One day my sister and I were discussing the chores we did as children. We seemed to have chores but don’t remember our parents nagging us to get them done. Certainly we were told, but we don’t recall them telling us daily to clean our rooms, wash the dishes, mow the lawn. It is selective memory I am sure. What we do recall are the different chores for which we were responsible especially during the summer months. We both agree that we cooked and cleaned the kitchen, helped gather vegetables from the garden, prepare the produce for canning or freezing, and we both did laundry. We also remember keeping our rooms in order, and we did not take our toys, clothing or food items out of their respective places nor into other rooms of the house. At what age did we know we had to do such tasks? And why is it some siblings do what they are supposed to, and then there are those who do not? It is very perplexing. What is even more perplexing is that one chore I willingly accepted as a young child and then teen became the one task I dislike today.
Grocery shopping is a pain. I do not like it, and I wait until I have absolutely nothing to cook before I make the dreaded list and head to the grocery. You would think I would enjoy it more with all the choices offered and one stop shopping, but I miss the old grocery store where all they stocked were grocery items, and I did not have to use a map to find my way around. Maybe my memory of shopping years ago is playing tricks on me, but I did seem to enjoy it more back then.
Some of my first chore memories are of cooking lunch during the summer. My dad came home every day for lunch, and rarely did we serve sandwiches or a salad. Our meals included protein, two vegetables (prepared and cooked), a green salad and bread. We bought groceries in a town 12 miles away every Wednesday because my mother collected Green Stamps, and they were double on Wednesday. I followed the same grocery buying ritual for years. When my sister was old enough to drive, we would head to the supermarket in her VW and begin collecting the various, yet mundane, items into the carts. Yes, carts. It took two carts always for us. Included on the list were fresh seasonal fruits and vegetables and potatoes, always did we buy potatoes, dairy items like eggs, cheddar and cottage cheese, and butter (we had milk delivered once a week), chicken and pork if we did not raise one that year, some canned goods if the garden did not produce enough, and a few frozen items like fish sticks that children seem to love. If mother was in a baking mood, we would add flour, sugar, and on rare occasions, chocolate chips and pecans. Prepackaged foods were limited to saltine crackers, canned biscuits and bread. Sometimes she would allow us to buy cereal and a bag of candy like licorice which continues to be one of our favorites. Our shopping was very basic, and today, on the rare occasions I venture to the grocery, I shop the outside isles to follow the same simple buying pattern that my mother did.
When my sister and I shopped alone, we would flirt with the stockers and baggers. We became good friends with many of those boys who were working their ways to cars or college. It made the shopping experience more fun, so rarely did we turn down the opportunity. Once we had all the groceries delivered to the car by the wise crackers who joked about how many bags of groceries it took to feed our family of six, we would take a turn or two downtown just to see if anyone was around. Finally, we would stop and buy a fountain soda from the Tasty Freeze, if we had the money, and then roll the windows down, crank up the radio and drive home with the wind in our hair and beat of music at our feet. We laughed and joked until the more serious boy talk settled us down into whispers about which one we liked the most.
We all have chores/ tasks we do that we do not like, but we know it has to be done. Trying to get a child to understand that concept must begin early I believe. As a parent, I probably relied more on a reward/punishment system than my parents, and I have one child who to this day never picks up her shoes or cups at my house, and she is almost 33 years old. Where did we go wrong? (ha, ha)
Next time I enter a grocery store, I think I will try to envision the pleasure of shopping I had long ago. We do have a local market that resembles closely those stores of yesterday, and I shop there some, but the closest super market is just that-super sized, super prices and super congested. I will keep my selective memory about this chore, and I will continue to delude myself into thinking it was is a pleasant task.
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