Chores or Slavery?
Our kids have chores. There’s dishwasher duty, laundry duty, dog duty (haha, get it, dog “doodie”), garbage duty, and regular clean up. I don’t let them touch the bathrooms because I’ve had rotovirus, and frankly it scares the shit (and puke) out of me.
Some might think that we had a whole gaggle of kids so that we’d have little slaves to do all our chores. Not true at all. We are instilling in them the very basics of life. I like the fact that my three older kids know how to load and unload the dishwasher. I like the fact that they can help me catch up on laundry. I like the fact that they can take the dogs out for me so I don’t have to worry about doing it.
I’m sure the baby will get away with doing the least, though. Babies of the family always do.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 7th, 2007 at 5:05 pm and is filed under General, NaBloPoMo. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
I think it’s great that you make your kids help. There is nothing worse than lazy adults and they are lazy adults because they were lazy kids. Way to go mama!
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I only have one, and she has chores too. Its not slavery. It teaches them responsibility.
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You guys are absolutely right. We are instilling responsibility! :D
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We had chores when we were kids, but we spent a LOT of time getting out of them!
They really are necessary though. I taught chemistry in high school for a short stint and I was so AMAZED at how many of the students had NO CLUE how to wash the glassware after completing their experiments. It’s really sad when parents do EVERYTHING for their kids. So, I say WTG to you for having your kids do chores!
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Yay you! I’m glad I’m not the only mom that makes her kids do chores (sometimes it feels like it). I’m not raising my kids to have the perfect childhood, I’m raising them to be competent adults who contribute to society!
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My plan is to get Callum helping around the house… when it is safe for him to do so! Our house is certainly a tip, lol. The only things he does at the moment is taking his plates to the kitchen after he has finished, and putting his clothes in the washing basket.
And why not just say you’ve got them to put them to work! That’s what I generally tell people. I’ve had kids so I can earn some extra money sending them up chimneys! They’re just the right size for it, and cheaper than a proper chimney sweep ;)
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MM: Shhhh! I can’t say that (even if it’s true). LOL I’m debating whether I shouldn’t persuade Michael that we need a couple more for phase II. B/c by the time Davey is Mikey’s age, the three will be approaching “leaving the nest” age.
LOL
It all started with taking the dishes to the sink, clothes in the hamper, and room maintenance. :D You’ll have Callum doing it all soon. :D
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Mine are only 2 & 3 yo. Do you think training them to empty the dishwasher now is too early?
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Phase II sounds like an excellent idea! and he’s another positive element:
If you have young children, you have legitimate use of a buggy/pushchair/pram etc. And every mother knows how useful a buggy is for carrying all those bags of ‘stuff’ that are bought, (which would be alot fewer in number if the buggy wasn’t there to carry it!).
So, have more later, so you can have in house cleaners ANd legitimate use of a buggy for carrying things! How can anyone say no to that!
(I’m such a bad mother, lol.)
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i hope i can do the same with the boys….they already enjoy cleaning up their toys…we’ve turned it into a game.
hubby jokes that we had kids for the sole purpose of manual labour…raking leaves, cutting the lawn, etc. but that’s much later! ;-)
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