Make the Children Partners in the Housework
It is little short of criminal the way many parents permit their children to grow up helpless and inefficient, while the parents themselves are worn to the breaking point, doing alone what should be done in partnership with the children. The following story, told by Ida C. Bailey-Allen, in the Country Gentleman, is so much to the point that I give it entire, hoping every one who reads it may profit by it:— “It was four o’clock Saturday afternoon when Mrs. Sherrod rapped on Mrs. Brown’s screen door. From within came the spicy odor of baking cookies and the clatter of dishes, which bespoke a day’s work as yet unfinished. In a moment or two Mrs. Brown emerged from the kitchen, tired and obviously much embarrassed. “I am glad enough to see you, Mrs. Sherrod,” she began, “and as long’s you’ve seen my dirt I don’t care; but I do declare I can’t see how in the world you’re12so smart. You look as fresh and cool in that pretty gingham as though you had nothing to do. Now you’re here, I’ve got an excuse to sit down, and here’s a cool spot by the vines. O you’re not interrupting! The housework will wait, and I’m not going to let you go home till you tell me how you manage to do your work so easy.” “Mrs. Sherrod opened a work bag and took out her tatting. ‘I’ll sit here awhile and talk till you’re rested, and then I’ll help you finish up,’ she said. ‘As to my work, well, the truth of it is I don’t do it,—not alone,—for the children help me. We’re in company; I’m the president, and they’re the stockholders, and we do it together. You see, when you’re a stockholder you have shares, and our shares are to do parts of the housework. We exchange every week with one another, and try a new line. This prevents grinding out work, you see. We have dividends, too,’ she continued, catching up a thread; ‘one is a grand good time once a week. In summer it’s a picnic or camping out, in winter a candy pull or a good story read aloud. Then the children are never interrupted during playtime, and the one that works the quickest is given a dozen eggs or something else that will sell.’” “Mrs. Brown’s tired eyes brightened. ‘But don’t they quarrel over the amount of time it takes to do the work?’ “‘That’s a problem I’ve had to figure out,’ Mrs. Sherrod answered thoughtfully, ‘and at last I’ve settled it by planning an hour’s daily schedule for each child. O, yes, they disagree sometimes!’ she added, ‘and then I step in as president of the company and ask them to do the work on schedule time, and they always finish in an hour.’” “‘How did you ever happen to think of this plan?’ Mrs. Brown asked. “‘Well, the necessity dates back a good many years—to my own girlhood,’ Mrs. Sherrod explained. ‘When I was about seven years old, Rachel Joyce and I used to visit her grandmother quite often. One day she said to us, “Girls, how would you like to learn to make gingerbread?” Well, Rachel and I had been crazy to learn to cook, but our mothers were too busy “to bother,” they said. I’ll never forget that day. We couldn’t reach the table, so we stood on boxes. First of all, we learned the recipe: One cupful of sour cream, one cupful of molasses,—the same old ingredients we all use,—then we sifted and measured, and at last it went into the pans, with a little sample cake for each of us. Well,’—Mrs. Sherrod sat upright in her enthusiasm,—‘gingerbread was never so good; but somehow mother didn’t seem to understand that I would like to learn something else, for whenever I asked her to show me, she said she was too busy, and I spent most of my time washing dishes. How I hated it, week in and week out!’ “‘When I was married,’ she went on, ‘I couldn’t even bake a pie or cut out the little clothes for the first baby, and I hated housework. So I decided to teach my children how to do it from the beginning, so that they wouldn’t hate it as I did. You remember that box covered with red calico that stands in the sitting room? Well, that was the toy box, and when Johnny was only two, he played he was an expressman taking things to the station. “‘The Christmas Mary was four, father and the boys made her a doll house out of a big packing box. I papered the walls. We made the furniture and planned it completely, even to the sheets for the doll’s bed. The first thing Mary did was to put her dolly into it; and when she took her out, I declare if she didn’t turn the sheets back to air! The school-teacher told me it was the instinct of imitation; all children have it, and I find it’s a help in teaching them. Right then and there I showed her how to make the bed. Whenever her dollies had supper, Mary had real food for the table, and she learned to wash their dishes. Then came sweeping and dusting. Finally one day when she was seven she said, “Mamma, let me set the table.” “All right, daughter,” I said; “let’s see how well you can do it.” I must say that I trembled for my dishes, but she didn’t break one, because she was used to handling things. That’s the secret in teaching them—they must learn to use their hands first. “‘Well, later on, as the children grew older, we imagined all sorts of work games; for a while we played brownies, then it was fairies, and now it’s the company. At first it was a bother and sometimes I was almost discouraged, but I held on because I wanted them to learn for themselves the value of order and the usefulness of work. “‘When the boys were ten and twelve, they caught the camping-out craze. I let them go to the lake for a week with the rest of the boys, and do you remember how they came back? Johnny lost pounds of flesh, and Thomas had indigestion so’s he could hardly walk; all because of the indigestible stuff they’d eaten. “I don’t want ever to go again,” Tom said, “till I’ve learned to cook.” The girls had started in long before, but somehow I’d thought cooking wasn’t for men. But as they wanted to have lessons, we started in,—first, cereals, then eggs and cocoa,—and each week the boys camped out for a few hours at least, and cooked the things they’d learned.’” The Stockholders Take a Stand
“‘One day,’ continued Mrs. Sherrod, ‘Mary came into my room and said, most importantly: “Madam President, the stockholders think you should have a day of rest each week, so they’re going to get the Sunday dinner. It’s all right about Sunday school,” she went on; “we’ll fix the vegetables before we go.”’” “‘Just then Mrs. Brown interrupted: ‘It takes me an hour a day just to pick up,’ she complained. ‘But before you go I want to inquire after your back.’ “‘O, it’s much better, thanks to Johnny! I found kneading bread was irritating it, and a month ago Johnny undertook to do it all. I’m feeling much better, thank you. “‘But if you want children to be orderly, you must give them the things to do with. You can’t expect a little boy to hang up a towel till he has one of his own and a low hook that he can reach, or a girl to keep a bureau drawer in order that she shares with her sister. As to housework, you must provide utensils suited to them. Now, ten-year-old Queen can’t use a big broom, so I have a lighter one for her. Whenever we see any interesting tool advertised, we investigate and often buy it. “‘You must think of the physical side, for too much or too heavy work is as bad as none at all. When Susan Brake came back from boarding school, she was telling us about her studies. “I just love gymnastics,” she said. “We take a long rod and hold it that way and then this.” Her father looked at her and said, dryly, “If that was a broom, I could ’most think you were sweeping.” Housework is certainly fine physical exercise if it’s done with the windows open,’ she added, ‘and it is certainly a good deal better for the children to have something to take up part of their time than to hang round getting into mischief. It is the fault of mothers that so many children are naughty. “‘Judge Long was brought up to work both in the house and on the place, and he got his board and keep at college for two years by washing dishes. The biggest men and women are the ones who can do things, and if a knowledge of doing them decently and in order helps, my children will all have an education. But I’m going to finish up your work, Mrs. Brown; you’re quite tired out.’” “‘That isn’t right,’ Mrs. Brown objected feebly. “‘O, I’m not talked out yet,’ Mrs. Sherrod answered. ‘May as well talk and work as do anything else. There’s a good deal being said nowadays about scarcity of the food supply and going back to the soil. I tell you the problem can be solved through teaching the children right. “‘It’s a great thing to be concerned in national problems,’ she added earnestly, ‘and we country mothers are the ones who can help solve this one, for we can make things so lively and interesting that the children will grow up happy, and contented to fill our places when we’re gone, and become providers for the nation.’”