Kids are funny. They have unique perspectives on life, and adults can usually get a good laugh out of them. My mom was going through old boxes and found this essay my sister wrote back in ninth grade. While incredibly amusing now, this is just one of the many reasons I will never have children. 😉
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Responsibility means to have important duties and being able to fulfill them.
They are obligations to yourself and sometimes other people.
My responsibilities now are to work hard in school and to bring my grades up. Since the school year is almost over I don’t have time to do that now but next year I’ll try for a 4.0. (Yeah, cus why do today what you can put off until next year?)
I also have responsibilities to do my chores on time and I do try but sometimes I don’t have enough time. My family thinks I have plenty of time but what they don’t know is that I’m busy with my priorities. My responsibilities are not one of my main priorities right now. My priorities are to my friends who need help and to my walk with Christ.
Those to me are more important than school and chores and I will try harder to do my chores and school better but that’s not going to come before what I think is important. (So what did she do? Well, she convinced my mother that she would clean one part of her room at a time. Translation: take everything on the desk and throw it under the bed. The next week, take everything under the bed and toss it in the closet. And round and round we went… She even stuffed everything under the rug once. Um, hello? Like that’s not obvious. In contrast, my room was always spotless. Seriously, I knew every time that little brat was in my stuff because I could tell when a single item was turned sideways. Like Monk.)
Getting good high school grades will be a responsibility and priority so I can get into the college I want to go to. College will be a huge responsibility for me so I can do what I want later in life. (Too bad that later in life turned into tattoos and being engaged to a guy named “Pony.”)
You learn about responsibilities by sometimes not doing them, like not doing chores one week means there’s a lot more to do the next week which makes it harder to complete. (My sister was an expert negotiator. She would agree to do one thing now, and another later, except she always timed it so she wouldn’t be around to do the second thing, and someone else [Mom] would have to do it for her.)
When you do your chores it can help the people around you because they won’t have to do them for you. When you don’t do your chores that makes other people have to do them for you in order for them to make dinner, etc. (My sister would volunteer to make dinner, and afterward say that since she cooked, Mom should clean. Except she used every pot and pan we had, and left food and sauce dripping down the counters and cabinets. Mom’s reaction? “Don’t cook anymore. I’d rather go out.”)
Sometimes people have to be flexible. Like when someone doesn’t do a chore because they are too busy then the other person could do it for them or just leave it and get over the fact that now the little perfect plan has been ruined because someone didn’t clean the kitchen. Get a wake up call. There’s more important things in life. (Apparently.)
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With 2012 before us and New Year’s resolutions and goals taking up our thoughts, I suppose the message is, in kinder terms, be flexible. 😉
Got a story of your kids that drove you crazy when they did it but you can look back on and laugh at now? Do you get overwhelmed with goals and plans for the new year? Another round of Row80 has started, and its motto can be applied to everything–make goals to fit your life, and if your life changes, it’s okay for the goals to change too. Happy New Year! 🙂
Angela Wallace, Author 