Being a family, means we are working together for an ultimate goal of reaching Heaven - little goals in the between-time, like assuring proper usage of finances and other resources over which God has given us stewardship.
I grew up with several friends whose parents did everything; these children, then teens, then young adults who struggled with the most basic of tasks. I was blessed to grow up in a family situation where I DID stuff - real stuff. Sometimes it was just observing (Grandpa would NOT let me touch his saws and other heavy machinery as a very young child - he cared about my safety!), but I was right there in the truck with Grandpa delivering play sand to a customer; among many other tasks and experiences gleaned from my other Grandpa, both of my grandmothers and my mom.
The thing is, I honestly know people who honestly could not put together some casters on a shop-vac at age 20 - and some even at 25. Really. As parents, we should consider whether protecting our children from any kind of manual labor is really a good thing in the long-term. Children shouldn't be on physical labor inappropriately or alone - but we work *together*. Unless it is a task he is perfectly capable and competent at. Like the following one.
Today, as he did with a regular carpet vacuum a bit over a year ago, we came home from making a vacuum purchase and Legoboy got right to it:
 |
| Hm. Let's not SIT on the underside until we take off the lid. |
 |
| Yay! DONE! |
 |
| Chilling with some reading and some cookies. |
 |
| What!? I just put your vac together and you want me to eat in the (GASP!?) DINING room!? That's right, Kiddo. Get moving. |
Yes that is still Christmas items in the background - actually our O Antiphon Tree and our basket-manger with Baby Jesus; and our books and CDs/DVDs. We celebrate Christmas fully until January 11 (this year); and in many ways we are still celebrating until February 2: The Feast of the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple (technically the Wise Men arrived after that, by the way; but anyway).
We have put off purchasing the shop-vac. We need one for the basement. I have borrowed two from two different friends since we moved in, thinking it might be just a short-term need. Now we are looking to move the wood-cutting area from one side of the basement to the other and I really want to keep saw-dust down; as well as we need to clean out the window areas more thoroughly. There is simply always something to clean up that I would rather NOT go through our rather awesome Shark Navigator I use in the rest of the house. So $63 later (shop-vac and an attachment set with a chisel nozzle and a brush nozzle (I didn't actually want the brush, but it might come in handy - it was packaged with the chisel, I had no choice if I wanted the chisel)), here we are: the proud owners of a shop-vac ;)
It has a hose I can connect directly to the saw to get most of the sawdust, keeping the saw cleaner, then I can clean up as needed which will be less often and more thorough than previous practice.
And we can keep the wasps swept up until we find the nest and eradicate it.
Oh yes - and it has a blower! He is looking forward to a bit of a thaw to see if it works to blow some leaves off the back driveway - instead of our usual sweeping!
Hmmmm. This could be useful for the porches too.....
