I’ll never forget a drawing Ben made of me when he was in kindergarten. It showed me vacuuming the floor. The caption read, “My mom likes to… vacuum.” When the picture came home in Ben’s backpack, I stared at it. I laughed. And then I cried.
No, I didn’t cry. But I did tell Ben that there’s a difference between the chores people have to do and the activities that bring them pleasure. The distinction I was trying to make was utterly lost on his six-year-old self.
But at ten, he gets it. He sees that homework stands between him and the video games he dearly loves. Some of that homework is relatively painless to complete (for example, he enjoys math), but some of it is most assuredly a chore. And how he handles it is to race through it as quickly as he can in order to be done with it.
So my current challenge as a parent, as I perceive it, is to help him understand that the act of seeing something through to the end, of doing it well even if it’s less than inspiring, has its own rewards. I may not enjoy vacuuming, but I do appreciate the end result: cleaner floors. If, that is, I haven’t rushed through the chore.
I’m not sure that he’s yet understood this more subtle point – that even an onerous job can be intrinsically rewarding, that there’s value in a task well done, whatever it may be. But I think it’s one of the more important lessons that kids can learn, so I’m not giving up.
At least Ben has the first part of my lesson down pat. I know this because when yesterday my younger son announced at the dinner table that he thought vacuuming was the most fun EVER, Ben snorted before saying, “Jack, that’s only because you don’t have to do it every week.”
It was all I could do not to stand up and applaud. I forbore, because I saw a chance to kill two birds with one stone.
“Jack,” I inquired in my sweetest voice, “would you like to do the weekly vacuuming instead of me from now on?”
Photo graciously provided by MildlyDiverting, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved
5 responses so far ↓
Heather // Jun 5, 2008 at 1:14 pm
You’re one smart woman. Hope you get some time off from vacuuming that way.
My daughter assumed until recently that if you were a mom, you couldn’t also be a doctor or police woman, etc.
It’s funny how their innocent minds work sometimes.
catnip // Jun 5, 2008 at 2:01 pm
That’s too funny. If my boy drew a picture of me doing anything, I’m sure it would be of me sitting on the couch with my computer on my lap!
Kristen // Jun 5, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Awesome!
That is something I have been working really hard to get through to them this year. Inner motivation and reward. The intrinsic value of a job well done… They could care less.
amy y // Jun 5, 2008 at 4:51 pm
You, my friend, are a brilliant woman. Let me know how that works out for you!
My boys are itching to mow the lawn… Coincidentally, we just bought a man powered (eco~friendly) lawn mower, that would be safer for them to try out than our old gas powered one. I think I might just have to let them!
woman in a window // Jun 5, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Ah, the timeliness of this…I’m sitting on a post about vacuuming…how weird is that? These roles that our kids see us in…how they define us…my son just dug his shoes into the rug after a good rain. He did a real grind into it to CLEAN his shoes…you should see the rug now, though!
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