Back in the summer I was attempting to get the boys to do a
quick clean up of their toys with me. I
was trying to make it fun, light hearted and encouraging. I said, “Let’s go Hayden! Help Mommy pick up the trains!”
He just looked at me and said, “No. Mommy cleans up toys.” He didn’t say it in some spoiled tone, or
meanly. Just in a very matter of fact
way. Still, I rankled.
“No, Mommy doesn’t-!”
But then I stopped. Yes, Mommy
actually did. She cleaned up toys, took
care of clothes, made beds, cooked dinner, did dishes. The list is rather endless when I think about
it. So, being the nerdy, need-to-research-everything
type of Mama that I am, I started reading books on today’s children and
entitlement.
Oh, it may seem silly that not cleaning up toys made me take
the leap to entitled kids, but really isn’t that the attitude behind it? I don’t want to raise my boys to think that
someone else will do the cleaning and cooking for them. I want them to know how to do it, to be proud
of themselves and feel confident in the fact that they can take care of
themselves (eventually).
I read a couple of books on the subject, some better than
others. But I liked several ideas in the
book, “Cleaning House: A Mom’s Twelve-Month Experiment to Rid Her Home of Youth
Entitlement” by Kay Wills Wyma. The book
itself is decent. It seemed to me that
she took excerpts from her blog about the 12 months and then tried to form her
book around those, which made it less cohesive to me, but again, I took away
some good things from the book.
One of those things is picking one thing per month to focus
on. Since starting the idea in July, we’ve
focused on making beds, cleaning up toys, taking care of clothing (PJ’s in the
morning and day wear at bedtime) and taking care of one’s dishes after each
meal. As they get older I plan to build
on their responsibilities and have them learn to do laundry and even cook. Although they cook a lot with me already, its
mainly playing.
The main thing we do differently from the author above is we
don’t pay our children for their responsibilities. Kay Will Wilma and her husband pay their
children $30 each at the beginning of the month (and with five kids that’s no
small feat.) And if their responsibilities/chores aren’t taken care of then she
docks them one dollar per day. Her
children were older when she started the Entitlement Project and I understand
why starting with an allowance of sorts was appealing.
But I’m a firm believer that for our home, there are things that we do because we’re part of a
family. We pick up after ourselves, take
care of plates, and so much more because we’re a unit and that’s how we work
together. At least that’s how it is in my mind.
Until recently I was, obviously, not living up to that ideal. I do understand paying for bigger jobs, and I
hope that will encourage the boys to take on larger roles as they get older,
but for now the small everyday jobs are enough.
So far its been a great experience and the boys, specifically
Hayden, have met the new activities with excitement. The only challenge we’ve had was the bed
making. For some reason he fought me
tooth and nail about it for the longest time.
I certainly didn’t expect perfection, I just want him to try and I
always help him. So why wouldn’t he make
the bed?! It was awful and I was ready
to resort to a reward chart of some kind.
But my in-laws were in town for a week and made it a HUGE deal every
time he made his bed. Its seemed the
extra recognition (aside from Mama) was all he needed. Now occasionally he whines a bit, but almost
always we get the bed made.
I have so much to add but this is turning into a long post. We’ll be keeping it up next year and focusing
on one item per month. I also focus on something personal for me. Usually health related, such as getting to
bed earlier or cooking more at home or something along those lines.
We decided to combine November and December and focus our
time on giving. Both Arnie and I feel it’s
important to be aware of needs around us and help where we can, even if it means
making a personal sacrifice in order to do so.
It has been wonderful to see Hayden respond to people and
tomorrow I’ll share with you how we’ve tried to focus on giving to family,
community and world.
