Nothing fails to infuriate me more than people who assume I do nothing all day. Now this might stand to reason considering my house is trashed and much of the time so is my yard. However, 9 times out of 10 I am covered in either poop, dirt, grease, maple syrup (that was a few days ago), water or diesel fuel.
I am doing SOMETHING 18 hours of the day. The remaining 6 I am sleeping.
There is no “end of the workday”, there are no weekends. Heck, I don’t even get Mother’s Day, Christmas OR my birthday off!
So when my daughter made a snarky comment about how I don’t do anything all day, I lit it up.
No, I didn’t yell. I simply explained that there are so many chores to get done that it would take 3 or 4 people to keep up on all them, so pretty much nothing is ever fully done (except for cleaning the animals out).
As the conversation progressed, it became quite clear to me that my child had fallen into the tight grip of social media and TV and lost track of reality. Being a city-kid and all, life on the farm has been a bit hard for her to enjoy.
Now, you may be wondering why on earth we’d have so many kids, and NONE of them with any chores?
Well, the answer to that one is long and arduous so I’ll save that for another time.
But I’d had enough, and if my own child is questioning WHY one thing or another that “should be so simple” isn’t done, then guess what? She just earned herself an apprenticeship!
As parents it’s our job to raise our kids the best we can, and I’ve certainly been guilty of being so overly busy with “work” that I haven’t paused to ensure my own child understands the importance of work.
I fully expect her to hate me by the first week of summer vacation, and probably not speak to me the remainder of it. But if she can at least grasp a small amount of what it takes to keep things running around here, well, then it just might be worth it.