When I Was Little, My Mother and Dad Taught Me to Work

Son, when I was little, my mother and dad taught me to work.

Dad taught me to wash the car, we scrubbed that red "Rudolph" Corolla together when I was two.

Mom taught me how to tidy my room, we gathered up my toys and stashed them away where they belonged when I was three years old. I complained about it once and asked to live at Grandma's house instead. A phonecall later found out that if I lived at Grandma Reesa's, I was required to clean up there too... 

Dad and Mom taught me the value of money, and after each allowance from weekly chores, they helped me give 10% to the Lord, put 50% in the bank for savings, and left 40% in an empty peanut butter jar as spending money. When I was four, I remember Dad sitting with me at the kitchen table and explaining that two nickels equaled a dime, and ten dimes equaled a dollar, and so on.

When I was five, mom handed me a spray water bottle and a rag and taught me to scour the baseboards. Squirt, scrub the dirt, wipe dry. 

Growing up, we always had after dinner jobs or "ADJ's." At six years old I tried to maneuver the dustpan after sweeping (I'm quite certain that mom and dad did all the hard work in sweeping and I just did my little piece at the end). Dad blasted his music, and between cleaning we danced to Boston and Styx while using the broom as a guitar and wooden spoons as microphones.

Dad put me behind the lawn mower at seven years old and pushed beside me til the backyard was trimmed. I'm sure I left lots of "bad haircuts," but years of practice and lawn tutelage followed, and now I know what to do to make a five-dollar-lawn happen (not that it always happens...)

At eight, mom stood with me in the kitchen as I prepared my first cake from scratch. She did the oven part, but the rest of the time, we were a duo. I was so proud to serve it up to my cousins at the family party that night.

At nine, I scrubbed toilets. With four younger brothers, this was by far the grossest job. I whined. I howled with indignant fury. I procrastinated. But I did the work and re-did the work until my parents approved it as having done "a mom job" or "a dad job" in cleaning it properly.

There are plenty more stories, Charlie boy. There are plenty of jobs well done and jobs flopped in my history. But I'm forever grateful for the mundane and the nasty and the difficult jobs I learned to do by my parents' sides. Nothing truly clean, virtuous, organized, or functional ever came about spontaneously--it was the result of working hard at work worth doing. I'm sure it would have been easier for them to do it themselves, but involving me has made all the difference in my life. 

So baby boy, that's why your Daddy and I strap you to our chests while we're vacuuming the church, scrubbing the car, and washing the dishes. My mother and dad taught me to work. And your mother and dad want to teach you the same.