Responsibilties

We had to have a meeting over the weekend with Allie & Katya about household responsibilities. Alex was at work on Saturday and so I was the chore nazi, except that my phone died on me and I lost all my contact info so I was really not in the mood to follow the girls around and keep reminding them that they needed to get their chores done. So, I let Katya continue to pout (it usually takes at least 30 minutes for her to get over pouting after she gets her list of chores but sometimes she can go for a long time) for several hours without bugging her. I'm not sure what Allie was doing, except that she wasn't watching TV, playing the computer, or video games because she hadn't done her chores either.

The girls have started wearing makeup which is OK as long as when we tell them that they have too much on they go and wash it off. Well, Katya put on a ton of blue eye shadow and I really didn't care until she decided that she was going to go outside - at which point I told her that she needed to wash some of the makeup off. She replied "no" and I told her that if she didn't go and wash off some of the makeup I was going to throw it away to which she replied "it isn't mine". I find this story comical now because I think it really shows how much English Katya understands - enough to sass me back with a very good reply because the makeup really isn't her's (it's Allie's!) - but at the time I was steaming mad and told her very firmly (and angrily) that she had better get in the house and wash the makeup off! To her credit, she did go into the house (loudly stomping - of course) and she did wash the makeup off and then stayed in her room and pouted for the rest of the afternoon while I tried desperately to restore my contact stuff on my phone (to no avail). Meanwhile, Allie decided to do her chores only because I wouldn't let her go to her friend's house until she was done. By the time Alex got home, I was pretty mad at both girls!
So we had a family meeting on Sunday morning. I read in a book that if you made a list of the things that needed to be done in the household and then let the kids pick some of their chores, that gives them a little sense of control. So I made a list of chores, including chores that Alex and I had to pick from (that we don't really want to do either!), and it was going OK until Katya picked "mowing the lawn" and got mad when we told her that Alex had to help her (as if we would let an eleven year-old girl, who doesn't even know what a lawn mower is, operate it on her own!). In the end, we assigned her most of her chores. Oh well! I told the girls that the chores were completely their choice but that the choice to not do them would come with consequences, including not getting paid, not getting to watch TV, etc. and that when they come and ask us to do something we would probably not be too motivated to say yes. I also told them that I really didn't care how the chores got done (i.e. if they wanted to pay the other person to do them or con one of their friends into doing them) except that if I did them that they would have to pay me. We'll see how it goes. Katya pouted about them for a little but did do most of them, including cleaning out the guinea pig's cage. I had warned her that if she wanted to keep Shadow as a pet that she had better clean out his cage by the end of the day or I would assume that she no longer wanted a pet guinea pig and find him a new home :)

Sometimes parenting can be so exhausting! I was talking to one of my co-workers the other day and we were discussing how much easier it is for you to just do the stupid chores yourself, which is probably why a lot of parents give up. However, how will your kids ever learn responsibility? -sigh