Able Enough

All your adult life, as parents, you wait for the day when your kids are able enough to do chores. You start out small.

  • Put away your toys.
  • Put your laundry in the hamper.
  • Clear your plate.
  • Bring in the mail.
  • Set the table.
  • Dust with a Swiffer™ (It was so cool when they invented these little suckers!)
  • Please straighten up the living room.
  • Take out the trash.
  • Vacuum the carpet.
  • Empty the dishwasher.
  • Load the dishwasher…an all hands on deck chore.
  • Do your own laundry.
  • Wash the pots.
  • Bring in the trashcans – after all you took them to the curb, now it is time to put them back.

It takes time, but you start out with tiny tasks that they can do, things that give them skills transferable to their first job perhaps, and definitely into adulthood.

Then, without realizing it, they are able enough to live on their own. In a controlled environment, in the middle of the city, in the 3rd worst crime-laden neighborhood of the state. All I can say is – “wait, who is going to empty the dishwasher now?” (No, not really…but, somehow that just makes it a bit more palatable…because just like that we are back where we started and it is kind of funny in order to not be too overly sad.)

~ Dawn aka Hat Girl

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