work

This weekend I taught my six year old daughter how to scrub a toilet.

Now, in all fairness, I didn't make her. I was cleaning the house and I asked "who wants to learn how to clean a toilet?!" and my older daughter kept her nose stuck in her book, while the younger one sang out "I do!". So it was optional.

I showed her how long to squirt in the cleaner, how to scrub with the brush, rinse the brush by flushing, and then the correct order to spray and wipe down the handle, lid and bowl with vinegar to go from the cleanest to the dirtiest surface. I told her how used to work on a boat that took people on six day cruises, and how we had to clean the bathrooms on that boat eight times a day. Then we went upstairs and I talked her through the second toilet.


Like most parents we know, my wife and I walk a fine line between letting our kids have as much unstructured time to lounge and dream and be bored as possible, while also requiring that they help set the table, clear the table, open the chickens, get the mail and mostly-but-not-really stay on top of putting away their laundry. We've lately been including them in cooking more, and we require that they prepare most of their own breakfasts, although we do cut the bread for them, usually.

We want our girls to grow up with a baseline knowledge of how to run a household, and an appreciation for how to put in the work to do that well. We also want them to feel like they are contributing.

The thing is, it's easy to forget this in the whirlwind of doing stuff. If you are like me, you are an absolute ninja at cleaning the house while simultaneously putting in a load of laundry, feeding the animals, scrubbing out the sinks and tidying away the coffee table (or so I wish). In those moments of whipping the house into shape so that I can feel on top of the day, it's easy to lose sight of the larger opportunity to share with the girls how to do these things, and help them gain an appreciation for why they are important.

I feel this in my work, too. I look forward to including the girls in the work on the farm, but I also know it will take a push on my part to make that time commitment. Because there is always an upfront cost to be paid in the time spent teaching a new skill before it makes any sort of sense from an economic or time point of view. And while I know, I KNOW, that that is not the point, it can be hard, in the heat of my own work, to remember to share that work with my daughters. But I want that more than anything. I think it will be the making of them.