[email protected]

I got private e-mail and below is the text of that and my response to her.
I sent an invitation for her to join this list, too.
=====================================

> I have three sons, ages 8, 4, and 2. I'm starting our third year of
> homeschooling. I have gradually come from trying to copy the school
> curriculums to mostly unschooling. But when I read the comments about
> doing the housework for them, I want to scream! Unfair, to me, to even
> suggest that they should not be required to contribute. My mother said,
> as her mother said, "You eat, don't you? Then you can help clear the
> table/clean up the dishes."`
>
> I met a woman who said to clean up after her (only) four-year old son
> was like a 'gift' to him, to re-set his toys. I looked at her,
> wondering exactly what drugs she was on. I'll bet his future spouse
> will want to kick her butt.
>
> Why should the children take no responsibility?
>
> ======================

I'm taking this question to the Unschooling Discussion list, where you should
follow if you want responses. While I sometimes answer unique questions by
personal mail, the same-old stuff is better answered in group settings.

You might also want to read what Joyce Fetteroll has written about choices,
and follow the link to her VERY new site (which has a section on chores) here:

http://sandradodd.com/joycefetteroll


You can unschool without that concept, but I think it will limit your deepest
understanding if you don't even try to see what people are saying and why.

http://sandradodd.com/chores

Sandra


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

beanmommy2

A couple years ago I read a post from Sandra saying her
children "had no school, homework, or chores to feel the need to
escape from" (or something like that.)

I thought, Huh? How weird is that? Her kids never put away anything
when they're done with it? Never bring a dish to the dishwasher?
Can't and don't put their dirty clothes in the hamper, never ever?
Why would anyone even *want* to live like that?

After some time, I began to understand that "no chores" doesn't
mean "they should never ever do anything."

From my understanding, a lot of it is attitude. My kids are still
very little .... but I'll sometimes say, "Could you please bring
your dish over to the counter if you're done? Thanks so much!"
or, "I'm going to put these blocks away, do you want to help me?"
(She might or might not.)

My oldest is four. Once I came into my bedroom and she was actually
making my bed. A few days ago she said, "Let's all clean up this
living room!" and started putting her toys away. One day she
announced that she wanted to wash the car (and we all did it
together.) She has seen me get out the vacuum and ask if she can
help.

Does she have assigned chores of any kind? No. Do I give her
stickers or pennies for putting on her shoes or putting her toys
away? No. Will I get mad or punish her if she doesn't do something?
No. But has she done various things, at times? Yes. Happily. Of her
own initiative and decision.

Oh -- another thing that helped me was the idea to treat the kids
like guests in your house. Yes, if I had dinner guests I might ask
them to hang out with me in the kitchen and talk while I cleaned up,
and most likely they might say, "Where should I put this?" or scrape
a plate. But I wouldn't nag or chastize them, or tell them they're
rude and lazy, because they didn't jump up to clear the table or
whatever.

Jenny


--- In [email protected], SandraDodd@a... wrote:
> I got private e-mail and below is the text of that and my response
to her.
> I sent an invitation for her to join this list, too.
> =====================================
>
> > I have three sons, ages 8, 4, and 2. I'm starting our third year
of
> > homeschooling. I have gradually come from trying to copy the
school
> > curriculums to mostly unschooling. But when I read the comments
about
> > doing the housework for them, I want to scream! Unfair, to me,
to even
> > suggest that they should not be required to contribute. My
mother said,
> > as her mother said, "You eat, don't you? Then you can help clear
the
> > table/clean up the dishes."`
> >
> > I met a woman who said to clean up after her (only) four-year
old son
> > was like a 'gift' to him, to re-set his toys. I looked at her,
> > wondering exactly what drugs she was on. I'll bet his future
spouse
> > will want to kick her butt.
> >
> > Why should the children take no responsibility?

[email protected]

When we required chores, long ago, I felt like screaming. I cried. I
thought bad thoughts.

When we changed directions, I didn't feel like screaming. There was nothing
to cry about. I thought sweet thoughts.

Sandra


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

suzannadees

--- In [email protected], "beanmommy2" <beanmommy2@y...>
wrote:
> A couple years ago I read a post from Sandra saying her
> children "had no school, homework, or chores to feel the need to
> escape from" (or something like that.)
>

I do.

Joyce Fetteroll

>> But when I read the comments about
>> doing the housework for them, I want to scream! Unfair, to me, to
>> even
>> suggest that they should not be required to contribute.

Forget about chores for a minute.

If you could choose between making your children smile and making
them cry or be angry with you, which would you choose?

If you could choose to do something for someone who made you angry
and cry or someone who thought you were the bees knees who would you
help?

