D’ya know that question everyone likes to ask children?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

There’s a trend lately of adults complaining about no direction in life. To be funny, they/we have coined the term ‘adulting.’ I see t-shirts with the word on it, as in “Adulting is Hard,” or “Tried Adulting Today / Gave Up.”

Why are we all so bummed out about responsibility? My theory is that others have discovered what I did once I moved out: my life goal could never work. See, what I wanted to ‘be’ when I grew up was a lazy sod. I wanted to never have to do chores again.

Whenever my parents assigned us clothes-folding (my own!), dishes-washing (after my mom made dinner every night!), or sock-mating (which we were paid to do!); I assumed they were sadistic monsters whose only desire was to watch us squirm and suffer. It never occurred to me that chores needed to be done. Certainly I never thought I contributed to a mess that needed cleaning.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m as intelligent as I hope.

Because, well…. I still hold out for my goals. I still want to do what I want while someone else gets dirty. Let me tell you, nothing builds resentment quite as quickly as unreasonable expectations.

But I’ve got some working solutions, like:

1. Training the kids for their own future lives  (AKA hounding the kids every few minutes to do their chores).
2. Explaining to my husband and ‘help-meet’ that maintaining a house and family is a team effort (AKA nagging).
3. Hiring out work when we can afford it (AKA asking for a day’s maid as a birthday present).
4. Accepting how things are (AKA giving up, piling up, until blowing up and cleaning the house top to bottom).

Good thing there’s chocolate.

©2019 Chelsea Owens