In article .com, fgoodwin
says...

David Hare-Scott wrote:
"fgoodwin" wrote in message
ups.com...
Why Don't Kids Do Chores Anymore?

They do round here

There are kids in your neighborhood who still offer to mow yards?

I've lived in Dallas, Austin, Denton, San Antonio, Dallas again, Austin
again, Washington, DC, and San Antonio again, and I've never seen any
kids offering to mow lawns, tho I have seen a few cases of kids mowing
their own lawns.


There are kids in the neighborhood who offer to mow yards (for pay, of course).
As there are who offer to shovel driveways in the winter.

The difference I see from when I was younger is that, I'd take on a chore like
that as a committment. That is, I have x customers counting on me to shovel
their driveway when it snows. So I'd be out the door when the snow stops, with
three driveways to do.

As a homeowner, though, I find that it was more, my driveway will get shovelled
OK, but only if there aren't a bunch of kids putting together a ski trip that
day. In the latter case, the driveway stays snow-covered. Not good. So I have
a contractor with a truck who picks up a lot of cash on snowy days do it - it
gets plowed every time. But then I'd have to turn away the kid that does come
to my door.

Except now my son has enough muscle to do it - so, yes, some chores do get done
by kids.

I ran into similar things getting babysitting. I arrange babysitting for my
bowling night. Back when I was babysitting, such an arrangement meant that
Thursday nights are spoken for, period. As a parent, I found that I'd get calls
from my regular babysitter if there was a club meeting or something that night.

So anymore, before my son got big, I'd hire kids for one-off chores or single
babysitting nights, only. Can't make any continuing arrangement.
Disappointing.

And, yes, it was coming from the parents. I've had all of three conversations
with parents about this pattern, and the response is along the lines of "you
don't expect them to give up THAT ...". So I'd go elsewhere to make
arrangements I could count on. But then the kid's parent would be disappointed.
Oh well.

Banty


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