Every evening, at around 6:15, you will hear my house erupt into a chorus of weeping, gnashing of teeth, and flop-sliding across a (very) dirty kitchen floor.
This is the time in our schedule known, affectionately, as Complain About After-Dinner Chores Time.
It doesn’t matter how many times we’ve done this routine—we even have a reminder sheet posted in a convenient location in our kitchen that states, very clearly, “As soon as dinner is over, put your plate away and immediately begin on your after-dinner chores. Mama and Daddy will gladly accept payment for your chores if you choose not to do them.” Still, my kids will act surprised when they’re stretched out in the living room, reading a book, and Husband or I gently touch their shoulder and say, calmly (on the good nights), “Have you already done your chore?”
“What?” they’ll say, like we haven’t done this dance every single night since they first started doing chores when they were three.
“You have a chore, remember?”
The response to this is always, “I haven’t had a night off in a long time.”
Yeah, well, join the club, kid.
Lately, they’ve gotten very creative about trying to get out of these chores. As I’m bending over the sink trying to finish up the washing of twenty cups that six kids managed to dirty during the course of the day, they’ll toss out their far-fetched excuses, and, to be honest, I don’t have much empathy for them at the end of a day when I’ve taken knees and elbows into my side and back because I decided I was going to meditate on the floor during their reading time, which you should never, ever do in a house of boys.
Here are some of the excuses my boys have given their daddy and me for getting out of their after-dinner chore time.
1. “I hurt my leg.”
To be more accurate, you could trade out “leg” with any other appendage or organ on the human body. It could be head, arm, stomach, booty, even penis sometimes. My boys have a wonderful grasp on anatomy vocabulary, which they showcase practically every night to get out of their after-dinner chores.
These hurts, however major or minor they may be, all make doing their chores impossible.
I wake up aching every morning now (getting old stinks), but I’m still expected to lean over the dishwasher and put the silverware where it goes when it’s my turn on the schedule. Otherwise, no one would have any utensils to eat with. I know my boys wouldn’t care about omissions like that, but I do.
The other day, as we were walking home from school, my oldest son was looking down at his leg, which he said was hurting a little, and, while he was looking down, he walked right into the limb of a tree. I tried not to laugh (it was very difficult) and then checked him over for damage. He was okay. The branch had narrowly missed his eye.
Guess what he used as his excuse that night.
This boy has a slight penchant for the dramatic, so that night he said, “You know I almost blinded myself today!” He pointed at the tiny little scratch beside his eye and said, “What if it gets infected and I lose my eye?”
Still doesn’t excuse you from your chore tonight, buddy. One day at a time.
2. “I forgot I have homework.”
This one is always fun, because (1) I hate homework and don’t always feel like enforcing the completion of it, because I’d rather my sons be playing, and, also, they’re in elementary school. It’s unnecessary. And (2) they actually have ample time to do that homework in the afternoon. They’re supposed to do their homework before they do anything else—before they have their designated technology time, before they go play outside with their friends, before they take out the LEGO collections and start building immaculate cities.
So if they tell us that they still have homework, our standard response is, “Well, I guess you’ll have to get up early tomorrow and do it. Homework time has passed for today. Now it’s time for after-dinner chores.”
It might sound cruel (and they certainly think it is), but to reiterate, I don’t really care about homework, and part of growing up is taking responsibility for the things you have to do. I can’t micromanage them all their lives just to make sure they’re doing their homework and turning it in. I don’t have the energy or the patience.
3. “None of my friends have to do chores.”
This phrase is usually coupled with the followup phrase, “This is the worst family ever.”
If I were to listen to my boys on this issue, none of their friends would have to wear jackets in the winter, fold and put away their own clothes after they’ve done laundry, do their homework, take a bath, or pick up after themselves.
They especially don’t have to wipe counters, wipe off the table, sweep the floor, load the dishwasher, put the dishes away, or take out the trash.
My standard response to this is a twist on the good old classic, “If your friend jumped off a cliff.”
