Okay, I’ll admit it, I watched Celebrity Wife Swap the other night. You know the one (even if you won’t admit it) where Kate Goslin and Kendra Whatshername lived in each other’s homes for a week.
So yes, I watched it. And I’ll say right here that I know there are people who hate Kate with the fire of a thousand suns but I think she’s really got it together. Can be she a bitch? Of course, but when you’re raising eight kids and dealing with idiots (her children are not the idiots, just so you know) she kind of sometimes has to be a bitch.
Kendra…she was kind of stupidly adorable. She is a pampered ex-playboy playmate who got a little teary at the idea that Kate’s kids had a bunch of chores to do each day and worried that they weren’t being allowed to be kids.
Ha! Hahahahah.
After the show was over, I went into the bathroom where, just a couple of hours before Alyssa had taken a shower. I was welcomed by three damp towels in a pile on the floor and her dirty clothes tossed into a corner. It hit me that Alyssa did not learn a single thing that night as I picked up her towels and her dirty clothes.
I think Kate has the right idea when it comes to chores. And I think it is time for my TEN year old to start doing chores.
Let me state right here that I do not think cleaning up after oneself is a chore. No, that’s just taking care of your own things. So no, putting clothes in the hamper will not count as a chore. But putting dishes away? Yes, that is a chore.
So here I am, striving to be more like Kate Goslin. Who’d have thought it ever possible?
I need to come up with some chores for Alyssa to do because I think it’s the right thing. I think she needs the responsibility of chores. I think she needs to understand what goes into the running of our household and that towels do not hang themselves nor do dishes wash themselves.
I’m going to use the coming days to come up with age-appropriate chores for both of my children even as I continue to gently (and perhaps sometimes not so gently) remind them to pick up after themselves because that’s what people in our house do because it makes life better for us all.
A mom, a dad and two daughters. We're living ordinary lives with a twist of 5p- (Cri du Chat) for spice. But we're about so much more than our younger daughter's genetic diagnosis.
3 comments:
loving one another allows kids to begin to 'help mama' in the house, spending time 'playing' house as we clean up. my kitchen for years was 'upside down' in that dishes, glasses, tableware were in the lower cabinets (because my kids WANTED to set the table). My vacuum 'play with it any time you want.' (It made my job of real vacuuming much easier!) Absolutely, children should have chores....just helping mom make their beds was a start. Good luck with beginning. remember...make memories, not hard work...they love you as much as you love them. :)
We don't have assigned chores but everyone has to clean up after themselves. Oh, and the boys take out the trash ans my daughter occasionally helps me with laundry but they put their own laundry away and when I'm 10 loads behind they also have to fold there own laundry.
I think Kate is a bitch but I get her and she does run a tight ship.
Riley has to unload the dishwasher, clean the table off after dinner and put her own laundry away. She also is responsible for keeping her bathroom, her playroom and her own room clean. She's been doing it for so long that I don't know that she thinks of it as a chore, just something like homework that she does everyday.
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