A Letter to Parents.....

Dear Parents,

When you were growing up, your parents didn't have House Helps.
You and your siblings did the whole chores.
It was more tedious then, than now.
Waking up as early as 4:00 am to the farm, fetching the first sect of water from the stream for drinking, getting the grass for the Animals, etc...

It was hard, but it shaped you to face challenges, made you industrious, and strong...

Here we are in the 21st Century...

We don't want our kids to go through any atom of pains and stress..

Why exactly?

We are so quick to employ house helps.
Pay them and also abuse them for not completing a task.
We become slave masters to this house helps.
Forgetting that they are humans and that they are someone else child.
Just because we "Pay Them"....

Really?

Let's talk..

What exactly do your grown up kids do at home?
Eat , play, watch TVs, play games, and sleep?
Basically that's what most kids do daily.
Its a routine.

We employ House helps to do the cleaning, washing, cooking, errands, and all sorts.
Only one person.
We then brag, I pay her/him.
How much? 20, 30,40 thousand naira?

"And what do your kids do exactly?"

We are raising a generation of intelligent but lazy,cocky and mannerless kids.

Wheeeeew!

Yes that's the blunt fact. They do nothing but books.
They don't wash even their school uniforms, talk more of their clothes.

But you did as a kid back then.

You wore "wash and wear" to school, you ironed your clothes with charcoal iron, you washed your socklings , you did your assignment, you went to the farm, you helped your mum in the cooking, you swept the house and compound, weed unnecessary grass around your home.
And you topped your class and was very brilliant.
You were very strong and agile.

So What's the point exactly in exempting our kids do anything?

Now its even very easy.
They don't need to fetch water, there is water in the tap.
They don't need to scrub the floor with hard brush kneeling (you did that), there is mopping buckets and sticks.
They don't need to wash hard and long, there is washing machine..
Etc.

So what exactly do your kids do?

A Friend once wrote...
Pay your kids to do the house chores instead, than making them lazy.
Let them earn.

Can't you see the gross laziness?
Even morals and manners have gone to the wind?

My younger ones do house chores, they don't get paid.
They can mop the floor, wash their clothes and plates.
And guess what, they are very intelligent.

If you have the impression , that house chores make them loose focus from their academics.
Am sorry you are wrong.
You succeeded back then, even under harsh conditions , why can't they?

Assign each of them, a particular chores.
Let them do it, encourage them, cheer them up.

Pay them, let them start earning, you ain't only teaching them, but imbibing a culture that would help them.
Let them understand what it means to work and get paid.

Relieve your nannies.
Train your kids.
Let's raise responsible and strong kids.

Cheers.

Yours Truly.

Ema Bountiful.
2015.