Chores

I want to teach my children the value of work. I really do. But sometimes, it just seems to fall on deaf ears--or rather, grumbling, gripey ears. And then I decide it's easier to do it myself. But I step up to the parenting plate and give a list of chores. I'm trying a new thing. The boys sign up for the paid chores they would like to do that week. Each chore carries a wage.

One son comes to me and says, in a rather bored, annoyed voice, "I finished your bathroom." You know the sound. The one that sounds like they've just pulled a handcart all the way across the plains. Yeah, that one.

I go into the bathroom to check and this is what I find. Hmm. Yeah. Finished.

See the streaks? Okay, so that means that he wiped it down, right? He just didn't care how it looked afterward. The fact that he did it is good enough, right? (Oh, and ignore the portion of the closet on the left. It doesn't always look that way. It's just from cleaning out our classrooms. Really. Yeah.)

Below is my favorite though.

This is the bathtub. Yeah, I don't take many bubble baths. But...if someone (say maybe the person who signed up to clean my bathroom) would at least wipe it out, I might take more bubble baths.

My bathroom is one of the highest-paid jobs. But I'm thinking he didn't really earn the money this week. What do you think?