- I have often cleaned up after my 11-year-old son rather than wait for him to do it.
- Though I did ask him to do his chores, I felt it was easier to do it myself.
- A back injury has forced us both to rely on him to become more independent.
For a long time, I often cleaned up after my son, who just turned 11. It’s not that I didn’t ask him to tidy up his own toys, make his bed, or bring his dishes to the sink, because I did. I was just too impatient or tired to nag him if it didn’t get done. It just felt easier to do myself.
Sometimes I would get upset that he seemed to ignore me. I knew he was more than capable of doing these simple chores, but he just didn’t seem to think what I was asking him to do was important. It was just that, as an exhausted single mom, I didn’t have the energy to always ensure he followed through. It took less out of me to just handle on my own.
Without reinforcement, my son’s chores didn’t become habitual
A handful of times, I tried to teach him how to do slightly more complex things, like help fold the laundry or cook a simple meal for himself. We started with getting a cup of milk, then making himself a bowl of cereal, and finally, I taught him to use the stove to make scrambled eggs and pancakes. But unless I asked him to do these things for himself regularly, he wouldn’t learn how to do them well enough, or would forget how to do them completely.
A recent back injury has forced me to rely on him to do the chores I once did for him out of ease and help me with things I’ve had trouble doing for myself. At first, I could see that it was difficult for him to have to actually do these chores in addition to having to help me more. I think he was in shock. I instantly regretted not holding him accountable all those years and letting him get away with not cleaning up after himself.
I viewed cleaning up his own toys as the baseline of his responsibilities, and he never really did that totally on his own. I always ended up compromising with him, and we’d both pick up half of his things. I didn’t fully realize how much of a disservice this was to both of us until I could no longer help him.
He’s now doing chores consistently out of necessity
Out of necessity, he has learned how to make his bed every morning, clean up his own room, and bring his dishes to the sink after mealtimes. I’ve always known it was my job to raise a good man who can take care of himself one day, but until I got hurt, I hadn’t seen I could stand to improve in teaching him how to do that.
This year, I’m determined to show my son how to take care of himself and his future home by showing him how to do more of these important tasks. Though I’ve taught him a lot, like how to play most sports and write a solid essay, I’ve been overlooking other things, such as how to do a load of laundry without dyeing the white clothes pink or how to clean a bathroom properly. These are the necessities I’m going to focus on with him. Most recently, I taught him how to load the dishwasher, which felt miraculous.
I know I need to show him how to be an adult in even the most basic ways
While these chores all seem like simple things, and they are, I wouldn’t have realized the importance of teaching my son how to do them himself without my injury and becoming unable to just do everything for him. Having lost the ability to take care of myself all on my own, I miss how good it feels to do things around the house the way I like having them done, make a home for my family, and take care of them in this way.
All of those chores I did for years for my son were out of love, and I want him to know how to do the same for himself and his family one day. So in a way, it’s also out of love that I’m teaching him how to take care of himself.
