Consequences... Consequences...

One of my guilty pleasures is the television show "World's Strictest Parents".  I think I watch it because it makes me realize how incredibly great my own boys are!  The premise is that two insolent, disrespectable, and just plain bad teens are sent to live for one week with a family with (you guessed it) strict parents who won't put up with their bad behavior in an effort to change them for the better.  I am absolutely amazed that these kids were allowed to behave this way to begin with!  Where were the consequences in their homes?!?!

Now my boys are great.   They have wonderful manners.  They are well-behaved and a pleasure to be around.   But of course their sweet mouths get them in trouble:  arguing with each other (or their parents), calling each other names, and just saying things the nice young gentlemen shouldn't.  And it makes me just a tad bit crazy.  Well, "tad bit" may be putting it lightly, don't you think?

So what's a mother to do?  Take a cue from "World's Strictest Parents"!  One set of strict parents had this consequence for toilet mouths:  clean the toilet.  I like that.  While my boys don't have "toilet mouths", they do commit the aforementioned grievances.  And I am prepared. 

My Nemesis the Dishwasher

For those who read my last blog post, you probably have figured out that I hate unloading the dishwasher.  I think it stems back to my early childhood when it was the very first household job I was given.  I must have been six or seven.

I can remember being at my family's house at Pawley's Island having a marvelous time laughing and playing with my sister and mother on my mother's king-size bed.  It was such fun!  But then... she dropped the bomb:  "Girls, go unload the dishwasher for Mama.  I am too tired, and you are big girls now.  Now, go!"  Anne Stuart (aged 3 or 4 at the time) and I glumly trudged to the kitchen, where we dragged the fifty-year-old chairs to the cabinets so that we could put away the fifty-year-old dishes from the practically fifty-year-old dishwasher.  It took forever.  It was painful.  It was absurd!  But this became our job, and amazingly, we never broke a glass or dish.

Nowadays I don't unload the dishwasher anymore.  I have this fabulous Bosch model that cleans beautifully, and does little more than hum.  You'd never know it was on!  Doesn't change the fact that I detest unloading it.  I have passed that task to my two sons.  For some reason, they don't seem to have the same disdain I had.  It must be because I tell them that whoever will unload it first gets to choose top or bottom.  And the race is on!  Throw a little competition in any chore and they are hooked!

Have they cracked any of our Tervis Tumblers (however so indestructible) or broken any of my everyday Wedgewood Nantucket Basket dishes?  Not yet... thank goodness!