An Unexpected Gift

Can I tell you about one of the best days of my life?

It was sometime around February of 2006. My three children were 10, 7, and 4 years old. I was newly pregnant with kid #4 (SURPRISE!), and I was cooking dinner for the family like I did every night. "Morning sickness" was striking again right at dinnertime. It was all I could do to get the meal cooked and to fall on the couch in the family room AWAY from the smells.

Apologizing to my husband for not being able to sit at the table with the family, I laid on the couch waiting until the meal was over to get up and clean the kitchen. When the diners had concluded their meal, I began to get up and drag myself to the sink.

Before I could move my #1 husband looked in and said, "Stay where you are. We've got it." I insisted that I was fine (not true) and that I could clean up, but he demanded that I lie back down because he was manning the KP duty. Feeling guilty, puzzled, ecstatic, and grateful all at the same time, I dutifully obeyed wondering what I would find undone later.

You see, my husband was in there "training" my children to clean the entire kitchen including wiping the table, sweeping, and taking out the trash. I must admit that I was more than a little skeptical about how this would turn out, but they did a beautiful job.

Ok, so that's great, but how is that one of the best days of my life? It was amazing because FROM THAT DAY ON, my children cleaned up after dinner. Following a couple of nights being supervised by Dad, they were on their own! "Weren't they too young to be saddled with this responsibility?" Absolutely NOT. AND this has been going on for 11 years!!! WOOOOOHOOOOOO!

So you may be thinking that I must be an incredibly lazy person to let my kids do all of the dishes all of the time. Well, I said the dinner dishes. Nobody mentioned the breakfast and lunch dishes. And the laundry, and the cooking, and the cleaning, and the tutoring, and the bathing etc., etc., etc. Believe me I had plenty of other chores to do, but I must admit that I slowly started working myself out of various household jobs from that day on.

Why? Because I wanted to teach my kids about responsibility. I wanted to teach them to do things on their own, to become independent, to become successful adults. God gave the very first man, Adam, a job in the Garden of Eden ("The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." Gen. 2:15) where everything was perfect, so working is something that God planned for us to do! I was discipling my children to work.

Growing up on a farm, there was always PLENTY to do. I had two older brothers and one sister and we all worked pretty hard, but my brothers worked the hardest. Just seeing them come in from the field dirty, sweaty, dehydrated and exhausted, I KNEW I had it easy.

'Easy' included washing dishes, doing laundry, shelling peas, shucking corn, cleaning house, cooking, polishing silver, raking leaves, picking up sticks, washing cars and anything else my mother and father came up with! Did I love it? Not exactly. Did I resent it? No. I knew that as part of a family I was expected to pull my own weight.

My family needed me to help with the millions of things that had to get done over the course of my childhood. And you know what? It gave me a sense of self-respect that I could be of value to myself and others. It taught me that feeling of giving that cannot be duplicated.

Remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive." Acts 20:35

When I got married, I remember being relieved when it came to household chores. I'd been cooking and cleaning and doing laundry from the time I was young. Working was not unusual to me, so keeping house was a pretty natural transition. Now being married-- that's a different blog! I was grateful that my parents had provided opportunities for me to work so that I could give these gifts to my husband and family instinctively and ungrudgingly.


Motivating children to work

Okay, back to my kids. So how did I motivate my kids to do household chores when they were young? Oh, I know you thought they were so thrilled about working that they always did everything on time- whistling while they worked, right? Hardly! We did EXPECT them to do these chores without a reward, and don't think it was beneath me to quote 2 Thes. 3:10 occasionally. ("If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.") 

But to keep them on track we had the handy dandy chore chart with only a pittance for accomplishing the tasks which included making beds, picking up toys, setting table, doing dishes, taking out trash, dusting, sweeping, etc. Keeping charts did a couple of things. It was a visual reminder of the expectations. It included instant gratification with each star earned for a completed job. It ended in a monetary reward which THEY controlled! (How exciting for a kid?!)

Yes, charts have to be kept until a pattern is established, but they work. Also, kids want to please their parents, and believe me I was thrilled when they racked up stars. Verbal praise is also a fantastic motivator.


Getting rid of the "Gimmes"

At one point my husband decided that the kids needed to go through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace, Jr. course. Having learned many monetary lessons the hard way, we wanted to disciple our children in good money management. I wasn't convinced that we really needed to go to this extreme, but it turned out to be a wonderful learning tool.

This approach promotes GIVING which is unfashionably refreshing. Putting God first in our finances is something we all need to practice. For young children with the "Gimmes" who think that they deserve everything that they see and most things that they don't, it educates them on the value of a dollar. (Or in our case, a dime.)

So, the kids would take the small amount they earned from their chore charts and divide it into three envelopes labeled Giving, Saving, and Spending--in that order. They learned to set goals for things in which they wanted to save which was amazing for the ones whose money usually burned a hole in their pocket. It also taught them how many chores they would have to do to buy that "must-have" toy at Walmart.

At one point the older two, both under 12 years old, pooled their savings and bought an Xbox! (Discussion of pros and mostly cons of this device in upcoming posts.) I look back now and think, "Wow!" That would have never happened if we hadn't deliberately discipled them about work and money management.

When we hand our children everything they need and want, we are robbing them of so many wonderful opportunities to learn about work ethic, the value of a dollar, perseverance, patience, responsibility, giving, independence, success, and self-respect. When we give, give, give to our children without requiring their contribution, we are fostering a sense of entitlement whether intentionally or not.

If our kids are not expected to pull their own weight or to learn to enjoy meeting their own needs as well as the needs of others, how will they handle the real world when Mommy isn't there to wait on them or when the boss demands productivity? When we look around at recent events happening on college campuses, I think we can undeniably see the end result.


A Gift for All

Consider what King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, said about work in Ecclesiastes 3.

1 "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: 2 a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, 3 a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, 4 a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, 5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, 6 a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, 7 a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, 8 a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. 9 What do workers gain from their toil? 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. 13 That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God... 22 So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?" Eccl. 3:1-13, 22


Work is a part of our earthly life. It was created by God in the Garden of Eden. Since God created it then it is good, and finding satisfaction in work is a gift from God.  I Tim. 4:4 says, "Since everything God created is good, we should not reject any of it but receive it with thanks." This is one way we disciple our children, by showing them the work that God has given us to do and by being satisfied and thankful for His gift. Dear Lord, please help us to always be thankful for the work you have given us.

I know, sometimes it may seem like too much effort to keep up with charts and envelopes and constant correction while waiting for a positive outcome. You may say, "It's just faster if I do it," "But they don't do it right," "I'll have to come behind them," "They'll have to come back and fix it," or "They complain too much." To that I say-- I HAVEN'T DONE THE DINNER DISHES IN 11 YEARS!!!