Goobers

I got this in email from my youngest today: “Hey! Question for you. The boys are really good at doing tasks when we tell them to, but this summer, I’d like to establish a chore system and I’m considering some sort of payment system. How did Goobers work?”

My response: Daddy came up with a theory he called Sieve Parenting that I thought made a lot of sense. From conception until sometime around six months when you were self-aware enough to begin learning manners and discipline, the parental reality sieve had the smallest holes we could manage. But as you grew, it was our job to slowly make the holes bigger and bigger so that, by your 18th birthdays, you were ready for the freedoms and responsibilities that come with being legal adults.

When you’re in it, day to day, parenting feels like forever, but really, eighteen years is not much time to move a helpless infant to the point where s/he can handle being allowed to get married, vote, borrow money, rent an apartment, buy a car, and go get shot at in some country you never heard of before. So, to ensure we slowly opened the sieve holes, every three to six months or so, we’d re-assess each of you and choose a new responsibility and freedom to acknowledge maturation. 

I remember when your eldest sister started 1st grade, she had to remember her own lunch and got to read for an extra 30 minutes after bedtime. When she forgot her lunch, she had to go hungry until she got home from school. She didn’t forget again. Later, in high school, one of her responsibilities was to catch the school bus in the morning; I still remember her rage stomping down the street in the pouring rain, because we wouldn’t drive her to school. She didn’t miss the bus again. Remembering homework was a responsibility given out early as well. One time, your middle sister forgot an assignment and didn’t want to get docked a grade to turn it in a day late. Daddy told her he wanted 17 Goobers to drive it to school; she paid.

Part of being an adult is taking care of your own stuff and spaces, doing your fair share taking care of your community stuff and spaces, and learning the relationship between work and money. Since we didn’t have any actual money to spare, we printed up Goobers and let you do extra chores to earn them. They could then be used to purchase privileges of various kinds from us and from one another. We divided up the chores by things you should do for yourself, things you should do for the benefit of the community, and things that go above and beyond. The classifications depended on age, as did the definitions of what kinds of privileges could be purchased.

I did an inventory of all the things an adult living alone needs to deal with. One was buying and maintaining a wardrobe. So we spent one summer learning to sew and I made you all learn how to do your own laundry as soon as you could reach the buttons and measure out detergent. Other personal chores I required, but didn’t pay for were homework, grades, music practice (if you were taking lessons), typing tutor time (daily until you could test at 35 words per minute without looking at the keys), writing thank you notes, and Scripture, prayer and personal journaling time.

I also didn’t pay for routine community space maintenance … taking turns at setting the table, doing dishes, vacuuming, mopping, taking out trash or compost, bathrooms. But there were always little things that we considered our jobs that we paid Goobers to have help with. I can’t remember specifics, but probably stuff like weeding, peeling garlic, etc.

What could be traded or purchased with Goobers could be as variable as we wanted, depending on what you each needed to learn at any given time. They were worth $1 each; as I recall, you mostly used them to pay me to buy things you wanted at the store. But you also had to pay for rides to non-family activities. A trip to the mall for you and your friends was expensive … which is why you all learned the beauty of Public Transit.

That’s all I can think of. I hope this helped. 🙂 Love, Mom