Two Florida parents have moved out of their own home onto the front lawn in an effort to get their kids to do housework. They claim they’ve tried everything. I don’t think they’ve tried everything, in that my parents would have opened up a can of whoop-ass on me if I didn’t do what I was supposed to. Pop would have thrown my butt out on the lawn to make the point before he’d consider moving there. 
It’s stuff like this that explain why fark.com has a distinct category for it.
It’s not Bizarre, Amusing, Asinine, Sick, Stupid or Scary.
It’s just Florida, and that says it all.
As I used to say to my dear old mom, just before I took off running at warp speed:
If you’ve got complaints about kids today, just remember who raised them.
Those parents watched way too many sitcoms in the 70’s.
Haj
It would’ve worked on The Brady Bunch.
Maybe it’s the only way the old man could get his wife to go camping.
I thought she was on strike? Let the kid deal with it on his own then.
Completely IMHO, it’s probably this type of not following through that got them into trouble in the first place.
She probably made him a sandwich and cleaned up a bit to “console” him.
I bet the parents give up when the kids start starving and CPS steps in.
These parents are just fucked up. I feel sorry for the kids. Smiley Face charts?? WTF?
Besides, this lazy bitch is a “Stay At Home Mom” and she’s trying to get the kids to do all the chores? Holy Crap lady. If you were a working mom, I could see you asking your kids to help you out a little around the house. But you’re a stay at home mom. Your job IS THE HOUSE. You fucking clean the place and do the dishes. That’s your fucking job. That’s why you’re staying at home in the first place. It’s not to raise the kids. The kids are in school all day. If they see their own mother being so damn lazy, how are they suppossed to act?
“The dishes, garbage and dirty laundry would pile up for days when Cat and Harlan Barnard’s teenage children refused to do their chores.”
Are you fucking kidding me??? So this lazy bitch, who sits at home ALL DAY and obviously doesn’t do shit, just lets garbage and filth pile up in her home. Just so she can wait until the kids get home so she can bitch to them about it. That is some lazy shit and piss-poor parenting. Just sitting at home all day, frolicing in FILTH and blaming the children for it. Motherfuck!!!
The kids should be concerned with doing well in school and maybe some extracurricular activities. Coming home from school to their worthless mother just to be bitched at about the mess is ridiculous.
And considering the MOM is spending the most time at home. MOST of that mess if probably hers!! I wonder how many dishes she goes through making snacks and shit while she’s watching her “Stories” and Oprah. And then she expects her kids to come home and clean up after her? And she calls these “chores”? Fuck all that! She’s a lazy bitch. And I hope the kids get through this alright.
Hmmm.
I had a stay at home mom for most of my childhood, and you better bet your ass I was expected to do some of the chores around the house. Last time I checked, SAHM did not mean work like a slave so your kids and husband don’t have to do shit. It’s entirely appropriate for kids to help out around the house, even if their mother doesn’t have a traditional job.
I say something very similar to my parents anytime they make a comment about me or my behavior (mostly what a smart-ass I am): Well, you raised me to be this way!
TV?
So did I, and I did my chores, too. But my mom still kept the house clean. The chores weren’t for me to clean up the house, they were to teach me responsibility, which it sounds to me like neither of the parents in the OP’s story have.
Well, if you’ve got a 12 and a 17 year old who refuse to do things you tell them to do, you’re about 12 and 17 years to late to train them.
I’ll admit that my kids have gotten away with a lot in terms of doing chores. So has my husband. I am a housewife and I do the housework and cooking. But this was my choice, my feeling is that taking care of the house is my job. But when I tell the kids to do something, they do it. I have a daughter who is 17, and a son who is 18 – he’s in Boot Camp right now, so I’m going to go ahead and call him ‘raised’ – and neither of them has ever point-blank refused to do something we’ve told them to do. Neither has either of them ever been disrespectful to our faces – they’ve never called us names or sworn at us – even in the middle of an argument. Why? Because from their smallest they were raised to respect us and do what we tell them to do. The parents in that silly story remind me of many of my friends when our kids were little. My kids had naptimes, and mealtimes, and bedtimes and all of these were set by *us[/]. I think this kind of scheduling gives kids practice in how to obey. Friends used to ask me, “How do you make them go to bed at 7:30?” – this when the kids were 3 and 4! I found this astounding – If you can’t make a 4 year old go to bed, how the hell are you going to control a 17 year old? Which brings us full circle to the silly story above – this is what becomes of kids whose parents wouldn’t take the trouble to “make them” do anything when they were little.
