Flashback Friday - 10/22/10

How was your family structured when you were growing up? Did you grow up with both original parents in the home? If your parents divorced, did you go back and forth between them? Whether divorced or widowed, did your parent remarry? How old were you? Was yours a multi-generational household with grandparents living with you? Did your mom work outside the home, and if so, was it full-time or part-time? Was there a clearly delineated division of labor between your parents (or parent and step-parent) and how traditional was it? Did your parents believe in child labor?! That is, how structured were chores? What responsibility, if any, did you have for things like doing your own laundry, fixing your own school lunch, etc.? Were your parents do-it-yourself-ers or did they hire people for repairs, painting, etc.? Is your current marriage/family structure similar to the way you were raised? What do you do differently than you did then?

I grew up with both parents in the home until I was 14,  in1976. At that time my father died and my mother a widow never remarried. She is still living. My mom worked outside the home all my school life. At first she worked in the cafeteria at the elementary school where I was going to Kindergarten. Later she moved to the High School cafeteria, she was in charge of the teacher's lounge. After that she worked for a chiropractor. When working for the schools she had afternoons and summers off so she was there when I got home from school and we had the same holidays off.

Where chores are concerned they were very laid back. My siblings were 9, 12, and 15 years older than me. Most of my growing up years I was the only child at home. Mom and I worked together. I kept my room clean mostly myself but Mom and I did a lot of things together as far as chores goes. I don't remember about laundry. I know we hung laundry out on the line in warm weather. I know I helped with that. I don't know what age that was. I got lunch at school most of the time, I don't know if we got free meals because of my mom working for the school or if it was just easier. When I went to Christian school for high school I took lunch. I am pretty sure I made most of my lunches then, so I could have what I wanted and mom had enough other responsibilities.

I don't know what my parents did for repairs when I was little. My dad was not a do-it-yourself kind of guy. Some simple things my mom would fix. Most things were fixed by relatives. My brother Bob is very handy, so is my brother-in-law Dave. Once they were old enough or married into the family they did a lot of the repair work. Other work was done by Uncles and Cousins. Sometimes they were paid, sometimes not, it depends what the project was.

So that is how my family was growing up.

The way my husband and I do things is very different, one of the only things that is the same as when I grew up is that we have a two parent home. My kids have very structured chores. We use Managers of Their Chores: A Practical Guide to Children's Chores, by Steve and Teri Maxwell. I highly recommend everything they have. We have daily chores as well as weekly/Saturday chores. The Maxwell's book even helps you organize seasonal chores. I do not work outside the home, I homeschool our kids. So I am a stay at home mom. I am blessed to be able to do that. It is what my hubby thinks is best for our family. My hubby is very, very, very much a do-it-yourself kind of guy. He is also training our boys to be the same. Up until 2004 he did all the repair work around the house. In 2004 he injured his back. After that my daughter and I took on a lot of projects we never thought we would do. My boys were not old enough to help much at that time. My hubby would sit and direct. Sometimes we even took pictures to let him see if we were doing things right. Like the time my daughter changed the transmission fluid and filter in our car. I crawled part way under to take pictures and show my hubby and from that he gave further instruction. The boys and hubby are actually working on a number of home repair projects together this fall. They boys are now 16 and 13 and are capable of doing a lot more of the heavy work with hubby training them in all sorts of things. Hubby has fixed plumbing, electrical, mechanical, electronics, computers, construction... did I leave anything out??? Oh he fixes our car, too. If he does not know how to fix something he does research on it, figures it out and gets it fixed. I don't think we have ever paid to have anything fixed by someone else.

This was a good look back and look at the way we do things currently in our home. I enjoyed doing Flashback Friday. Join or read other answers by clicking on the Flashback Friday button at the top.


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