Sep 18 2007
It’s time to play Ruin My Kids’ Life!
(First things first: Popcorn? Big fat Zero. They hated it. It gave them The Pukes.)
Being a housewife and a stay-at-home-mom gets lonely. Eventually it starts to wear at you, and you find yourself doing things, private things, things you are ashamed of, things you don’t want anyone to know you’ve done.
Like watching SuperNanny. Please don’t tell anyone.
So, I’m watching SuperNanny last night, and though I don’t agree with a lot of things on that show, I always find something that makes me say “Huh?”. Like last night, and something about chores. I had a whole post written about how I am struggling in the chores department and how maybe I needed some advice. And then SuperNanny came to the rescue.
She set up this system for the family in question with a fishbowl full of felt fish with magnets on them. Each one had a chore written on it. The kids took a homemade fishing pole (stick+magnet+string) and went fishing for chores. They each got 2, and then they did them.
It’s brilliant.
My struggle is in assigning them chores and keeping it balanced. It’s tempting to give 2of3 the easy ones, because, well, he’s short. He’s always going to be short. And 1of3 is really, oddly tall. They get a little pissy with me for picking chores that they don’t think are fair. But this way, oh this way, this way it’s off of me and onto fate. *clouds part, angels sing* I am SAVED!
So here’s my question: What kinds of chores are good for a 9 and a 7 year old? It’s not that I didn’t have chores as a kid, it’s just that my brother and I did EVERYTHING. We did all the cooking and all the cleaning and I don’t think that my worldview on chores is realistic for normal children. And here’s where you come in. I need to put, oh, 6-10 chores in this fishbowl and I would like to offer you the chance of a lifetime! The chance to make my poor, abused children suffer with HOUSEWORK. What chores did you do at that age? What did you wish your mom made you do when you became an adult and suddenly realized you had no clue how to do it?
Rules: I am never going to let them cook more than tacos. I will not let them use strong cleaners, like bleach or lye or anything. I can barely change the baby’s diaper, so that one’s out for the kids. Aside from that, it’s open season on the boys’ Wii time. Have at it.
Comments close after 5 days. Spam sucks. 6 Comments to “It’s time to play Ruin My Kids’ Life!”
So, my mom always made me dust–I think because it’s harmless and easy. Nowadays, I HATE dusting. It’s the last chore I’ll do when I clean, for some reason. That said, if they were my kids, I would totally make them dust. On account of I hate doing it. (But also, kids can be into that? See I LIKED it when I was a kid–it’s as an ADULT that I hate it for some reason. It’s complicated.)
Also, Jimmy and I had to take turns with the trash and helping with dishes.
*sings* take out the papers and the trash
also:
pick up the dog shit
vacuum
clean the toilet & sink
I always liked dishes. I wasn’t allowed to do them when I was little, but I always wanted to - like I always wanted homework when I didn’t have it. I still like doing dishes. I take a long time to do them because I’m very thorough. Probably because my dad used to make us rewash everything. “A pot has two sides…”
Here’s what The Kid can do:
*Pick up (meaning, put things in their homes)
*Vacuum
*Sort Laundry
*Dust (LD, your mom and I are so on the same wavelength there)
*Magic Eraser/wet paper towel stuff, like the walls, floor boards. He likes that because he can pretend he’s like a tortured orphan doing all of the work, a la cinderella, poor him, but like he’s imagining it and enjoying it at the same time, the freak)
*I have let him wash windows and mirrors before, but I spray the windex.
*Wash the car
That’s about all I can think of. Of course, when he was four he told his teachers that he does the dishes while I watch TV all day…
We did everything too when we were kids - *annoyed* but it made me into a great housekeeper - my mom not so much…arg…
However, LM loves to help me do whatever I do - but for you I think maybe the fishbowl chores could be…
sorting laundry
putting laundry away (theirs of course)
vacuum
dishes - washing and putting away
clearing the table after dinner
Good luck!!
Here’s what’s on my kid’s list:
Definitions first.
Responsibility = something he is expected to do regularly without compensation
Chores = paid tasks. He gets to choose items from this list equaling at least $3.50/week (our version of allowance). As a general rule, these are things I hate doing and am happy to pay him to do.
RESPONSIBILITIES
brush teeth, wash his own dishes, run at least 1 load of his own laundry weekly, care and feeding of his frogs, tidy room
CHORES
empty dishwasher, vacuum car, vacuum any room, clean bathroom (we use non-toxic cleaners), water plants, dusting, pulling weeds, organizing the media shelf, organizing the family shoe rack, sweeping/shoveling deck, change catbox, washing dog snot off glass door