WJBC FORUM – July 7, 2014 – “Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!”

After a hard day of work, I just love coming home to find the dog on her hind legs, licking the dirty dishes piled high in the sink, in an attempt to get the last remains of corn dogs and ketchup off a plate, obviously trying to do her part so that I don’t have to wash that dish!

          When I complain to the children that the dishwasher was supposed to be emptied and reloaded before I walked in the door they say, “But mom!  It’s summer!  We shouldn’t have to do anything!”

          Once you are able to stop laughing and pick yourself up off the floor, I will share my opinion of this life philosophy.  It is wrong, wrong, wrong!

          I have three adult children and 2 school age children.  Without fail, my adult children have all said to me, “I couldn’t wait to be a grown-up.  Now I want to be a kid again.”

          Well, who wouldn’t!  Especially when kids think they “shouldn’t have to do anything!”  They may think that, but the chore chart stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet tells a different story.

          The children have their life philosophy and I have mine.  Mine goes like this:

·       Just for the privilege of me putting a roof over your head, clothing you, feeding you, and providing you with an education, you will have “something to do.”  That something will be reoccurring chores such as mowing the yard, emptying the dishwasher and cleaning the bathrooms.

·       Once you turn 13, you will do your own laundry.  “Why?” you say.  Because I refuse to wade through the foot-deep pile in your room, trying to decide what is clean and what is dirty.  It never ceases to amaze me that the foot-deep pile usually drops to just a few inches deep once you start doing your own laundry.

·       By the time you leave my home to go to college, you will know how to cook at least three things.  It can be macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese, and spaghetti. At least I will know that you won’t starve.

My children may think I am the meanest mom in the world.  I’m not.  I love them so much that I will teach them what they need to know whether they like it or not.  It did my heart good to have my first three children tell me the first time they each came home from college, “Mom, you would not believe the kids who don’t even know how to do laundry!”  To which I say, “Your welcome!”

This is Nancy Cruse for the WJBC Forum.