Monday, July 13, 2009

Passing on a Work Ethic

Oftentimes I wonder if I have been a failure as a mother or if my kids are just being kids. It has been a strange transition to go from doing everything myself and to my standards to having the kids be responsible for things and striking a balance between what I want and their abilities and/or willingness to do things.

My house used to be so much cleaner when I wasn't working full time. Now much of that responsibility falls on the kids; kids who would much rather spend time surfing the internet, playing guitar hero, sleeping, or hanging out with friends. When they do get to their chores it is doing the bare minimum to get by with having done it.

When does that desire to do things at a better or higher level kick in? Does that come with being solely responsible, having your own place and no one else to do it? Because I sure haven't found a way to instill it in my kids yet. And if I have, they sure aren't letting me in on the secret!

It makes me wonder if they are ready to be adults on their own. I wonder what kind of employees, mothers, wives they will be.

If I could go back and do anything differently while raising them it would be to let/make them do more earlier. My biggest failure with that was I either thought they were "too little to do that" or they couldn't do it to the way I (being a perfectionist) liked it done or it was easier to do it myself than to spend the time teaching them to do it "right".

The problem with this is they grow up thinking that mom will do everything and if we ask them to clean their rooms we are so mean and unfair. When my oldest was about 4 years old we told her to go and clean her room. She turned around and looked at us and said "but mom is the worker".

Wow, talk about straight to the heart!

We can joke about that comment now but the underlying message of the statement still holds true. So I want to know. How do you get that work ethic kick in? That is one torch I want to pass on.


Sunday, July 05, 2009

School Daze.

Did you have a favorite subject in school? One you dreaded?

School and I got along fine. I was a good student, the teachers liked me, I liked most of them. I think my favorite classes were English/Reading/Literature classes. It took me a while to realize this though. When I graduated from High School my plan was to go to school for Interior Design. Now that I am older when I think of going back to school I want to study English with an art minor.

I had a lot of other classes that I enjoyed. I took French for two years. I loved my co-ed P.E. class, which says a lot for me because I am not Mrs. Sports. I had a Needle Arts class in which we did all sorts of hand-work crafty type stuff. Right up my alley.

Sometimes I have dreams that I am back in High School and I am going to my French class, but in my dream I am failing it. I am so afraid that I am not going to graduate because of it. Graduation was held in the Marriott Center because we had a class of 400+. At graduation time they used to put a big map of the seating chart up on the window of the main office. You would see everyone's names and where they were seated. If someone wasn't graduating they would have a big X through that seat. Can you imagine something like that happening today? Anyway, my seat was X'd out in this dream because I was failing French class.

I don't know where this comes from. I did pass that class and did graduate from High School. Isn't it weird how 20 some-odd years after High School I would have dreams like that.

I never have the dream where I show up at school not wearing anything though, thank heavens. Those who know and love me know that I am too much of a non-nudist. I like my jammies too much.

So, what bad dreams do you have about High School?




See why I need help!

In an effort to do better at journal writing I made a Journal Jar. It is really an old Ovaltine container covered in paper and "Mom's Journal Jar!" stamped on the front. Anyway it is full of journal prompts to get you going. Problem is, I made this thing with my girls about 7 years ago and I think I have used about three prompts from it.

See why I need help!

A few months ago for an activity in Young Women I had them make Journal Jars. I rededicated myself to journal using my blog. I am all about typing instead of pen and paper. Much faster. Have I used it? No.

See why I need help!

Well, I was talking with some friends at church (one of which mentioned I never update my blog), so when I came home from church I thought I would catch up on reading people's blogs. Lo and behold when I came to her blog, she was doing Journal Jar posts!

This has re-re-dedicated me to use my Journal Jar. Thanks Sheral!

So, to make sure I actually live up to my re-re-dedication I am actually going to post again, this time using my . . . . . you guessed it, Journal Jar!