As a MOTY, you're probably drowning daily in a sea of plastic toys and Goldfish cracker crumbs, giving your toddler the stink eye, and scouring the Internet for an algorithm that proves your kid is ready to start cleaning up his or her shit. Once Baby is ready, there are many ways to delegate and organize. For instance: The Job Jar is a popular way to go. And it's MOTY approved as long as you follow a couple simple guidelines. First, play the long game by spending the first several years of Baby's life instilling the exaggerated notion that stickers are sacred. Hoard them. Praise them. Use them with great care. That way, stickers will work as currency, and you can avoid actual allowance discussions until their peers clue them on, you know, actual currency. Second, you don't need popsicle sticks, fabric, twine or a fucking mason jar. The job jar is about making less work for you -- not more. Before you get too caught up in how you will enforce chores, you need to seriously consider when you should introduce them. Obviously, the earlier you can start instilling responsibility in your child (and removing to-do's from your own list), the better. However, like starting solid food, there is a real science to it. Here are a few basic points to consider: 1. Can Baby be trusted not to eat chemicals? If not, she may not be ready to clean. Of course, if you use any type of organic or all-natural cleaning products, it's probably fine. 2. Does Baby understand the difference between trash and recycling? This is not a deal breaker as long as he can successfully place a stinky diaper in a bin of some kind. 3. Can Baby more or less differentiate between substances that go into your mouth and those that come out of your private parts? Here, Baby is struggling to connect. When trying to clean up his urine, he gets confused and starts pouring milk into the sponge. This guy may not be ready. 4. Is Baby strong enough to carry necessary items? Remember, you can use the word "carry" loosely here. If Baby can move things from Point A to Point B, you can answer "yes." Of course, this guide overlooks the crushing reality that any time a kid of any age tries to clean up any mess, it looks something like this (The mess is the image on the left): Sorry, mamas. Keep dreaming!
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We love our kids. They drive us crazy. We write about it instead of going insane. Archives
September 2017
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