Allowances

"An idle mind is the devil's workshop" was the philosophy both my mom and my dad adhered to. And, growing up in the Self-household, the Self-kids were kept busy enough that we didn't find too much to get into.
Don't get me wrong. We weren't slave labor or anything. We received an allowance. I think it was something like $1.50 a week. That seems puny now, but when we got paid on Saturday morning, the Self-kids were walking in tall cotton. And, when we picked cotton or worked the fields, we got more.
A lady, not long ago, was telling me about a teenager who was staying with her. It seems this young person was having a difficult time keeping money in his checking account. His parents gave him a $3,000 a month allowance and he ran short every month.
Now, I don't know about you, but this causes me to raise an eyebrow or two. There were no strings attached. No chores to do. This was just money he was given. This gives a whole new meaning to the word allowance.
"Chores will make a better person of you," my dad used to say.
"One day, you'll appreciate what I'm trying to teach you," he would add.
Every afternoon, we'd get off the school bus (no personal cars), change from school clothes to ever'day clothes, and commence our after-school routine.
I cleaned the house, did the laundry, and got supper started. Joe did most of the outside chores. He fed the cows, pigs, horses, dogs, and whatever other varmints we had at the time. After supper (not dinner), I cleared the table, did the dishes, and then did my homework.
On the weekends, we mowed and cleaned up the yard. In the summer, we hoed the cotton, corn, and garden. Then, we picked it.
But, as I recall, it wasn't all work. We had our fun times, too. Joe and I used to have races to see who could chop the most weeds in the fastest time. We did pretty good, until we looked back, and saw we had been chopping down the corn and leaving the Johnson grass.
Believe me, Dad was not a happy camper. Our backsides didn’t fair very well, either.
Tall cotton stalks made great hiding places. You could crawl between the rows on your belly and sneak right up on somebody. This was great, especially when you could scare the living daylights out of your little sister, who was too little to do the chores. So, she got to ride around on daddy's cotton sack. But, there was a time when the scare tactic was reversed. I was crawling around on my belly just waiting for the right moment to scare Karen. Joe had the same bright idea. Just as I was about to burst through and scare the heebie-jeebies out of Karen, I bellied right up to a big old snake curled up in the shade of a cotton stalk. There we lay, eyeball to eyeball. I was petrified. My mouth flew open, but no sound came forth. I put it in reverse, and crawfished out the way I came in. Then, just when I thought I was far enough away, I bolted up ready to run. That's when Joe and I crashed into each other faces first. There we stood, blood gushing from my nose and his lip. By the time daddy got to us, we had our stories ready. I don't think he bought the yarn we had spun, but he let it slide. Karen just sat there with a silly grin on her face like she thought we had gotten what we deserved.
Our allowances didn't amount to much when compared to today's. But, earning the allowance made us part of something. We worked and we got paid. And, it kept us off the streets and out of a lot of trouble.
I know times have changed and things are different now. Kids are different. And, families are different.
Some things change, but some don't. I'm a firm believer in my dad's philosophy, "An idle mind is a devil's workshop." Many kids have too much time on their hands. They don't hold down jobs, and household chores are out of the question.
To be fair to today's kids, it's not all their fault. We as parents share the blame. We've wanted to make our kids' lives better than ours were.
Reality is, My Corner of the World is a little sadder because in my drive to make life easier for my kids, I've deprived them of valuable learning experiences . . . and a whole heap-load of memories.