I had a stay-at-home mom, too, and also had to do chores. She was kind of ill when we were younger, but before she got ill, I made the mistake once, just once, of telling her, “You don’t have a job, you’re just a stay at home mom. Why don’t you do these chores instead of me?” Riiiiight. She said, “How about we swap - I’ll go to school or classes for a day, and you’ll do what I do.” So, I said, sure. How hard could it possibly be to sit on the couch all day watching soaps and occasionally puttering around? I never, ever made the mistake of saying she was “just” anything after that. I busted my ass - all day, and still didn’t manage to do even half the things she did in the same amount of time. While I’m not advocating camping on your front lawn while your children do ALL the chores, I certainly think they should be made to learn responsibility by doing some of them.
And if you didn’t do the dishes for a week? They would just pile up in the sink while your mother bitched about it? I doubt it. If she was responsible, she’d make sure they were done.
And how is keeping the house clean, the same as working like a slave? Shit, if you’re a SAHM, what the fuck else do you have to do all day? If you’re this lady, apparantly it’s Make a Mess and lay in filth.
Oh, and if your husband is out working and making money and your kids are doing well in school and involved in other enriching activities, I’d hardly clasify that as “don’t have to do shit”.
If there is one working parent, one SAHP, and middle school aged kids, then I’d say they all had something to do. And the SAHP should be keeping the house clean, shopping, cooking and that sort of thing.
What the hell does this mom do all day if not CLEAN? Is she so busy with TV that she can’t throw in a load of laundry? Can’t spend 15 minutes doing the dishes.
When kids get home, the first thing the should do is homework and study. Not be bitched at about “chores”. Chore This Bitch! Do your own goddamn housework. Children are not slaves! They are not laborers. They’re not there to serve you.
Giving a child one or two things to do is one thing. Giving the trash, dishes, laundry and all the main sanitary responsibilities of the household to a preteen is fucking stupid and lazy.
Mowing the grass is a chore. Cleaning your bedroom is a chore.
Doing the dishes everyday, the laundry everyday, taking care of the trash everyday… this is WORK!! They’re not on a goddamn FARM. They’re in the freaking suburbs for cryin out loud!
A child should not be working. A child should be LEARNING. That’s why there’s laws against such things.
You know who should be working??? The fucking Parents!! And if one decides to stay at home all day. Then her fucking JOB is taking care of that house, and their living conditions. Leaving things unwashed and disgusting is not “teaching her children responsibility” it’s being lazy. She doesn’t want her kids to do chores, she wants them to do HER JOB.
Not having a traditional job, and having no job at all are two different things.
overlyverbose, exactly what kinds of things did she do all day, everyday that did not include cleaning around the house?
She chauffered us everywhere - to dance classes, music classes, etiquette classes, sports practices and events. Then there were the errands, lots and lots of errands. She was also heavily involved in our school programs, and provided local charities’ with some assistance, too. Plus, she was heavily involved in our neighborhood association, and met often with the group to discuss safety, cleanliness and the like with regards to streets, the nearby creek (a kid fell in there once and was injured), and other programs our small town put together for us kids. I was very lucky growing up because the parents in the neighborhood all knew each other and got together often to talk about their kids and to make the neighborhood a better place for us, not that it was all that bad to begin with - I grew up in rural Indiana.
The two things I can think of that she actually did for herself every once in a while were her book group, which met just once a month, and her bridge group, which met once every two weeks. She was a single mom, so, regardless of her work situation, she had a lot on her hands.
overlyverbose, I’m not trying to take anything from your mother, I’m just trying to understand. With that said:
With the exception of the charity work and some errands, all of that seems to take place after the kids get home from school and the father gets home from work. So one doesn’t need to be a SAHM to accomplish them. I’m assuming the neighborhood meetings were in the evening, to allow for the working parents to attend as well.
Most all school activities that involve parents helping out happen after school–except the occassional field trip.
No doubt she was a busy women and involved in your education and activities (IMO the most important thing a parent can do), but what did she do all day while you were at school and your dad was at work?
I don’t get paid for doing my laundry and taking out my trash, either. It ain’t nobody’s job. Its jus something you do. And if these kids are too lazy, then they need to be taught or shamed into it.
A butt-load of cleaning. And some of the school programs she helped out with were during the day - you know, things like holiday events and such. Also, the charity work she did kept her pretty busy. Especially when we were old enough to take care of ourselves, when she wasn’t sick she’d often go in to one of the charities she was involved with and work all day while we were gone.
And my Dad wasn’t around - my parents divorced when I was 2, so she had both of us all to herself. Lucky mom! 