“It’s a good thing you’re not like your friends, then,” I say. “Because if your friend jumps off a cliff, you’ll have the foresight not to follow.”
They never appreciate the irony of this statement quite as much as I do.
4. “I feel sick.”
Usually this declaration comes on the heels of eating twelve pieces of pizza or five helpings of mashed potatoes. I think it’s half falsehood, half truth. I’m sure their stomachs really are hurting, because they inhale their food so fast their stomachs don’t have half a chance to tell them it’s already full. I’m not the least bit surprised they feel sick, but, unfortunately, that doesn’t mean they’re going to get out of their chores. I could barely stand up one day because the flu virus was ravaging my body, and I still had to wash the dishes because it was my turn. I felt like complaining all night, too, but I wanted to be an example. So I held up my head with one hand and used the other hand to load the dishwasher, because Toalsons are tough.
5. “My teacher said I had to ____.”
Sometimes my boys will bring their teachers into things. My teacher said I had to do more homework. My teacher said I had to collect some dirt, and it will be too dark out there when we get done with the chores. My teacher said I need to bring a different kind of lunch tomorrow, which I’m going to pack right now.
Oh, what kind of lunch?
A lunch with cupcakes in it.
Huh. I didn’t get that message.
Whatever it is they tell me their teacher told them to do, I usually follow up their declaration with the same answer I use for excuse number three.
6. “It’s raining.”
I’m not really sure what the weather has to do with doing chores (or, really, anything at all in our current place on the nighttime schedule). Maybe it’s just an observation. But then the one on trash duty will look at me and say, “Well, I won’t be able to take out the trash because it’s raining.”
A little rain never hurt anybody.
Sometimes one of them will say it’s too dark to take out the trash; they’ll have to do it tomorrow.
So I clear my throat and tell a true story: I had to carry laundry from my bathroom to a detached building and back again every time I was on laundry duty as a kid, rain or shine, day or night. I worked hard to get it all done before the dark descended upon the corn fields all around us, because you never knew what kind of horrors were living in those plants. They whispered things you didn’t want to hear. (Yeah, I was an interesting kid.)
Weather is no excuse. Carry on.
7. “I’m tired.”
I cannot truly capture the magnitude of my mirth when it comes to this excuse. Tired? They don’t even know the definition of tired. Tired is wrestling six kids into bed when you can barely hold up your head because of the flu. Tired is getting up and cooking breakfast for your kids after you spent a night courting a particularly vicious stomach virus. Tired is trying to figure out how to do your day job after a toddler kept you up all night with his night scares.
That’s tired.
Now. I know they have long days at school, and that can be tiring, sure. I empathize with this; if I had to spend all day around whole groups of people, I likely would have to peel myself up off the floor to fling myself into bed (which is usually what I do when it’s my bedtime, and I only have seven other people in this house). I get that school is mentally and physically challenging and that walking a whole half mile to and from that school can also be tough.
But too tired to do a chore that will take ten minutes if you just suck it up and do it? Nope.
I don’t know that we’ll ever hear the end of excuses when it comes to chores. They’ll probably just get a bit more sophisticated as my sons get older. But neither Husband nor I will ever give up this battle, because it’s important that our children learn they’re part of a family and that we need their contribution. It’s important for them to know that what they do within the dynamic of our family’s life is necessary, vital, and appreciated. It’s important for them to know that they belong, here, with all of us. We are a team. We support our members. We do what needs to be done.
This is family life.
So until one of them comes home with a hatchet sticking out of his head (which happened to my cousin when we were kids; he was a boy), we’ll be continuing to embrace our Complain About After-Dinner Chores Time every single night.
Mostly. Maybe I’ll start wearing some headphones.
This is an excerpt from Hills I’ll Probably Lie Down On, the fourth book in the Crash Test Parents series. To get access to some all-new, never-before-published humor essays in two hilarious Crash Test Parents guides, visit the Crash Test Parents Reader Library page.
Photo by This Is Now Photography.
