I confess that often times it’s just easier if I do it myself rather than ask my kids for help. I have a certain way to load the dishwasher which allows the bowls, plates and glasses to effectively get the most out of their time in the top rack. And there is a specific way pants should be folded and shirts should be hung: with the hanger facing to the left of course… Okay, so I’m a little OCD. But today I realized that I may have inadvertently turned my three children into selfish, entitled, lazy kids who expect to have everything done for them whenever they want.
Today, one child was whining about being bored- after I had just let him have several friends over to play. Another was complaining about what I was cooking for lunch and my oldest hadn't done a single thing I had asked him to do and yet moaned about how tired he was. My blood pressure began to rise as all of this was taking place at once… It’s Saturday and I'd like a day off too for crying out loud! So during lunch I sat down and wrote out a long list of chores for each one of them to do besides their usual making of the bed and brushing teeth.
- Scrub toilets
- Clean windows
- Wipe finger prints off the fridge
- Sweep kitchen
- Vacuum
Their lists were long. I’ll admit I winced at the thought of my 13-year-old haphazardly sweeping. And then the complaining which I knew would accompany. Would this even be worth it? I’d most likely have to sweep again right afterwards. But I kept writing. And with each “but Mom”, I simply added another chore. They soon learned to hush and just accept that I was serious.
As the kids went to work it was a little bit like torture. But once my kicking and screaming tantrum was over I began to see and hear some changes in them. I mean, they actually figured out how to work together as a team! It was a Christmas-in- July miracle. I heard phrases like, “Hey guys, if we help each other out, maybe this will go faster!” And, “I’ll load the dishwasher for you if you’ll scrub the toilets for me.” No joke, I even heard them singing Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney’s duet: Ebony and Ivory while they were organizing the basement. I thought I was dreaming.
Another neat thing that happened was, as they did chores, they gained empathy and appreciation for the work that I do every day. After my son was done sweeping, someone had inadvertently walked across the floor with dirty feet, leaving tracks. I heard him say, “Who walked across my clean floor after I just swept it?” And then understanding came over him, realizing that this was probably how I felt every single day.
Now granted, my floors didn’t get as clean as I would have liked them, but hopefully the values my kids learned would stick with them. From now on, I would be the "Meanest Mom Ever", allowing them to handle more of the household duties and let go of my expectations to have a perfect looking house. Their future spouses might even thank me one day for teaching them to vacuum lines in the carpet. Hebrews 12:11 “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”