I am thinking of striking.
I wonder how long it would take someone else to do the laundry, or clean up lollipop sticks from the floor? I wonder how long I would last before I cracked and unloaded the dishwasher? How many of these tasks should I really still be doing as my boys grow up?
The question goes through my head a lot lately.
“Mooommm! Can you get my cereal ready?”
“Mooommm! I don’t have any clean pants!”
There is nothing new here, revelatory, in the idea that I, hereafter yelled to as “Mooommm! ” carry a fairly heavy load as cook, cleaner, laundry-doer, finder, lunch maker, etc. I don’t really even have a problem with it except that. Well, except that.
I wonder where the line is. At what age and stage do my boys all of a sudden wake up and grab their own bathrobe on the way to the shower instead of waiting for me to pick it up and follow them with it? At what juncture might they cruise downstairs dressed and pour their own cereal in a bowl, grabbing the milk and then remembering to put it back in the fridge with the door shut tight behind them?
When might they ponder that they have a baseball game in a day or so, and put in the load of laundry with all their stuff from the last game in it that is stinking up the corner of their room? At what point might they think about what they want for dinner, and then go to the store to shop for ingredients and then come back and cook?
These independent actions will have to come someday, won’t they? As I write this, I wonder if maybe, if I’m not careful, they’ll never learn on their own. They’ll just go in search of a partner who provides these things, and then those skills I haven’t taken the time to teach them might never prove necessary.
This is how it happens to generation after generation of kids whose moms are happy to help them with things that they, in turn, will never learn.
It is a short-term strategy at best, my holding on to household tasks when really I should be delegating them.
“But you’re so much better at it! Please? Kisses!”
I do it for the love. And the kisses. I am shameless.
“I love you Mom,” my older one often says after I make him an omelette with onions when he asks, or bring him his book when he’s already climbed into his high loft bed, or put away his laundry (even though I swore I was going to make him do his own when we got this new two-part laundry basket, one side for each boy.)
“I love you more,” I say.
And I can’t help but feel like these little acts of kindness do prove my love. I do these things for them (mostly) out of love, and they feel cared for. Right? Right?
It’s true I think, and yet that little doubt creeps in.
I think of friends who started their kids cooking young, doing the dishes more regularly. I think of people who have actually managed to put a chore chart together and stick with it, and pay allowance for those specific tasks accomplished (instead of seeing the dollars rack up in the “Allowance Manager” app to astonishing heights without ever being disbursed. I’m thinking we might just hold on to it and pay for college).
“Hey Mooommm! Will you…”
They know the answer is usually yes. And it likely will be for a while.
Until, maybe, one day, I decide to strike.