Picture three friends: one friend has decided that since you're her
friend it's your responsibility to help her out. She tells you what
to do and peers over your shoulder at how well you're doing and
criticizes when you aren't doing "as well as you should" eg, not
meeting her standards. When you're done she says, thanks, you can go.

Another friend calls you up and asks if you wouldn't mind helping her
out on her car since she needs a third pair of hands. She recognizes
that you have more important things to do and please do feel free to
say no. If she asks you to do something you aren't doing well at she
apologizes for asking that you do something that was more difficult
than she thought. When she's all done she invites you in for a snack
or, as a way of saying thanks for interrupting things that were more
important for her, offers to take you out for lunch or take your kids
for the afternoon.

Another friend never tells anyone when she needs help, never invites
anyone over even just to keep her company.

Which friends would you like to keep and which would you like to dump?

When I was a kid my mother did all the housework. She had assigned
chores when she was young and she hated it and swore she'd never do
that to her kids. And she didn't. The housework all belonged to her.
She didn't share it. She didn't invite us along to be with her. Her
job was to clean the house and take care of our needs. Our job was to
play.

She must have pictured that when we were "old enough" (teens?) we
would then spontaneously start helping. I remember her being angry
that my sister and I weren't naturally pitching in. It was rather
baffling to me and my sister why she'd taken care of everything on
her own all along and now all of a sudden she needed help.

We aren't talking about the last friend (or my mom) who never asks.
We're recognizing that being someone who is pleasant, who appreciates
that others have important things to do (even if those things don't
seem important to us) is someone we want to help. And the person who
expects us to help and is critical when we don't meet their standards
isn't someone we want to help.

We're recognizing that by making kids do chores we're modeling for
them that when you want someone else to do what you want that a good
strategy is to be bigger and stronger and make them. And yet when
children use that tactic -- the tactic we use on them -- on others we
wonder what's wrong with them.

If we want our children to be kind and thoughtful and treat others
with respect we need to model that for them. We can make kids *act*
respectful and act kind and act thoughtful but when we stop making
them and give them the choice, they're unlikely to want to be kind,
thoughtful and respectful of those who don't treat them that way.

Will people who make their kids do chores get more help? To some
extent it seems that way while they're under our control. It will be
paid for by anger and resentment (from parents and kids) and kids who
would rather be anywhere else than with us. It's more likely to
create kids who want to be away from us as teens and adults. So we
will have traded something temporary -- straightening up -- for
something permament -- a lesser relationship with our kids.

>> My mother said,
>> as her mother said, "You eat, don't you? Then you can help clear the
>> table/clean up the dishes."`

And how did you feel about that as a child?

It seems like from your shock that your mother filled you with a
feeling of resentment towards housework and feeling that it isn't
fair if others don't help. And now that the burden of housework is on
your shoulders you don't care that your children feel resentful or
angry at helping. It's only important that you not do it all yourself.

And you're passing that resentment onto your kids. Who will pass it
onto their kids.

>> I met a woman who said to clean up after her (only) four-year old son
>> was like a 'gift' to him, to re-set his toys. I looked at her,
>> wondering exactly what drugs she was on. I'll bet his future spouse
>> will want to kick her butt.


>> Why should the children take no responsibility?

You are defining the word responsibility differently for adults and
for children and then treating the two as though they were the same.

Try to think of one responsibility that you as an adult have that you
didn't *choose* to take on and that you can't walk away from. There
may be many you wouldn't walk away from -- a marriage, your kids,
paying taxes -- but the truth is that you *could* walk away. There
may be many you don't feel you had a choice about like caring for an
aging parent, but the truth is you *could* make other arrangements
but for whatever reasons (guilt, financiall) you *chose* to take it on.

The responsibilities we *choose* to take on for ourselves we get to
decide what standards we'll keep them at. If we take on the
responsibility of a house, we get to decide how often to take out the
trash, how often to scrub the toilet, when to vacuum: daily, weekly,
monthly, yearly. We get to decide what quality meals to prepare:
quickies, mixes, takeout, scratch cooking, gourmet.

The responsibilities we *choose* to take on for others we get to
decide how closely we'll stick to what's required. There are
consequences to our choices -- our reputation may go down or up, a
project may succeed or fail -- but we get to decide if the
consequences are worth it or not.

But that's not the situation with kids. Kids don't have ownership of
the tasks they're assigned to do. They can't decide to let something
go. If someone assigns them the task of mowing the lawn they can't
decide to turn it into a meadow. (An adult could decide that.) They
can't decide the toilet only needs scrubbed every 6 months. (An adult
could decide that and I have on occasion!)

Joyce Fetteroll
New old stuff at: http://home.earthlink.net/~fetteroll/rejoycing/





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