said "Maybe he could dust for me". Now, I ask you--- why not? She really acted like she was never going to tell him to help or that he wouldn't be able. If the kid can take a swimming lesson, the kid can dust a room. More and more when I talk about the boys doing chores parents will ask what they do. Is no one out there giving the children chores to do? Am I a slave driver of a parent? How many parents do not include children in helping around the house? I think this is training them in for living their own lives when they grow up. Maybe that is why so many twenty-somethings end up back at home: they can't take care of themselves or simply don't want to and know that Mommy and Daddy will just do it for them. What message does that send? you're so stupid you can't even dust, I'll just do it for you. Maybe the kids have it right. Who wouldn't want to live where clean laundry simply appears in the drawers and home cooked meals materialize on the table every night as if by magic? I do realize they are children, but keep your eyes on the prize. What is the end goal for them? D and I agree that we want our kids to grow up and be independent. We want them to establish their own households and understand the work that goes into living on your own, owning a house, and having kids. They need to realize that there is not an immediate reward for every task (lollipop, sticker, gameboy) and that sometimes the reward is simply having a clean shirt to wear or a kitchen where your feet don't stick to the floor. I hope the method to our madness works and that over many years of teaching they will understand. I believe it has got to be easier than a big crash course when the "child" is thirty-four and you are sick of doing their laundry. Maybe I should see the parents who are "doing it all" as SuperParents; perhaps they see me as lazy and pushing off work on the kids.
E has to do chores and homework before he plays after school. Not unreasonable seeing that he is home and awake for 2 and a half hours before he even leaves for school and homework assignments for the week are given on Mondays and due Friday. Chores for him include anything from vacuuming the van or parts of the house to dusting baseboards to wiping cabinets in bathrooms or kitchen or cleaning windows. He has 7-10 chores per week that are assigned and then 2 optional chores that he can get paid for.
G has a chart of 10 things he has to complete during the week: sweeping under the table after dinner, changing laundry from washer to dryer(thank goodness for front loaders) or unloading clean laundry into the basket, folding clean towels, cleaning the shoe/coat area of the laundry room, clearing debris out of the van, etc. When I come across something he can do, but it is not on his chart he can earn coins for it.
M helps sort silverware into the drawer and helps G or me change laundry from washer to dryer or gets dry laundry out into the basket.
Chores do not include the basics of making your own bed, putting clean laundry away when it is on your dresser or packing your own lunch/snack/backpack for school. M is obviously just learning his basics (but he can sort silverware into the drawer like a pro). My end goal is by the time they are ready to be on their own they have tried every part of helping around the house.
All the kids have plenty of time to play every day (judging from the number of arguments and trouble they get into, maybe too much time to play). So are we mean? I worry not so much that we are mean, but that we are creating kids so different from their peers that they won't fit in. From what I see of some of their peers I don't want them to fit in.
Sorry, I was thinking about this all week and finally had to rant a bit.
ALSO, I am not saying we have it all together: just watch me cut my seven year old's meat as I fix plates for dinner each night and you will notice there are glaring descrepancies in how responsible we expect them to be in some areas. That I am serving his meal at all is a bit odd.
love and hugs and get your chores done,B