We live in a tiny apartment, so we don’t have to rake leaves or mow the lawn. We don’t even have a yard. But it’s a continual drag to complete the never-ending tasks of dish-washing, laundry, Swiffering the floors, cooking dinner, grocery shopping and, ugh, scrubbing the bathroom.
Growing up, neither me nor my brothers received an allowance for doing chores. We were told we had to do them and were punished if we didn’t. I remember thinking (while washing dinner dishes and watching my brothers play in the backyard) that I couldn’t wait to have children and make slaves out of them so I never had to wash dishes again. But beside requiring Winter to clean her room and pick up after herself, I haven’t fulfilled my hopes for domestic child labor. The problem is she’s too short to reach the kitchen faucets.
But she can reach the bathroom faucets so I decided to add weekly bathroom cleaning to Winter’s family duties. Of course she wanted compensation. I opened my mouth to tell her I never received an allowance and this would be her contribution to the family, but all that came out was, “You’ll be given $3 a week. And you have to do the cat litter.” She argued for $5, but negotiations were off.
Saturday was designated as Winter’s chore day. With a bucket of cleaning supplies, rags, scrubbies and paper towels, I began Bathroom Cleaning 101, explaining how to remove everything from the sink before Windexing the mirror, to use Soft Scrub in the sink and rinse, rinse, rinse, and to scrub the tub using the scrubbie, not the rag.
And then we got to the toilet.
As I picked up the lids — I always keep both lids down as I have perpetual negative toilet karma that involves me dropping anything within reach into the bowl — a pungently disgusting realization hit me: I can’t possible require my child to complete this offending task, can I?
This requires a sub-topic with which many women identify. When a man lives with you, things in the bathroom change — specifically toilet cleanliness. Winter and I have always lived alone until the boyfriend became part of our family. Prior to the boyfriend’s arrival, the toilet rim was spotless come cleaning time.
He swears he has nothing to do with the dirty rim. I know better. Anytime my brothers came to visit or I had a gathering with man guests, the rim was, well, sprinkled with urine and hairs from the nether regions. Of course no man will fess up to creating this mess but now that we have a man in the house, we seem to have regular visits from the Pube Fairy.
So that gets us right back to my problem. Is it wrong to require a non-contributor of the mess to clean the rim? (And I haven’t even addressed the pee stain down the front of the bowl or the drops on the floor — I swear to baby Jesus if I step in pee again I’ll lose my composure and do something I’ll regret.)
No, I just can’t do it. I refuse to force Winter to wipe the rim. But, what will I have her do, instead?
Dust? She can’t reach to top shelves.
Ah, Swiffer! She can Swiffer all the floors, and I’ll leave the rim job to the boyfriend.
Amy and her 9 year-old daughter, Winter, explore activities that are fun for both mom and kid — but sometimes chores get in the way.