Sounds like your mom kicks ass, unlike the lazy excuse for a mother in the OP’s link.
I think I don’t appreciate her as much as I should. We’ve definitely had our differences, and I’ve complained quite vocally about her snide comments and drinking here, but when I was little, she was always involved, and she made a monumental effort to prevent us from hating our father, who was never, ever there, and always found excuses to stay away.
Shit. I think I’m going to go call my mom.
I just don’t get it. WHY exile yourself? Send the little brats into the tent with some cold wieners and Tang, lock the door, and make wild monkey love in peace. But sticking yourself in the back yard, while the little ingrates get the TV, the fridge, the shower, etc., now that’s just stupid. Actually, rather than a tent, I would build a tree-house, very high up, with a removable ladder. A catapult system for launching occasional replenishments will provide a subsistence living for the kids, while you entertain yourself and improve your aim.
I disagree. I think if the PARENTS are too lazy, then they should be taught or shamed into it. No, fuck that. Someone should bitch-slap them.
That’s exactly correct! It’s something you (as an adult) have to do. This shouldn’t change just because you have kids. It’s like people think that just because their children are finally big enough to reach the sink, that their dish washing days are over.
“It’s something you do” and something you should always continue to do. It’s not something you do until your children are physically capable of doing it all for you.
Fuck that. I call that being lazy.
If a child was leaving dirty dishes around the house, or leaving clothes in the living room or creating big messes and not picking up after herself–that’s one thing. But apart from putting dirty plates in the sink or dishwasher, putting dirty clothes in the hamper or laundry room, and putting trash in the fucking trash can, I don’t see my people insist on making their kids do so much house work.
Mowing the grass I can see. Washing the dog, sure. Cleaning the bird/hamster cage. Feeding/walking a pet. These things teach responsibility. Using your children as free labor and calling it “chores” is bullshit. That’s not really teaching them anything. Honestly, do you really think it was all the chores you did as a kid that made you a responsible adult? Do you really think they were necessary?
Doing homework, studying, sticking to extracurricular commitments without quitting, turning in book reports and science projects on time. THAT teaches responsibility. Chores are overrated and are just an excuse for parents to be fucking lazy and bitch at their children!!
But obviously, when there are circumstances where the parent is too ill or too weak to do these things, or when there is only one parent or something, then that parent will need more help with things around the house.
But there is no reason why two perfectly healthy adults–especially when one of them doesn’t even have a fucking job–to make their kids do all the house work.
I’m somewhat confused about your attitude towards stay at home moms. I know that some people think it’s “easy” to not have to work and wish they could have this “cushy” job, but it’s NOT an easy job by any means. You expect the SAHM to clean the house, do the laundry, pay the bills, shuttle the kids, and then cook dinner for everyone when they come home, before falling into bed exhausted every night? Why does “stay at home” mean slave to you?
For the first few posts, I thought you were just being protective of the kids, maybe a little overly so, but with good intentions. Now, it is starting to seem that you feel that anyone who stays at home should be fully and totally responsible for any other human who lives in that house, and that’s not right. If I’ve misread your statements, I apologize.
What’s wrong with kids learning to do laundry? When I went to college I was amazed at the number of morons who didn’t even know how to operate a washing machine! What’s wrong with kids washing the dishes? If mom does all the cooking, why should she have to do all the cleaning as well? When does SAHM get a break in your eyes?
My parents wouldn’t have started living on the lawn if I’d have refused.
They’d have broke my back.
Really? There are laws against expecting your children to clean their rooms, wash dishes, or mow the lawn? I’m sure generations of Americans would be absolutely shocked to hear such a thing.
Frankly, I’ve got no idea what the dynamics are in the household mentioned in the OP. Obviously, they’ve been having some problems and they’re dealing with it in the way they want to. Live and let live, I say. However, I must note that your frothing, presumptive, and completely overblown posts to this thread strike me as completely ridiculous. Kids should help around the house because they are part of the family. Period.
No. There are laws against children working. So they can get an education and don’t get caught up working at age 6 so their parents can have more money. This is probably why I said “A child should not be working. A child should be LEARNING. That’s why there’s laws against such things.” Nice try though. :rolleyes:
Jaade, I don’t believe I’ve accussed SAHMs to have it “easy” or “cushy”. In fact, I’ve even referred to it as their “JOB”.
