Admittedly, I have done a disservice to my oldest-P, by doing waayyyy more for him than I should have. My philosophy was that part of the way I show I love him is by making sure to cater to his every whim. Now he’s 12 and here is the conversation we just had yesterday morning….
“I can’t cut these pancakes, there too hard.” P whines.
“You can cut them. Use the pizza cutter if you have to.” I say.
Audible gasps of frustration come from P like he is just so disgusted that not only am I making him get his own breakfast but cutting them too? This is simply unheard of.
“You know I swear to God, your little brother is going to walk through the front door having just killed his breakfast. He’ll walk through the hallway,” I began to imitate someone walking with a huge load on their shoulder. “With a deer slung over his shoulder, plop it down on the stove and fry it up!”
This made him laugh but it’s true. Take for instance earning money. The oldest one was looking to make money and here’s how things played out…..
“Mom, I need to make some money. Can you give me some chores I can do to earn some?”
“Sure,” I said, impressed with him FINALLY taking initiative. “Let’s see, we really need to clean out the front closet so $5 to clean it out.”
He looked at me as if I had just offered $5 to mow every single one of the 226 lawns in our neighborhood.
“$5 dollars?” He scoffed. “$5 dollars?” He rolled his eyes. “How ’bout 10?”
The negotiations had started.
“10? Are you crazy? That closet is so small it will take you 30 minutes tops to clean it out.”
“Forget it!” My son said and walked away.
“I’ll do it,” My 8-year-old pipped up.
“You will? Cool. Have at it buddy!”
And below is a pic of C taking the bull by the horns and earning $5 for a 30 minute job.
Like my 401K, I’ve got some making up to do with my oldest. I’m trying VERY hard to teach him life skills now like laundry and not putting plastic cups on the bottom of the dishwasher.
Conversation 20 minutes ago…..
This is the conversation I had with my 12-year-old at 6:40 a.m., at the bus stop (an ungodly hour I might add).
“So you’ll power wash tonight for $20?” I asked.
“Yep! Dad said it would take the whole day.” He said, rolling his eyes.
“He’s ridiculous. It’s not going to take you all day, like 2 hours.”
Again, he looked at me as if I just told him Puppymonkeybabies were real.
“$20 for 2 hours?”
“Are you kidding me right now? That’s $10 an hour.”
“But I didn’t think it would take that long.”
“Oh really? How long did you think it would take you and while were on the subject, how much do you think that job is worth?”
“I don’t know, maybe 45 minutes to an hour.” He responds.
“Your not a doctor. $10 an hour is way more than minimum wage not to mention your 12. So you’re not going to do it?”
“No.”
And sure enough, I decided to do a little experiment. I told my youngest about this exchange and the results are what I thought:
Like my 401k, I’ve got some catchin’ up to do with my oldest and teaching him independence and the value of the dollar. Ugh!
At least you’ve started to teach him. Take it from me, don’t wait until your kid is in his 20s before you tell him life isn’t cheap…
…they throw MUCH bigger fits at that age.
Oh Lord…how in all that’s holy, possible? I just can’t….
It would take forever to explain. But that he currently has a cut-off date and things change for him then.
Oh wow! Well that is for the best in the long run!
It is.
If I pushed like I knew I should have done, it would not have lasted this long. Trust me on that.
Hot damn! I would have LOVED to get paid to do chores when I was younger!! If my parents told me to do something, I did it; no questions asked. Weeding the flower bed, scrubbing the side of the house by hand, cutting down limbs and dragging them across 2 acres to the burn pile… I was raised with the mindset of parents have children to use as free labor… then again, I grew up in farm country…
Your oldest is going to have quite the shock when he enters the workforce and expects to be paid $20/hour. Hell, I work for the state and I roughly make, $15/hour (salary)! My suggestion would be to have him start paying part of the utilities and food he uses to give him a better idea of typical living costs. Then maybe he won’t be so stingy when it comes to financial opportunities.
Yeah…no idea what so ever what he thinks is going to happen in the real world. The thing that really gets him is when lil’ bro has more money than him!
Hilarious. So, he really doesn’t want to work for the money? Your youngest is hilarious. He’ll kill the meat, sling it on his shoulders and cook it for the family? That’s talent. I get it though. I think most parents are like that with their first born.
Yeah, first born are always a little (or a lot) less independent than the second. And yes, my youngest child would win Survivor- School Age.
I think this is the exact same in my family!! LOL when I was 15 I got my first part time job and have been working ever since. My brother didn’t get a job until after grade 12 because he did co-op that year and was hired on for the summer afterwards. If I quit a job and didn’t have another one lined up, I got a talking to. My brother did cadets so he didn’t need a job. He would borrow money to go to the movies and keep the change. I always brought back what wasn’t used. I think it set me up better for life. I’m not sure if it was because I was the youngest, and/or the only girl, but I resented it at the time. I’m thankful for it now.
Also thankful that I’m raising 4 kids now so that if/when I have my own, it’ll be like my 5th child. Think of how that’s going to go?! HAHA 6 months old and will be changing their own diapers haha
Exactly!! That kid will be so independent!
Lol well if I ever have a child we will have to check and see how it goes!
Lol!!
I pay my 5 year old an hourly rate based on the minimum wage minus a £2 (£3.60) thankfully his motto seems to be get it done right and quickly, so far anything is costing me £1.60 a week. Maybe I should give him more to do, so I can sit on the sofa,
So I think that is around $4 in the states? No? Not a bad living for a 5-year-old!
Apparently its $4.78. He makes a good living. Although that is cheap apparently, I personally thought it was very generous
Umm…very generous for that age!
I may give him a paycut
Although to be fair to him, he normally only gets £1.50 a week
I’m really surprised by this I would’ve thought it would be the other way round. My friends and I are the eldest and we would do chores etc (not for money usually) and we all got jobs as soon as we were 16, our younger siblings don’t do chores, get pocket money anyway and haven’t got jobs (even though they’re old enough now).
It’s because as new parents, we do probably a little more than we should for the first born because we don’t know any better. That is my guess.
Hey, send the little guy over to my house! I’ll give him $50 to clean the whole thing! Ha!
And he would clean your entire house for $50! Hell, he’d probably do it for $25!
totally relate to this. Our 18 year old is next to useless and I often wake up on weekends to find the six year old scrubbing showers and stuff looking to make money
And I feel horrible it’s this way because now I’m like, is the oldest going to have 0 ambition going out into the world? I feel like I’ve done a real diservice to him.