The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning is CODDLE. We ladies had a little discussion in Sunday school yesterday about “How much to do for your children,” which fuels my response to this prompt.
NO MORE CODDLING!
Jake tapped the corn syrup bottle in disgust. “Mom, I want the maple syrup, not–”
His father interrupted. “If you want maple syrup, get it yourself.”
Mom was already half way out of her seat when Dad grabbed her arm. “Sit down, Nancy.”
She protested. “I can get it for him, Dan. He’s probably tired from all his building yesterday.”
“Oh, yeah. I’m exhausted!” Jake added a weary sigh for effect. He looked from one parent to the other, waiting to see how the ball would bounce.
Dad put an arm on Mom’s shoulder. “If you continue to coddle him, he’ll want you fetching and carrying for him when he’s thirty-five. When he and Tim were working on their tree house yesterday, he was carrying wood and pounding nails for an hour. He can manage a syrup bottle now.”
Jake rolled his eyes, got up and shuffled to the fridge. He grabbed the syrup and plunked it on the table, dropping into the chair again with a martyr’s sigh.
Mom watched her eight-year-old boy pour syrup on his pancakes and wolf them down. Tears picked her eyes. Would the time come when he didn’t need her at all – for anything?
A moment later Jake slipped off his chair. “Some of the guys are getting together at the school to play scrub. Is it okay if I go?”
Dad grinned at him. “After you put the syrup back in the fridge, and help your mother clean off the table.”
Christine's Collection 
YES! A thousand times, YES! All of my children are adults in their 40s and beyond. My sons learned early to be responsible for their own needs, according to their abilities. And I can tell you that young kids are capable of far more than we give them credit for.
A standard comment in my house: If you make the mess, then you clean it up. Be responsible. Don’t expect someone to come along behind you and clean up what you created.
That rule applied equally to my sons and my daughter.
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When it comes to playing, they can do wonders. But have the energy to clean up a mess? 😉
A friend told us that some of her son’s university friends can’t even make a mac & cheese dinner for themselves. I worked with a sixteen-year-old that didn’t know how to peel an apple.
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That’s just so wrong!
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There’s a fine line between wanting them to be dependent or independent! I still love it when my now adult kids ask me to do something for them.
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Very true. We all want to be needed, just not as unpaid servant. 🙂
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