Posted on 04/30/2006 11:13:33 AM PDT by fgoodwin
LOVE the tagline!
Not around here. We have four kids. They HAVE to help out to keep it sane around here.
We don't feel our son is old enough to handle the lawn mower or hedge trimmer, but he is responsible for all garbage, cleaning up after the dog, and just added all grilling to his chores.
Our daughters are fighting over who gets to do things on the chore list right now, and the 10 year old is gloating because she "gets" to do the whole list because her little sister got angry and stomped off. Weird, huh?
They are all responsible for the upper floor of the house being clean, bedrooms, loft area, and bathroom. It isn't always, but it is THEIR area.
They don't always DO them, but they ARE responsible for them, and we are always willing to give extra work for $$.
My son (12) just got done mowing the lawn. He also helps with the chores that take some physical strength, like hauling bags of mulch around the yard or dragging firewood in.
But my daughter, a high school senior, never lifts a finger, and neither do any of her friends. The reason is that they're killing themselves trying to get good grades in school AND working at a paying job to get money for college. I think the fact that so many kids don't do chores around the house these days is due to the fact that they have to get real part-time jobs since the cost of college has skyrocketed. (Even if you go to a state university, you still have to come up with several thousand bucks a year for expenses that aren't covered by loans, grants, and scholarships.)
LOL...are you series?
If you've got a kid that you can't find anything for him to do, send him my way :)
Who is the father in your house? You don't ask a 12 y.o. to do something -- you tell him what to do! Parents today are afraid of their kids. Pretty sad.
Exactly. Of course, we stray from the topic -- why don't kids do chores anymore? I have an only child who's now in college, but she had chores, and she will continue to have chores when she comes home for the summer, in addition to a paying job. I don't believe in a free ride. How else are they going to learn any life skills? School isn't meant to teach everything.
You can't make kids help you around the house! That's child abuse! They're much better off playing on their Xbox and hanging around at the mall or down on the corner.
Yea I was paid for cutting the grass when I was a kid.
I was paid 3 square meals all year long, clothing on my back, shoes on my feet, a roof over my head and to top it off my parents gave me love.
What's a kid to do these days.
Bingo. You got that right.
They don't? Fine. The next time they want to see Disney they can darn well pay for it.
Oh? What's that? Ok, then they're still doing chores 'round here. : )
I'll tell this story, FWIW: When I was in college, in a primarily agricultural area, I lived with a couple roommates in a house off campus that had a big yard. When we first moved there, we didn't have a lawn mower. I like a nice lawn. I walked across the back yard to a house with a big family of migrant farm workers, and asked the 12 year old kid if he wanted to mow our lawn every week, for $10 per.
About 10 minutes later I heard a lawnmower going outside, but it wasn't the kid, it was the DAD. And he did a much better job of it than a kid would have, for the same $10, though I ended up paying him $15, because he edged it too.
Heh... it's not about nationality, it's about teenagers... :~D
You don't "ask" - you "tell". And you don't pay. It's for his own well-being as he grows into a productive adult. But hey, this is just my opinion. I would not tell anyone else how to raise their kids.
SO many parents today think their #1 priority is to be their kids' FRIEND. Tragic mistake. Their #1 priority should be to be the PARENT. And certainly teaching a work ethic is a critical task.
This is just one more area in which big trouble is a'coming. It's also directly and unquestionably related to the influx of illegals.
MM
My daughter is doing laundry right now. We have little lawn to speak of so that is not a problem (by my choice). She is messy in her room, but that gets tended too eventually. She does dishes and helps cook. Frankly, I want her to keep up with school and music and graphic arts now while young and not preoccupied and working. She can take care of the old man later.
There are still kids who do chores, at least in my extended family.
However, here in CA, what I've seen with lib parents over the last twenty years is, they act like their childhoods were HORRIBLE, just misery filled experiences that warped them forever...they had to do WORK at home, WITHOUT PAY EVEN! GASP! And they did'nt get everything their little hearts wanted, they were DENIED! GASP! Mommy and Daddy were mean fascists who told them a pony or a motorbike were just too expensive (and unrealistic, ponies in suburbia especially), and they've never gotten over it.
My first experience with it was a creative writing class I took postgraduation, for the fun of it. The class was a mix of college kids and adults like me, taking it for the pure joy of writing. Part of the class was our ablity to read our work in front of the class. So, one day, this liberal idiot woman reads her piece, about the HORROR growing up, the stomach clenching fear that she feels to this day walking up her mother's walk, just an endless diatribe and poor-pity-me indulgence that had us all rolling our eyes and trying to cover up the laughter...meanwhile, the idiot is actually crying real tears. The end of the piece, which revealed her mother's actions...we were expecting Joan Crawford beatings, tales of drunkeness or drug abuse...no, what we got? Her mother criticized her.
She followd up her little dramatic reading by vowing she'd never criticize HER kids, oh no.
She is to me, the PERFECT example of parenting gone wrong - besides the irritation that she was using our class as free therapy for her imagined grief and abuse, she represents what's wrong with much of her generation - the kids are coddled, cucooned, indulged, beyond spoiled, and completely lacking in any foundation of independance, work ethics, or responsibility. Sharing? LOL. Not MY kid, they get only the BEST, and ALL OF IT.
The interesting part is why they do it. Partly to rub it in their parent's faces (You never bought me Sparkle Barbie, so I COLLECT them now for MY daughter, she has EVERY ONE!), partly to live vicariously through their kids (MY Kid is an HONOR student!), and partly because to them kids are props for a lifestyle, not human beings they have a responsibility for. A lot of it has to do with the liberal pap of the 60's generation, which was translated by this later generation as a more "It's not MY fault" attitude towards things like child rearing. Some patchouli drenched moron in Birkenstocks told them making kids do chores was mean and hurt their little self-esteems, so they don't do it.
Another issue, is a lot of kids of these crazed libs have their lives so structured and scheduled, they have no time for chores. School all day, then planned activities like soccer or karate, play dates, tutors, then even more scheduled activity on the weekends, being shuttled around town by their strung out oin Starbucks over-achiever yuppie parents. Chores? They don't have time providing me with my honor student bumper sticker and bragging rights! I'll just refinance the house, so we can hire Pedro (Kyle and Heather need to practice their spanish anyway) freeing us to enjoy our "lifestyle" fuller.
Not all kids are victims of this, but a lot are. Look at the media, and our society. The Clinton era gave us "For the KIDS" ad nauseum, and it's reflected everywhere - cruise ships are now about kids. Vegas was about the little basta...darlings (luckily that's changing). Forget going to see family, instead spend 10K on an all-inclusive week at DisneyLand! (Or it will cost your little spawn 20K in therapy later on! 'Mommy would'nt let me go see Mickey like everyone else in class, that's why i started doing meth...)
My son mows our lawn. He wishes he could get a job mowing lawns, but everyone is either (a) a landscaper or (b) has an adult do their lawn (not always Mexican, either).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.