However, a SAHM who makes her children do all the house work? Exactly what the fuck is she doing all day. You seem to agree that a SAHM is a busy person. Busy with the cooking and cleaning and shuttling and such. Well if a SAHM is soo busy because of all the house work, then what is she when her kids do all the house work? IMO, lazy!
And if the child does not clean the dishes for a couple days straight, or take out the trash, then the mother should just let it pile up and bitch about it? “Helping” around the house does not mean “doing all the goddamn housework”. Period!
Oh cry me a fucking river. You could dinner and now you have to gasp wash the dishes? Woe is you.
I wasn’t going to play these “My mom is better than your mom” games, but fuck it.
My mother has worked full time since she was 14. When we were not yet school aged, she took care of us during the day and worked nights. When we started going to school during the day, she started working normal hours.
Even working over 40 hours a week, she found time to:
Take us to Football and Baseball every evening, and games on the weekends. And while other parents thought simply “dropping” off their children was a task worthy of praise from Parenting Monthly, my parents stayed until the end of practice. My mother enjoyed watching us, she would get involved in the organization–always Team Mom and that sort of thing. My dad, who also worked more than 40 hours a week, would either be an assistant coach or sometimes Head Coach.
Then we’d go homw and my mother would cook dinner. Then she would clean the fucking dishes. And then she would do laundry.
Oh… and lets not forget bills, school shopping, clothes shopping, grocery shopping, and all those errands that magically take up all the SAHM’s time.
These parents I see that demand their children do so much housework seem pretty fucking lazy to me. And it’s not that I have something against SAHMs but to listen to a SAHM talk about all the stuff she needs to do and how it’s “slave” work and how exhausted she is and how there just isn’t enough time. Fuck you. Somehow my mother found time to do all those things AND work. So that means a SAHM has an additional forty-something hours a week to take care of the things my mother did. And to hear people cry about that… well that is ridiculous. These are the real lazy people. Not the kids.
And someone who doesn’t know how to operate a washing machine is a fucking moron. That has nothing to do with whether their mother made them do all the laundry. The fucking directions are right there on the machine.
A person doesn’t need to do laundry everyday to learn to operate a washer and dryer. That’s lame.
I never washed clothes at home. Did I stare at my washer like a deer in the headlights when I got my first apartment? No. I just started to wash my clothes. It wasn’t that big of a fucking deal. Now that I’m on my own, I wash my clothes and clean and cook and all the shit that an adult does. And when I have kids, I’m not going to turn into a lazy shit and pawn off all my duties on them. Either I or my wife will make sure the house is clean and that housework is taken care of.
Want kids to help out a little around the house? Fine. But “help” doesn’t mean "all the house work. And though I don’t think it hurts a child to do some chores, it certainly doesn’t teach them anything. Except for how much doing chores sucks ass, and makes them understand why their parents don’t want to do it. Because it sucks.
Want to be a stay at home mom? Fine. But don’t act like the Major Feats you accomplish everyday are something amazing and praise worthy. SAHMs always act like they have something to prove. Who else tries to justify what they do everyday by explaining how damn busy they are. I’m sure there are pleanty of office people who were pretty damn busy and stressed all day too. And when they get home, they’ll have to drive their kids to soccer practice or some shit. You’re nothing special because you stay at home. Accept it.
I was not trying to say a SAHM is a lazy cushy easy job. But it’s certainly not up there on the top list of stressful, fast-paced careers.
But I WILL SAY, that a SAHM who bitches about lack of time, and brags about all the tasks she has to do all day, and then demands that her children come home from school and help her because she’s just got so much to do and she’s been busy all day… I will say that that SAHM is a lazy bitch.
I’m still amazed at the number of parents who let dishes just pile up in the sink and let the house go to shit and just sit on the couch and bitch to the kids about it. Get off your ass and clean your fucking house!!
Oh, and just to add:
When you’re a SAHM with an infant or baby under 5, that’s one thing. But after the kids start going to school, your busy stressful job isn’t quite as busy or stressful as it used to be.
So comparing a Sit-on-Her-Ass-at-Home mom with preteens to a Stay-at-Home-Mom raising and caring for toddlers is night and day when it comes to job description.
