Children: Your 'Staff' in the Real World

The lives of the rich and famous are very different than our own, even if US Magazine catches them getting coffee at Starbucks.  For one, they have more money and while it can't buy happiness, it can certainly make being unhappy much more comfortable and bearable.  For another, they have privileges that are far out of the realm of the real world. One of these privileges is "staff."

A quaint reminder of more gracious days gone by: the call button system in my stately home.These days all functions are filled by moi.

I can't afford paid staff: housekeepers and cooks and nannies and dog walkers and girl fridays. I don't even have a wife, (and I think all wives should have their own wife.)  But for those of us who can't hire help, the only alternative is to make our own. This is why we have children. From the time they can walk, they can be trained to fetch things. They can also do things like "Go wake up Daddy," "Go see what your sister is doing," and "Talk to Grandma."

Before you make the decision to grow your own staff, you really must evaluate your needs. If you live on a farm, you may wish to add a few more hands, but if you live in limited space in the city, one extra helper will probably suffice. If you have really grand plans, you might have to expand your staff. The Duggars must be exceptionally ambitious.

Never, ever, ever happening.  We've never been past 0. 

I am not yet at this point, but I hear that once they drive, they can take your place as taxi service and errand runner, with limited expeditions into grocery shopping. I am looking forward to the day when someone else can run to the store.  (With explicit instructions and limited funds.) And for those of you who had the foresight to have a 'starter baby' six or more years before you added another to your family, you are a genius. Built-in babysitter! While the rest of us have to shell out money to the person who let our kids eat two spoonfuls of macaroni and then followed up with a huge bowl of ice cream, you have a deputy tyrant willing to let your children suffer and go hungry rather than rewarding them in any way, shape or form. Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

I recently mentioned to a friend whose in-laws will be coming to town that she should use her kids, (two small boys who spend the majority of their day crawling and wrestling around on the floor,) to wipe/dust her baseboards. No woman who has to repeatedly tell her kid to get their face off the kitchen floor should ever have to bend down to dust her own baseboards. That's a job that is not only better suited to kids, (they are SO much closer to the work surface,) but also within the realm of their severely limited capabilities.

I say limited, because I have noticed that today's children seem to have less practical talents than children of my generation. OK, maybe it's just my kids, and I totally understand that's of my making. I must admit that it is far easier to just grab a rag and wipe a baseboard myself than to show the kids where the rags are (for the tenth time,) show them how to dampen it and squeeze it out, (for the tenth time,) and swipe it along the baseboard, thus removing whatever dust has made its home there. (For the tenth time.) But if I do it myself in a fraction of the time it would take them, they won't ever have the satisfaction of mastering it themselves, nor will they be able to add it to their repertoire of life-skills. As a parent, it's my duty to teach my kids how to do this in a manner that meets an acceptable standard. I certainly do NOT want to field the phone call 25 years hence from a panicked daughter who needs me to come over and clean because her mother-in-law is staying the weekend. *You are on your own, kid!* And although they currently seem to be incapable of grasping the intention, procedure and outcome of the task I can't help but hold the glimmer of hope that one day I will be able to ask them to do it and reap the rewards of my tutelage. (Never having to wipe baseboards again!)

Damn you, baseboards.

I hypothesize that once they master such a task, they could move on to something more complicated, but I've never actually been able to put this into practice. Their patience for doing a shitty job far outpaces my patience for redirecting them to do it again, and again, and again, until it reaches an acceptable standard. My children insist that they will never have to learn to do all the chores that I do, because by the time they are grown with children, there will be robots to do all that stuff, per the computer animation movies they watch. I really don't want to have to explain that I had high hopes for the same after seeing the Jetsons.

Mom: Did you finish clearing the table???
Kid: Yep.

When they 'do' dishes, items are loaded in impossible-to-clean configurations in the dishwasher, dirty dishes are left in odd places or on the table, and one can still identify what we had for dinner by inspecting the 'washed' pots.  At some point, I've got to be able to let it go and accept that I'll make something tomato-based in that pot the next time to get rid of the rest of it. And tell them they did a great job, so they can experience the satisfaction of a job well done. Whether or not you can stomach the quality of your off-springs' work is really just an exercise in Zen.

You must find the sweet spot between your distaste for doing the task, and your distaste for seeing it done poorly.  And let the thought of your kids dealing with your grandchildren comfort you.