And thus commenced a great lesson about work. First he asked me to give him a chore worth $50. Yeah, I don't think so. I explained to him that the people working at McDonald's - working really hard (and I should know because I worked plenty of fast food) - make around $5 for a whole hour of work (after taxes). He moaned and whined and then finally got serious about working.
Every day since school was out Joseph did his daily chore and then came to me wanting a list of "for money" chores. At first it was easy for me to come up with chores. Vacuuming, dusting, bathroom cleaning, etc. Pretty soon I had to get creative and find some deep cleaning chores which usually get neglected. So, I gave him the chance to clean out the refrigerator, clean the baseboards, clean the doors and trim around the doors through the house, etc.
Finally, he was down to $10 left until his goal. I brilliantly thought to have him scrub out all the garbage cans in the house for $5. He enthusiastically agreed, and rounded up all the cans and lined them up outside on the grass.
Then he spent an hour scrubbing each can inside and out. And some of those cans were downright nasty. Our garbage cans are seriously sparkling now.
But, that left $5 more to earn. And, to be perfectly honest, I was exhausted by this point. Because most of these big chores required the Mama to be present to teach and instruct and direct the process. I really appreciated the chance to teach my youngest child how to do a variety of hard chores, but I was really tired of deep cleaning my house every day. It just wasn't really on my list of how I wanted to spend my summer. After all, I have a whole stack of books I could and should be reading.
So, I had an even more brilliant idea. The prior day we had driven all the way to Clackamas (half an hour away) to run an errand, and we stopped by Great Harvest bread. Yummm. We had two varieties of delicious bread on our counter, so I told him that if he ate just one bite of one of the breads - Honey Whole Wheat or White with Tillamook Cheddar Cheese - he could earn the last $5. Wow - that is quite a deal, isn't it? I wish someone would pay me to eat delicious things!
Oh, the drama. The tears and lamentations. The deep sobs as Joseph lay prostrate on the ground, insisting that eating a bite of the bread was way too hard for just $5. We told him that he seriously didn't need to eat the bread, and could choose instead to wait till the next day to do one more big chore to earn the money.
Finally, after almost an hour, he dragged himself over to counter and dramatically choked down one bite of the white bread (a bite with no cheese). And Dan drove to Target at 9:45 p.m. to buy the video game.
And that is a glimpse into life at our house. Where cleaning garbage cans is preferable to bread.
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