In many ways, all human relations boil down to economics. You have to pay for things.
(As many of my blogs start... ) I've often had this conversation with my kids. If you want someone to be nice to you, you need to be nice to her. If you want someone to do something for you, you need to do something for him. There is an economic basis for most relationships, and -- in general -- only the unhealthy ones do not have some sort of give-and-take at their cores.
I think this is something that we, as a society, forget more and more. If you read The Greatest Generation (or, better, listen to the audio version -- Tom Brokaw rocks), you realize how soft and entitled we have become. I did an oral history of my grandfather several years ago, and he mentioned how he had to go fishing daily in order for the family to eat. Sometimes he caught enough to sell, and after quite awhile, he was able to save up enough to buy his own boat, which meant he didn't have to bank-fish anymore.
"How old were you when you finally saved enough to buy your own boat?" I asked, thinking he would say 12 or 13. I mean, he was the one bringing in the food for the family, remember?
"Oh, I guess I was ... well, I couldn't have been more than 8, maybe younger." What?!? EIGHT? I know mothers that don't let their eight year olds put food on their own plates, and here my grandfather was feeding the family and saving enough to buy his own boat. I suspect that a parent that suggested this today might have DHS called on him.
In modern times, there seems to be the notion that kids are not supposed to have to work. Even the work they do is usually not overly important -- just a sort of supplemental work. We have the notion that kids should have no responsibility beyond academics (and many parents duck that last expectation, too). This is historically anomalous, but we think that kids should "just be kids."
I'm not saying that we need to go back to some perceived better time. Grandpa certainly didn't think it was better, and his children never had to starve for the evening if they didn't catch anything to put on the dinner table. But his generation understood that there was a cost for everything.
We tried to use chores to help make our kids understand that there was a cost. We keep a pretty clean house, and we often cook from scratch; our kids liked both aspects of our home. To get there, we taught them, you have to pay for it. Usually not with money, but with time and effort.
We had a checklist up for several years, and everyone had a choice: (1) do at least 15 minutes of chores a day, or (2) take the adult route, and do the chores that need to be done. If you take the adult route, we won't ask you about chores, but you will end up doing more because there is a heck of a lot more to do around the house than 15 minutes per person per day.
Eventually, the girls always fell back to the 15 minutes because it is much easier for them (though the level of complaint might suggest otherwise, heh). The could pay for more autonomy with time and effort, or they could pay for time and effort with autonomy. There was a cost either way.
It is the same with the rules. Having your own residence isn't about being able to live where you want, with the right color of walls, etc. It's about being able to make the rules. You have to pay for that right. It sucks to be a kid because you CAN'T pay for it. When you get older, though, it is completely within your power to save up the money and move out. You may need a roommate, and you may have to live in a shadier neighborhood, but that's a trade you make in order to come and go as you please, make whatever noises you want, have whatever people over you want, and whatever else you want to do in your abode.
This is one reason, I think, that we have not had a problem with the failure to launch. We raised our girls to be strong willed and independent, yet we say we are going to make rules for our household. Once they got older, of course, those rules changed, but we still wanted to know when they were coming in, who they wanted to bring over ... and, no matter how old you get, you still have to do the chores we want, on our time frame. Why? Because we pay for the right to make the rules.
Of course, there are other economics at play, too, to which I alluded above. Dee and I believe that children deserve to be treated with respect, as fellow humans special to us. We do our best not to humiliate or demean them, nor to make unreasonable demands on their time. We expect the same from them.
Every now and again, one of the girls would forget her homework or lunch, and I would get a call, asking if I could bring it up. "You owe me," I would tell her, and I meant it. I would ask for some random thing in the next week, taking approximately that much time (say, do an extra load of towels, or wash the dog), and pull the trump card when the inevitable "but why?" question came.
Of course, that sort of economics shouldn't be practed often (and I rarely did so, especially once my patterns were revealed, heh). It relies too much on a quid pro quo, and better relationships have much more malleable economics, expecting the bill to balance and unbalance countless times over the passage of time. But, still, it DOES need to occasionally balance, if the relationship is going to be a healthy one. One party constantly sacrificing for another without any return is unhealthy. It is doubly unhealthy if the party is your child because you are teaching the child unhealthy habits, which she will be all but certain to pay forward with her future relationships.
This economy works outside of the parent-to-child relationship, of course. At some point, I'll talk a bit more about adult-to-adult economics. (This will probably be a more generalized version of the specific "buy her chairs" example given in a previous blog: http://amusingbeam.blogspot.com/2010/10/did-you-buy-her-chairs.html) And then there are nations ... so I guess this will be a three part series....
