Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
I don’t remember the first time my father had me doing real manual labor. I do remember that as a kid, and definitely before 10 years old, I mowed the grass in our backyard. Chores? We definitely had chores in my house, and I grew up in a house where the dishwasher was just a dry rack, not to be used to actually, ya know, wash dishes. I can excitedly report that as a fully functional adult that I use the bejesus out of my dishwasher these days and do not force my children into the same servitude that my parents did regarding dishwashing. And since using the appliance saves both energy and water, I now like to think of myself as an environmentalist.
Anywho, I recently thought about the amount of chores and labor my parents had me doing as a tyke because apparently my children live the softest of soft lives. At this point, they are required to clean up the playroom they make a mess of daily and help me put trash in trash bags for the weekly pickup. But really, that’s it. My kids chill – hard. They chill so hard that I rarely even think to put them to work carrying things into (or out of) the house or putting groceries away; my kids do almost none of the things I did instinctually as a kid because my parents made sure I was there to help.
Why did I think about this? I’m glad you asked.
Last week, we discovered a leak in my house and had a plumber come out to fix it, and that led to the discovery of some water damage which led to my family having to move out of our home for a while. As part of the prepping for parts of my home to be deconstructed, I had to move a tremendous amount of shoes (in shoe boxes) from one floor of my house to another. We’re talking almost two hundred pairs of shoes, by the way.
I looked at this…
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