Did you know that when the great American philosopher Henry David Thoreau was living the self-reliant life on Walden Pond his mother, Cynthia Dunbar, did his laundry? I think about her every time I toss a load of my kids’ clothes in the dryer. If I don’t have a plan, I might fold socks forever.
I’m not ready to entrust my children with detergent yet, but this past year I commissioned my 9-year-old with the task of putting fresh sheets on his bed every week. Teaching him how to do this almost broke us both.
Right side out versus backward, horizontal versus vertical, leaving enough space for your head — eek! The darn fitted sheet is physically demanding, especially if you don’t start with opposing corners first. It turns out changing sheets is a workout.
My son is bright and I tried to be patient, but there were times during the learning process when I was ready to give up. I wondered if fourth grade was too young for a chore of this complexity. Certainly it would be easier to do the job myself.
But two months later he can do everything but the duvet. When he turns 10, I’ll introduce him to Tide.
If you ask my children they’ll tell you that I closely resemble a prison warden because I make them work all the time. If you ask me or my husband, we’ll point to scattered toys on the floor and say our children treat us like servants. Somewhere in the middle lies the truth.
When it comes to kids, chores, and allowances, there are two schools of thought. One is that children should do chores no matter what because they owe it to their family to help out. Any allowance the parents choose to pay is separate from work. The second viewpoint ties money directly to labor. Forget to feed Rover, and your allowance is docked.
Isn’t real life a bit of both? If we don’t work we don’t get paid. But we also have hundreds of thankless jobs — like laundry — that we have to do anyway.
So in our house, we have jobs our kids are required to do like empty their lunchboxes, and we also have a chore chart.
Take out the compost and earn 25 cents. Clean the bathroom and earn $1. The kids choose how to help. When they’ve completed $5 worth of chores, it’s payday.
Sometimes I’ll require the kids do 75 cents worth of chores before they watch television, but normally I let capitalism take its course. The desire to earn a new Lego set or a ridiculously expensive American Girl doll accessory is very motivating. Influxes of cash at Christmas flood the system, but normally our chore chart works.
Although, hmm … I just realized that my whole house could be cleaned for $10.25. Maybe I’m guilty of paying prison wages after all.
Jennifer Bardsley is an Edmonds mom of two. Find her on Twitter @jennbardsley and at www.heraldnet.com/ibrakeformoms and teachingmybabytoread.com.
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