I am a pre-menopausal mother of five... two teenaged daughters, and three older sons, one of whom just completed his second tour in Iraq. I have literally changed thousands of diapers in my years as a mother and more recently as a grandmother. I dream... nay, I live for the day when the proverbial reversal of roles kick in and my kids have the pleasure of changing my diapers.
Never, ever!
“Mom, if you never, never, EVER make me wash the dishes EVER again, I promise I will do everything else twice as much, twice as fast and twice as good!”
That was my 15 year old daughter Rocky, who really hates to wash the dishes, but it could have been me 35 years ago. At 15 I had determined that I was too young for dish pan hands so I avoided the sink as much as possible. For that matter I avoided the vacuum and the washing machine as well. I was more of a ‘mess maker’ than a ‘cleaner upper’ so I can relate with my daughter.
Except that I know: twice as much of nothing is nothing; twice as fast as not at all is never; and twice as good as bad is still bad.
Like I said, it could have been me.
So what did I do about Rocky? I did what my Mama did for me… I washed the dang dishes myself just so we’d have clean plates to eat off of.
Grrrr! I hate washing dishes! I remember naively thinking that with so many children, once they started doing chores I’d NEVER, EVER have to wash dirty dishes again! Yeah, well, that NEVER, EVER happened. I still have to wash dishes every day.
I should have stuck with having pets instead of children. I guess I missed that lesson from Mama. Or maybe she just never shared it with me. You know the old saying: “Grandchildren are parents’ revenge…”
