Wednesday, June 22, 2011

I's gots to wondrin...

I am on vacation this week. I didn't jet off to Vegas or plant my ass on a sandy beach. I stayed home and caught up around the house...The kids were gone. Dena was working on the road and the eldest was busy with class and work.my son's team is 1st seed in the playoffs so we still have baseball games almost every night, but with much less notice on the time and venue.

I spent one morning weeding my flower beds, pooper-scooping and mowing the lawn. I played with the dogs in between and spent alot of the time thinking as I often do during work like this. (Trust me, even if they are all nearby, no one will bother you if you have a poop scooper in your hand. They scatter like roaches.) One of the things that crossed my mind is that it would be nice to come back in my next life as either a wealthy SAHM or have a job that lets me easily pay for all the "services" I was providing that day. Stay with me folks...

Many people I know pay for a variety of things around their house...One is thrilled to have hired a lawn service and reports practically squealing each time she comes how to a freshly mowed yard. I know lots of folks who pay for weekly poop scooping service and firmly believe it is money well spent. And then there are those with housekeepers. There are SO many of them. I wondered if this is a phenomenon common in my workplace or if the rest of the world operates that way too. Do you know?

Beyond that I think about how nice it might be to schedule those services...Then when I came home there would be no poop, the yard could look awesome and my house would like always be party-ready...But that shit costs good money and is not where I have committed to focusing. Sigh.

What about those folks kids? I am not saying mean or derogatory stuff but genuinely wonder how paying all those people to do all that work impacts them when the kids move out on their own for the 1st time and have never mowed a lawn, pooper-scooped or cleaned house. I want my children to value higher education and always tell them that to make money they need to either do something no one wants to or knows how to do and take your pick wisely.

Not each week but certainly on occasion my kids dust, wash windows, vacuum, sweep, scoop poop, take out trash, clean their own rooms and the bathrooms. They know how to make a bed and are each responsible for pets here. I don't have a crystal ball but I do hope they will never be afraid of or too lazy for hard work.

Do you know "those people" too? What do you think?

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous6/27/2011

    I am with ya on teaching kids how to take care of their things and having them play an active role in the day to day upkeep of a family home (age appropriately of course). This generation of kids coming up scares the crap out of me because they are so helicoptered and babied no wonder they are moving right back into mom and dad's after college.

    Playing Devil's Advocate, if someone can afford to pay staff to do all the dirty work around the house I wonder if they would be passing along the buck to their adult children....again, see my previous post about spoiled entitled children : )

    You're doing awesome teaching your children responsibility and shaping them into people who can contribute to society. Our job as parents are to make good adults, not keep them on the teet until we die.

    You wanted comments....you got it : )

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  2. When doing work on the house, we often both take a week of vacation and just spend everyday working. I know it's not what most people consider "vacation" but when you are responsible for taking care of things around your home (and can't afford to hire everything out) that's just what you have to do.

    Put those kids to work! :)

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