Where is Mary Poppins?

Dishes, laundry, meals. Three things that everyone has to deal with on a daily basis. Unless you are one of the minority privileged who has someone else hired to do these things for you, they become a part of your daily routine. Some people ignore one or more of these essential tasks, and the chaos that is left in the wake is almost not even worth it. Either that, or you just end up spending way more money on them than you would otherwise. (Not making a meal means you eat out. Not doing laundry means you either have to buy new clothes, or hire someone to do it for you.)

And those tasks that are a daily "must" become compounded when you have children. They play, they get dirty. They need food every twenty minutes. How are parents supposed to keep up with the demand of daily life and remember to enjoy time with their kids?

I think that part of the answer lies in the training and "programming" of our young ones. When I was growing up, my mother loved to cook. She loved to garden. And she loved spending time in her sewing fort. (She had like 4 sewing machines and she sat in the middle of them, surrounded by fabric making dresses for me and my sister.) She was a creative person and didn't want to be hindered by having to commit to such mundane tasks as washing dishes or putting away laundry.

My father, on the other hand, was neat as a pin, dutiful, and tidy. It was his job every Saturday when mom was at work, to rouse his lazy daughters off the couch after Saturday Morning Cartoons were over and put us to work. Sometimes we would organize and collect recycling from around the house. Sometimes we had to dry and put away dishes. It was never fun. Part of it was his attitude towards it. He made it seem boring. And when we looked at our example of mom, we adopted the attitude that housework had to be boring.

Any way you slice it, the programming that my sister and I received as children was, "Housework is a boring activity." No one ever made housework a Mary Poppins event with snaps, whistles, and music. I think if I had seen either of my parents putting that kind of show on over housework, I would have asked for a new apron for Christmas!

So, my gift to my son is to do housework (especially the big three: Dishes, Laundry and Meals) the way I would have liked to do it as a kid. Thanks to newer technology, I can bring my laptop and Pandora with me anywhere in the house. I can transform even the most boring jobs into a fun dance party. My parents were not without music. We had a perfectly good boom box with tapes that we could have listened to, so the technology doesn't matter, its the environment and the attitude that make the difference.

I also decided that since my son is five, he is old enough to start helping with some of these activities. (I don't like the word chore.) To get him used to helping out (remember, even though he is 5, the concept of helping out around the house is relatively new. Until he was 4, he couldn't really and truly help and understand about it.) So, I used a method that I do remember working for me when I was a child.

In 5th grade, I went to a new school, Central Middle School. It was a big deal. Up until then, my life had revolved around walking a half a block to the elementary school. Now I was an entire town away. I felt older, more responsible, and less like a child. I didn't mind giving up part of my recess after lunch. It was for a good cause. I had enlisted myself as a lunchroom helper. Every day after lunch I would get a bucket of water and a rag from the lunch ladies and wipe down the lunch tables. When I returned my rag and bucket to the kitchen, I would get to pick a Fun Size candy bar from their giant bowl of treats. It was heaven. Baby Ruth, Snickers, Reese's Cups. It really was a great motivator to have that extra little bit of sugar in my day.

So last week, I started the same thing with Carrick. Wiping off the table after lunch (because he is home for the summer) is a task that he can physically do, and do it properly. It gives him an immediate result as well as reward. He can actually see that the table is clean. Then his payoff is instantaneous. He gets to pick a treat from the treat bowl (I found an old bowl with Halloween stuff still in it recently.) The bowl has bubbles, suckers, fake teeth, all kinds of goofy things. And after a week of doing it, the candy stash has run low, so I went to the store and bought organic fruit gummy packs to replace the artificial sugar treats. He loves the gummy bunnies. We don't buy them regularly as a family, so he thinks they are a wonderful treat. Everybody wins.

I am optimistic that I can start integrating more and more responsibility and household activities to my sweet little 5-year-old. By the time school starts, I will have a morning star chart for him, because kindergarten starts in August. All day, everyday. My goal is to empower him in his morning routines. Especially since I plan to return to work this fall. Either way, setting the example and making household activities enjoyable is my job as the mother. I'm with the kids all day, so it's up to me. I think I'm up to the task.