Cleaning House

I recently started reading a book called Cleaning House: A Mom's 12-Month Experiment to Rid Her Home of Youth Entitlement. The author, Kay Wills Wyma, a stay-at-home-mom, points out that moms often want to help/serve their kids by doing too many things for them. However, in denying them opportunities to work and do things for themselves, moms end up doing their kids a disservice in the long run and rob them of the benefits of work, like improved self-esteem and a profound sense of accomplishment. As the title suggests, she went about trying to change that in her own house, with her own kids, by introducing a new area of work for her kids each month.

The first month she reports on, Wyma begins expecting her five children to tidy their rooms every day and make their beds in the morning. They each started the month with a jar full of 30 dollars for each day of the month. Each day their rooms were clean, they got to keep the dollar; each day the chores were left undone, they lost a dollar. At the end of the month, the kids got to keep the money that was left in their jar.

Of course, I'm attracted to this kind of thing, always open to inspiration on ways to improve home life in my house. The kids already know their mother well enough that when they saw me bouncing down the stairs, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on Saturday morning, brimming with “inspiration”, they started getting shifty-eyed and skittish, knowing that they would probably be implicated in some way in my new “plan” - which, of course, they were.  I laid out the new plan. They were all pretty eager about the additional money aspect, but skeptical about the everyday-ness of keeping their rooms clean. One concession was made for the middle boy:  he could keep his legos out, so long as they remained on the area rug in the middle of his room.

Saturday, the first day of the new program, went as per usual. This is their usual Saturday chore. My 6-year-old daughter had already cleaned her room before coming down for breakfast. My oldest son, who for the most part has outgrown “toys” really only had clothes and books and papers to clean up – which still takes a remarkably long time – but it did get done by lunch. And then, the middle boy. Cleaning up is the bane of his existence. He starts but gets distracted by the very toys he's supposed to be cleaning up. So by the end of the day, he had some pretty amazing lego creations and a very messy room.

Sunday dawned, bright and clear – the first day of morning checks. I reminded them all and pointed out some things that might need attention before I did the official check. Middle boy's room still as messy as it was the night before. Dad threw in the added incentive that he would re-hang his door if he got his room clean before breakfast. I could hardly believe my eyes, but that boy had his room cleaned in less than half-an-hour, with no complaining I might add. This is a job that usually takes him two or three hours! We'll see tomorrow whether it was the door or the dollar that was the main motivation, but I'll take this right now for all it's worth!

Then after lunch, I decided that the kids would do the dishes. I had made a nice meal that everyone had enjoyed and sitting on the couch in the sunshine reading a magazine looked far more appealing than the stack of dirty dishes. I would give the kids another “opportunity” to experience the delights of work. I informed my oldest son that he and his siblings would be doing the dishes in 5 or 10 minutes. He sputtered, “But what about...” then remembered that I had already said his siblings would be in on this too.

“But what about Dad?” he lamely grasped for straws.

“Dad's worked hard all week to provide us with food to eat,” I pointed out. I explained that I had made the meal so they could clean up; we were all in this together. They all dutifully came and staked their claim on their desired roles in the process. There was a break-down when it became apparent that two kids both thought they were washing the cutlery and no one wanted to dry, but even that was overcome.

All in all, I was extremely impressed with the initial success of our little experiment. Now to see if I can keep up my end of the deal and actually provide the dollars and the daily room checks. This is usually where my inspirations fall apart. It's fun to start a new program, but I get weary of being the enforcer of new rules and systems I create, or I forget about them and can hardly blame the kids for not reminding me. As Kay Wills Wyma says, it is the parent who needs to teach the kids how to work and to persevere in work even when it is no longer fun. And this is my work as the mom – to be the person in charge who doesn't forget what the long-term goal is: to raise competent, hard-working, contributing members of society. So I better stay on task too. My kids have already proven that they can live up to higher expectations, if I can just hold them to it.

This evening, I started reading “The Adventures of Paddy the Beaver” to my daughter, and wouldn't you know it, even Paddy knows something about work. There's Paddy, busily working away to build his new dam. “And as he worked, Paddy was happy, for one can never be truly happy who does no work.”