Chores or Child Labor

 As the kitchen garbage fills to capacity, my 9 year old son takes note and goes to put his shoes on. “Time to take out the trash!,” he remarks.

I plop a pile of towels onto the sofa and my 5 year old announces that it’s a race to see who can fold them faster and folds frantically to beat her 9 year old brother in the towel race.  I end up folding most of the stack a second time so the edges line-up, but I don’t mind.

These are  daily occurrences in my house.    My kids like to help and we help each other as a family. We don’t have a chore chart, or allowances.  I’m not paying them or using rewards bribes.

Their mentality of helping extends outside the home as well. One of the biggest examples is going grocery shopping.

Newsflash: I like to grocery shop with my kids.

Now, I have friends who dread grocery shopping with kids.  They shop with Peapod delivery or check their children into Scrunchy’s playhouse in-store babysitting.  They all rave about how nice it is to shop kid-free and and how the kids beg to go to Scrunchy’s to get their fingernails painted, get tattoos and watch movies.   I thought this sounded right up my little Jersey Girl’s alley since she loves to get manicures.   So one day I checked my daughter into Scrunchy’s  but when I picked her up she asked, “if we could do the grocery shopping now?”.   She was disappointed when I broke the news to her that I was all finished with the shopping. Why?  Because she wanted to help.

Helping at the grocery store makes shopping with my kids a pleasure instead of a scene out of a horror movie.   Not only do they help, but I feel it teaches them about reading the labels, comparing prices, and planning a menu.   As a child, I used to help my mother with matching products to manufacturer’s coupons.  My kids do the same thing, and now with the help of the latest grocery store technology we take it a step further.

My children scan and bag my groceries for me. They insist on doing it and they love to do it. The few remaining store clerks are always impressed shower the kids with a ton of praise.  Strangers ask me if I’m paying the kids, and others make comments that it’s child labor.

Let me get this straight for you, my kids have gotten in fights on the way to the grocery store over who is going to scan the ketchup and who gets to key in the PLU number for the grapes. When we shop, we have a system.  If I have one child with me, we use the Scan-It which allows you to scan and bag as you shop.  We take turns scanning the items and bagging them. Usually my son scans, and I bag.  He checks labels on items (we deal with food allergies) and he likes to  report to me the running total for my grocery bill.    If I have both kids with me, my kids help get things from shelves and we go through the self-check out Self-Scan lane.  My daughter scans the small and light items and her older brother scans everything else. While one child scans, the other bags. They are a team.

And at the end of check-out, I pay the bill not my kids.

Original Jersey Moms Blog post by MaryTara. If the sun is out  MT can be found  at The Bon Bon Gazette, Amblyopiakids.com,  the beach, or Stop & Shop.