So SAHM doesn’t always mean the same thing.
You know,Bear_Nenno I somehow doubt that the kids in that article were devoting the time they didn’t spend doing the dishes etc. to learning.
And I may be mistaken, but I think I read that the mother in question had recently had surgery.
Perhaps she let the laundry and dishes pile up as a result or perhaps she let them pile up in an attempt to make a point.
Personally, I don’t see any reason why a 17 year old couldn’t do his own laundry or run a vacuum over the living room.
Not a good assumption, IMO, based on the first line:
The dishes, garbage and dirty laundry would pile up for days when Cat and Harlan Barnard’s teenage children refused to do their chores.
(bolding mine)
It could have easily read
The dishes, garbage and dirty laundry piled up for days while Cat Barnard recovered from oral surgery.
But it didn’t say that. So I’m thinking that any time the kids refused to do chores, the dishes would pile up. And I’m betting they got done days later only because the children finally washed them. Not because the mother got sick of the filth.
Possible. If true, then she is a damn moron. Why let the sanitation of your home suffer just to prove a point to your kids. That’s as idiotic as living outside in your driveway just to prove a … oh, right. This lady is a total Fuckwit!!
Agreed. But I think that a mom who cries about her teenager not doing “enough” around the house is a lazy bitch.
Whenever I’d do things around the house, my mother always thanked me for it. The norm seems to be that kids never get thanked, rather, they are bitched at when they don’t do anything. But no praise is given when they do.
My mother never asked for us for help. And she definitely never DEMANDED it from us. As a kid, I’d see my friends being cussed at by their folks because the chores weren’t done. When I asked my mother about what chores I have, she said that all I needed to worry about was doing well in school, getting a higher education, and staying out of trouble. And that once I was old enough, I’d have the rest of my life to do housework. So no need to start at 9.
She actually starting washing dishes at 4 or 5. Standing on stacked milk crates cleaning after a half dozen siblings.
Oral Surgery. Probably just had a tooth pulled. We already tell this lady is an attention whore based on these shenanigans. And it’s my opinion that she’s a lazy, whiny, fuck too. Based on that, I’m betting she’s trying to make things sound worse than they are. And “recovering from oral surgery” just means she had a tooth pulled last week.
Horse Shit.
Children are only doing chores, not holding down a 9-5 job like your leading us to believe. Even the high-school kids get school credit when they have a job after school hours. This is NOT against the law. Skipping school to work IS against the law. Do not even lead us to believe that chores are being done in lieu of school. That was never the case with anyone here.
Do not confuse chores with actual work.
Ooops. Taken out of context…my bad.
Bear_Nenno, do you have an office job? If your supervisor gives you a project to work on, and you don’t get it done, will your supervisor complete that project for you? Of course not. So why on God(dess)'s green Earth would you expect a mother to do a job that she’s given to the kids, just because they’re being a bit stubborn about their chores?
If she caves and does the chores, she’s sending her kids the message, “Don’t worry about your responsibilites, because there’ll always be someone there to pick up the slack for you.” Leaving the dishes where they lie helps demonstrate that in the real world, if these young adults don’t do the work they’re responsible for, it won’t get done at all.
Granted, this particular mom probably wasn’t thinking things out that well, but I think your suggestion that she should just suck it up and do her kids’ chores for them is absurd.
If my supervisor sat on his ass all day eating Bon-Bons, watching his “shows” and in general not doing his job, and then got pissed at me because I didn’t do his shit in addition to my own, I’d look for other work. Unfortunately these kids don’t have that luxury.
Bear_Nenno, you’re completely correct on this one. Keep up the good fight, even if it turns into a pile-on…
Maybe the kids are being punks, but the way you deal with it it by taking way priveleges, punishments, and most importantly by clearly explaining that certain levels of involvement and responsibility for family areas as well as their own bedrooms are a requirement for being a part of the family.
Embarassing yourself and your family with stupid fucking histrionics like camping out on the driveway is not the way to deal with shit like this. Every day I become more and more receptive to parenting tests to stop the government mandated Depo-Provera shots.
Bear_Nenno, this is a whoosh, right? Right? RIGHT?!?
First off, I’d like to see a cite which indicates that these parents want their kids to do ALL the chores, while the mom sits and does nothing. The impression I’ve got from the cite given on this thread was that the kids were doing jack shit. Weren’t doing what would be considered a typical amount of chores (for many families).
