“But Dad, the new fridge has an automatic ice maker.”
“It won’t make enough ice for everyone,” he said quietly.
With seven people living there for the summer, Dad knew the ice bin would inevitably be empty when he wanted a few cubes for his iced tea.
“Here are the ice cube trays.” He showed me four metal ice trays covered in dust and cobwebs. They were gross, ancient and awkward compared to the majestic automatic icemaker upstairs that effortlessly dispensed ice without spilling a drop of water.
Every, 20 minutes the marvelous machine announced the arrival of three cubes by expelling them with a clatter in the tall bin. However, the machine worked like chickens. It laid cubes only under optimum conditions. Even then, nine cubes an hour couldn’t keep up with demand.
“If you make ice once or twice a day with these trays, it will give us enough ice for the summer,” Dad said. I overlooked the hated trays because I loved my father, wanted his approval, and to contribute to the family.
Dad was a man of few words. He liked to work alone at home and as a research scientist at the DuPont Company. Dad didn’t ask much or say much while he showed quiet dedication to our family. His main goals were to get us to keep down the noise, shut off the lights and use less hot water. The ice project was the first job he ever assigned to me. I felt special. I accepted responsibility to provide surplus ice all summer for the family.
Doing jobs at home transmits values
The ice project emanated from my father’s values: saving money by doing-it-yourself, using the equipment you owned (no matter how old) and planning ahead.
Born in 1919, Dad came-of-age in the Great Depression. Combined with the thriftiness necessary with having nine children, making ice fit in with one of Dad’s fundamental life purposes: to save money.
It never occurred to me to say, “How much are you going to pay me for this?” Or, “Why aren’t you asking Mary or Brian to make ice?” As the eighth of nine children, making ice offered me a way to contribute to the family that no one else could claim.
“Use these bags.” Dad showed me a box of new plastic bags.
“Cool,” I thought. The family rule was to use old bread bags with stale crumbs in the bottom. My job was special because I was allowed to use new plastic bags. It doesn’t take much to please children.
I took my duty seriously and harvested about four pounds of ice first thing in the morning and again after dinner. Dad was right. The mechanical icemaker was inadequate. When we opened the freezer too often during hot weather, the temperature rose and it wouldn’t lay ice.
Other malfunctions stopped production: cubes clogged the mechanism, the waterline crimped, and the ice tasted funny. On a good night when no one opened the freezer, it laid a small pile in the bottom of the bin, which got us to noon and lacked the sweet taste of my ice.
I felt proud when my ice was served with dinner and at Dad’s weekly backyard volleyball game with other DuPont lab rats. When the ice bin was empty, I’d bound down to the basement freezer for a bag of “free” ice. While my contribution was rarely acknowledged by my father or others, I saw everyone using my ice during a hot and muggy Delaware summer day. I particularly liked to make ice when Dad was in the basement tinkering.
Chores teach lifelong habits
Being summer ice princess taught me a work ethic I still rely on today.
1.Making ice at home saves money. My parents avoided buying anything that could be made at home. For example, buying a $2.50 cup of coffee 20 times a month adds up to a $600 annual expense, so we brew coffee at home.
2.Plan to make ice before we needed it. My family complained if we ran out of ice. I learned to plan, manage time and inventory so we rarely ran out. The project management skills I gained made deadlines easy to meet in every job I’ve had.
3.Delegate. An effective project manager finds dependable workers. Notice my father asked me to be ice princess, not one of my scurrilous siblings. When in management positions, I can spot good workers by their work habits and attitude.
4.Invest in good equipment. I hated those metal ice trays and longed for plastic trays. To this day, I love good kitchen tools.
5.Children want responsibility. Children, especially under age 11, strive to please their parents, take pride in contributing to the family, and develop self-esteem from managing a task. Children will rise – or fall – to parental expectations. I was trusted to manage the ice supply and given space to experience the consequence of running out of ice. I hated to let everyone down.
6.Take pride in contributing to the common good. I felt good about myself because my family enjoyed the ice. It motivated me to keep making ice and view the job positively. The same can be said of tasks I perform today for family and friends.
7.You don’t always have to be recognized or paid. Being of service to others in the world without expecting anything in return is a guaranteed way to make friends. Following that edict has brought me some of my greatest joys in life. Thanks, Dad.
When children have regular responsibilities around the house, the benefits reverberate for a lifetime. They don’t have to be big responsibilities, take a lot of time or be done frequently. They must be their responsibilities, that don’t get done unless they do them.
When children do jobs for the common good, they can experience being part of a community. Even though children may say and act as if they don’t want to contribute to the running of the household, everyone craves the feeling of feeling important, needed by and connected to others.
Chores correlate to lower alcohol use
In a survey on childhood chores I developed for this book, the 564 respondents agreed: childhood chores taught them responsibility and a work ethic. The people who took the survey were between 11 and 92 years old, with a median age of 35.
One correlation showed children with regular chores around the house from ages 2-12 had a lower incidence of alcohol use in high school. Some 62 percent of the people who did chores regularly abstained from regular alcohol use in high school. There’s more good news. People who had childhood chores were 24 percent more likely to report they were good college students.
Integrating chores into a democratic family atmosphere with mutual respect lays the foundation for decent teenagers who will use good judgment. Doing simple chores from an early age builds self-discipline, counteracts entitlement and develops teenagers who can handle freedom with responsibility.
Entitled children and teens are often protected from experiencing the relationship between their decisions and a negative outcome because parents constantly bail them out, make excuses and tell them everyone else is wrong, not them.
Cleaning a toilet, sweeping a floor and weeding a flowerbed are sure cures for entitlement. It changes how one views work, self and the world.
Respondents agreed: chores prepared them for life.
“I was glad to know how to take care of myself, and do it with a high degree of precision,” said a 51-year-old woman of her regular chores that started when she was 6 years old and continued until she left home.
I expected to find that chores had gone out of style, but 87 percent reported they had regular childhood chores. Of the 13 percent across all ages who reported no chores, nearly half were less than 30 years old. We found nothing else in common with the no-chores group.
Young people who had chores between ages 13 and 21 were three to four times more likely to report high educational achievement.
In my confidential survey, tweens and teens who responded made the following confessions about chores:
“I