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Whistle While You Work
Just Don’t Call It a “Project”
A “chore” by any other name is still tedious and boring.
Parents never learn. “How would you like to clean your room?” With a maid service? “Would you like to rake the leaves now?” Um, no, I’m good over here picking lint out of the carpet fuzz, thanks. “Would you like to clear the dinner dishes and load the dishwasher?” Would you like to clean behind the toilet with a toothbrush? What part of ‘no’ don’t you get, Mom? If teenage eye-rolling had audio, I’m pretty sure this is what we’d hear.
My husband knows that the fastest way to turn me into a recalcitrant teen and give me daddy issues all at once is to call any sort of household chore a “project” and present it to me as if it were a choice I’d be stupid not to make. “I have a project for you,” he says.
Call it a damned ‘chore’ or get outta mah face, I think. I don’t say it. I love the man. I just give him the Snoopy-vulture death glare. “What?” I snap. This had better be good, and it had better involve chocolate at the end.
“Chores” are responsibilities, shared by members of the family. “Chores” are not a choice; they must be done. Grumbling about them or whistling while we work is a choice. But doing them is not, and we don’t pretend that it is. That is not how…
