Keeping It Clean

Chores are undeniably one of the obligations that children seem to hate the most. Excuses accumulate in children’s minds over why specific chores should not be their responsibility. I have used quite a few of them: “The other kids never do anything.” “I did it last time!” “I didn’t dirty it!” The list goes on and on. Chores, however, are a real necessity, although most children don’t realize it. I have experienced what happens to a family when the lazy little children decide to officially give up on doing their chores.

Starting around March of 2006, my mother started having some job-related problems, and our cable, internet, and phone service were turned off. Outraged, I convinced my brother and sisters to join me in a protest at this injustice. We decided to stop cleaning the house. Dishes would sit in a pile for days, maybe up to a week if Mom was working a hectic schedule. The bathrooms would begin to smell foul and the carpets would be littered with crushed bits of food. When Mom found time, she’d reprimand us, and the house would be cleaned…for a day or so. With five children and little parental supervision, though, the house became fetid relatively quickly. When our electricity was shut off, we stopped doing everything. Mom grew tired of having to work all day just to come home to a bunch of rebellious children and a huge mess, so in May we started staying with friends at night and maybe coming home a bit during the day just so we had some time with each other. It seemed the easiest thing to do, given the circumstances. Little did we know that abandoning the house would be our true downfall.

On the morning of May 26th, my brother and I left our nightly supervisors’ house early. It was unbearably hot in the house, and we...

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...rced to wait for my mother’s sentence to be decided before I could be with my family again.

Eventually the court decided to give my mother 120 hours of community service and a load of fines as punishment for her crimes. My siblings and I were allowed to return to her, after she found a home and had a stable job, of course. It was a reunion of joyous tears and lots of affection. Since then, I have realized that chores are more than a responsibility to the house; they are my responsibility to my mother and my family as a whole. I always do the chores that are assigned to me, and often I help the younger children keep up with theirs as well. I fear losing my mother again; I fear that my laziness will destroy my loved ones. I will never let something as small or insignificant as washing a dish break up my family again. Chores are a hassle, but they are a necessity.