Master Dishwasher

Oh how you wish you had one of these at your house!

You know my 10 year old son has been washing our dishes by himself for over a year now. That's his job every day and he has to wash them by hand. Yes, I am astounded that he's still doing it and he doesn't complain. Well, we have some new developments happening around here that I am excited about.

A friend of ours mentioned that her kids can become Masters at their jobs and start getting paid to do them. Our kids get an allowance every month but it's not tied to jobs at all. They do their jobs no matter what and they get their allowance no matter what. I have always been adamant about that. But Stranger really liked the idea of a Master's program so he kept mentioning it to me (bugging me about it) until I finally caved in.

We started talking about what it would be worth to have him do the dishes every day without me reminding him or checking up on him or telling him to hurry up already. That would be worth A LOT! So a couple months ago we talked to the kids about it and told them that if they wanted to become Masters at their jobs then we would start paying them. They had to do them perfectly, without supervision for 30 days before they could graduate into the program. Neither of them were interested.

I thought it was odd because my son especially LOVES money and why do something for free if you can get paid to do it? It didn't make sense to me but we went along our merry way for a couple months until last week when I was working on the computer and Victor was doing something strange in the kitchen.

He wasn't just washing dishes. He was washing them QUICKLY, without playing in those shiny, distracting soap bubbles. Then when he was done he scrubbed out the sink and wiped off the counters. What? And then I saw him taking the garbage out. Excuse me? And then he got out the vacuum and cleaned the kitchen floor and put the vacuum away. HELLO!!! It was at that point that I about fell off my chair but I did some deep breathing exercises and pretended that nothing unusual was going on.

When he was all done he walked over and said, "You know that thing you and Dad talked about with our jobs?"

"No."

"You know that thing where we get paid to do them?"

"No," I was still clueless because I had forgotten all about it.

"YOU KNOW, that thing where I do my job for 30 days and then you pay me???" Hello stupid Mother!

Ok, yes. I remembered. He wanted to become a Master Dishwasher and he was starting that day! He has been working on it for almost a week now and he's doing a fabulous job. We still haven't decided what we will be paying him (not what he's worth!) but of course along with getting more money he will be getting more responsibilities for spending that money. We don't just give our kids money to blow on candy and junk but that is a whole other post.

I can't tell you how excited I am about having a Master Dishwasher in the house! I was talking to my 8 year old tonight and asked her if she was interested in becoming a master at her jobs as well and she said, "No."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because I hate doing jobs."

"Then wouldn't you rather get paid for doing them instead of doing them for free?"

"No, because I would still hate them."

Ok, that totally makes sense if you are 8 I guess.