No, a kid shouldn’t have to do all the work—they’ve got schoolwork and other activities to do—but damn. It sounds like they’re doing close to nothing, and yes, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing some laundry, the dishes, doing stuff around the house. My mom was a stay-at-home mom when I was little, and while I was still kind of too young to do too many chores when she was home, my older sisters sure did. Washed the dishes, sure. Mowed the lawn, sure. Cut the damned fricking hedge, sure. Laundry, check. Vacuum, definitely. We were lazy little slackers, but we did do it if she shrieked enough.
One of my friends works at JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and if she isn’t literally a rocket scientist, she works in that area. She went to MIT. There are certain types of washing machines she doesn’t know how to operate. She’s quite brilliant, and generally, quite practical. I think she had an emotional block against that type of machine, and would have learned eventually. But the fact is, this probably-rocket-scientist doesn’t know how to operate certain types of washing machines.
Well, this explains your whole outraged attitude. You didn’t wash clothes at home, so for other parents to expect that of their kids is beyond outrageous? That’s hilarious. (And you say that both your parents worked fulltime jobs, but you never did laundry? I may not know your whole family situation, but judging from your bizarre attitude on this thread . . . well, I think that this explains a whole lot. :eek: )
How much is a “little”? With this family, at least, it sounds like “none.”
I’d still like to know where this is reported. If this is the case, literally—where the mom does NOTHING and the kids are expected to do everything, then I agree—that’s way too much. But it doesn’t sound like that is the case.
You speak for all kids and all families, everywhere? I don’t think so.
Neither are parents.
Same goes for the parents. They don’t have to do the kids’ laundry, do the kids’ dishes. The kids are old enough to do those things themselves. The dad slaves all day to put food on the table, to feed those little ungrateful slackers, the least they can do is clean up after themselves. They’re certainly old enough. Both of them.
YOU’RE KIDDING, RIGHT? Are dishes that horrible that a 12-year-old can’t do them? Give me a frickin’ break. How stupid do you think 12-year-olds are, anyway? Same goes for laundry. Show them how to use the machine, and they will do fine. Shit, they can use a computer, but they’re too immature to know how to wash dishes or do laundry? You’ve got to be kidding me.
Nope. Because I’m an adult. Not a 12 year old. And if I didn’t wash my clothes and if I didn’t do the dishes, they would pile up. And I wouldn’t expect anyone else to do them. Not my boss, not my mom, and not my kids (when I get them) Things are different for me now that I’m not a child anymore.
Your analogy is flawed. Big time.
You are comparing the responsibilities of an adult with a career to those of a 12 year old in middle school.
What’s next? Shall you make a statement comparing a baby not changing his dirty diaper to me forgetting to press my BDUs for inspection?
When I lived with my parents, I hardly had any jobs to do around the house. My mom stayed at home, and pretty much did it all for me.
I really wish she had given me more chores to do, and increased my household workload as I got older. This would have done a much better job of preparing me to run my own house. I swear to you, a few weeks ago I shamefacedly asked her to tell me how the hell to keep my house clean and running smoothly (I’m 31 and have a 17 month old). It would have been easier to learn these things gradually as a grew up, rather than being waited on for 17 years, then getting every chore dumped on me at once when I moved out.
Also, sometimes there is a good reason to assign a chore to a kid, and it is in no way laziness by the SAHM. The one thing I did have to do for myself as a teen was my own laundry, since I was constantly bitching about the way my mom did it. She finally (wisely) told me if I wanted things washed in a certain way, and wanted certain outfits clean on certain days, I should do it myself.
(FTR, I don’t agree with punishing other family members when one person fails in their chores, such as letting dirty dishes pile up in the communal kitchen.)
You do know what the word “and” means, right? It’s a conjunction, and when you use it to join a series of conditions it means that your statement is applying to all of those conditions. So if, for example, someone says: “I think people who buy their children socks and beat them with two by fours are horrible parents”, that person is saying that if someone buys their child socks in addition to beating them with a two by four, they’re a horrible parent. That person is not saying “I think people who buy their children socks are horrible parents.”
Perhaps you’re confusing “and” for “or”??? 