Monday, August 03, 2009

Monday Morning Haze

Its really hard to blog or think because Romulus and Gladys are dancing and roaring on the bed in some perverse attempt to make every part of my body hurt. However, I feel that we've turned an important corner in our lives and it needs to be mentioned before I am distracted by something.

I've heard this would happen but didn't Really believe it.

As I've propped myself up here in various contorted positions trying to find an online homeschool planning system that looks easy to use and will calculate my hours for me (wouldn't it just be better if I went ahead and calculated my hours with my clunky old calculator and a calendar, but this is so much more interesting), my oldest two children have emptied the dishwasher, cleaned the kitty box (I know, they're AMAZING kids), collected bottles and sippy cups, carried piles of laundry to the laundry room, fed everyone breakfast, cleaned up breakfast and played some complicated ball throwing game of their own invention.

Pretty soon I suppose I'll have to heft myself up from my regal and hippolike state because everyone will be dressed and ready to go somewhere. But meanwhile I'm glorying in the satisfaction of having so many useful and obedient children.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"my oldest two children have emptied the dishwasher, cleaned the kitty box (I know, they're AMAZING kids), collected bottles and sippy cups, carried piles of laundry to the laundry room, fed everyone breakfast, cleaned up breakfast and played some complicated ball throwing game of their own invention."

...and...

“But meanwhile I'm glorying in the satisfaction of having so many useful and obedient children. “

I usually love reading your blog, Anne, but I was struck by the above words.

I just hope your children have time to be, well, children.

I think, when I was growing up, my chores were age appropriate. I did not start doing laundry until I was in high school, and I certainly did not feed everyone breakfast, empty the dishwasher, or clean the kitty box at such a young age.

I just wonder if you truly know how odd it is to see written 'useful' and 'obedient' used when describing one's children. It's not the first words I would want to use to describe my children, or how I think of them. However, I may be interpreting your words in the wrong way.

But I might use those ajdectives to describe my housekeeper (if I had one), but I'm not so sure I'd use them when it comes to my children.

I'm just wondering if Father Matt might help out with some of those chores, or maybe he does???

Bette

r said...

Re: Bette's comment

I was allowed to pack my own lunches for school when I was in 1st grade, and thought that was the greatest thing EVER.

Further, my neighbor girls used to come over and ask if they could do housework for me. 0.o Nothing like someone saying 'Hey! Can we wash your floor again today?' And having to say no, because they'd just done it yesterday.... I think it was because I gave them freedom to learn how to do things they weren't permitted at home because they might 'do it wrong' or make more of a mess.

Highschool is quite late to learn how to do your own laundry, IMHO.

My four year old Goddaughter LOVED washing dishes with me in the kitchen. Playing w/ water is always age appropriate. :-P I'd think loading the dishwasher is actually less hazardous than a sink full of water!

~R

eulogos said...

Even though my children were NOT so well disciplined as Anne's...something which was NOT good for them or for us,

because we were a large family, they absolutely had to do some of the work. I considered them able to perform real work from early ages. I would say age 10 is when they started doing their own laundry. They were able to take their turn doing the dinner dishes at age 7 or 8. (no dishwasher.) They cleared tables and swept floors at even earlier ages.
They also pulled weeds, picked beans, chopped and split wood and carried in kindling. By 11 or 12 or so they could be responsible for keeping a wood stove going.(We had three going at all times during the winter.)

I can't say they did it all cheerfully, or that we didn't have arguments about who was doing more or less than his or her share. But the general principle that there was a lot of work to be done and everyone had to help with it, was generally accepted.

They all learned to cook, and never considered this too difficult for someone their age. I once came home and found that my youngest, then aged 9, had used the "Little House Cookbook" and made an apple pie from scratch, lard crust and all. Pizza was entirely a home-made affair, and my oldest at 12 or so could make the dough-and I mean, starting with flour, water, and yeast, and put pizza together, enough to feed ten of us.

I used to say to them "Sweet are the uses of adversity." (from the Shakespeare play As You Like It.)
They all benefitted from having to do real work, and the older ones who did more of it, more so.

A hundred or 200 years ago "useful and obedient" was exactly what children were supposed to be. It does no harm to anyone to be useful, and children are supposed to be obedient to their parents. This does not destroy their independence or creativity, but it gives them tools to overcome their laziness and selfishness, characteristics we all have, which inhibit us greatly in our later lives if we do not conquer them.

I am afraid that Bette, not to blame her as this way of thinking is endemic in the culture, is listening to a way of thinking about children which comes from Jean Jacques Rosseau via Thomas Dewey, not one which comes from a Christian worldview.

Susan Peterson