What do you think?
(As many of my blogs start... ) I've often had this conversation with my kids. If you want someone to be nice to you, you need to be nice to her. If you want someone to do something for you, you need to do something for him. There is an economic basis for most relationships, and -- in general -- only the unhealthy ones do not have some sort of give-and-take at their cores.
I think this is something that we, as a society, forget more and more. If you read The Greatest Generation (or, better, listen to the audio version -- Tom Brokaw rocks), you realize how soft and entitled we have become. I did an oral history of my grandfather several years ago, and he mentioned how he had to go fishing daily in order for the family to eat. Sometimes he caught enough to sell, and after quite awhile, he was able to save up enough to buy his own boat, which meant he didn't have to bank-fish anymore.
"How old were you when you finally saved enough to buy your own boat?" I asked, thinking he would say 12 or 13. I mean, he was the one bringing in the food for the family, remember?
"Oh, I guess I was ... well, I couldn't have been more than 8, maybe younger." What?!? EIGHT? I know mothers that don't let their eight year olds put food on their own plates, and here my grandfather was feeding the family and saving enough to buy his own boat. I suspect that a parent that suggested this today might have DHS called on him.
In modern times, there seems to be the notion that kids are not supposed to have to work. Even the work they do is usually not overly important -- just a sort of supplemental work. We have the notion that kids should have no responsibility beyond academics (and many parents duck that last expectation, too). This is historically anomalous, but we think that kids should "just be kids."
I'm not saying that we need to go back to some perceived better time. Grandpa certainly didn't think it was better, and his children never had to starve for the evening if they didn't catch anything to put on the dinner table. But his generation understood that there was a cost for everything.
We tried to use chores to help make our kids understand that there was a cost. We keep a pretty clean house, and we often cook from scratch; our kids liked both aspects of our home. To get there, we taught them, you have to pay for it. Usually not with money, but with time and effort.
We had a checklist up for several years, and everyone had a choice: (1) do at least 15 minutes of chores a day, or (2) take the adult route, and do the chores that need to be done. If you take the adult route, we won't ask you about chores, but you will end up doing more because there is a heck of a lot more to do around the house than 15 minutes per person per day.
Eventually, the girls always fell back to the 15 minutes because it is much easier for them (though the level of complaint might suggest otherwise, heh). The could pay for more autonomy with time and effort, or they could pay for time and effort with autonomy. There was a cost either way.
It is the same with the rules. Having your own residence isn't about being able to live where you want, with the right color of walls, etc. It's about being able to make the rules. You have to pay for that right. It sucks to be a kid because you CAN'T pay for it. When you get older, though, it is completely within your power to save up the money and move out. You may need a roommate, and you may have to live in a shadier neighborhood, but that's a trade you make in order to come and go as you please, make whatever noises you want, have whatever people over you want, and whatever else you want to do in your abode.
This is one reason, I think, that we have not had a problem with the failure to launch. We raised our girls to be strong willed and independent, yet we say we are going to make rules for our household. Once they got older, of course, those rules changed, but we still wanted to know when they were coming in, who they wanted to bring over ... and, no matter how old you get, you still have to do the chores we want, on our time frame. Why? Because we pay for the right to make the rules.
Of course, there are other economics at play, too, to which I alluded above. Dee and I believe that children deserve to be treated with respect, as fellow humans special to us. We do our best not to humiliate or demean them, nor to make unreasonable demands on their time. We expect the same from them.
Every now and again, one of the girls would forget her homework or lunch, and I would get a call, asking if I could bring it up. "You owe me," I would tell her, and I meant it. I would ask for some random thing in the next week, taking approximately that much time (say, do an extra load of towels, or wash the dog), and pull the trump card when the inevitable "but why?" question came.
Of course, that sort of economics shouldn't be practed often (and I rarely did so, especially once my patterns were revealed, heh). It relies too much on a quid pro quo, and better relationships have much more malleable economics, expecting the bill to balance and unbalance countless times over the passage of time. But, still, it DOES need to occasionally balance, if the relationship is going to be a healthy one. One party constantly sacrificing for another without any return is unhealthy. It is doubly unhealthy if the party is your child because you are teaching the child unhealthy habits, which she will be all but certain to pay forward with her future relationships.
This economy works outside of the parent-to-child relationship, of course. At some point, I'll talk a bit more about adult-to-adult economics. (This will probably be a more generalized version of the specific "buy her chairs" example given in a previous blog: http://amusingbeam.blogspot.com/2010/10/did-you-buy-her-chairs.html) And then there are nations ... so I guess this will be a three part series....
What do you think?
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