Warning this is my mind and heart speaking...you may be offended

So Eliza tells me that I am the meanest mom in the whole world. Why? Because we give her boundries that she is expected to follow. No other kids her age have to make their beds before they can go to school, turn the lights off when they leave the room or pay $.10 to the power bill, redo thier chores for not doing them right the first time, etc. So she would be better off in a slave camp. My tears runnenth over for her. She has no time in her life because she chooses to take voice lessons & we make her practice daily just like her brother & he also has football 4 days a week for 2 hours but seems to have plenty of time. I think it's more of an issue of time management. When dinner dishes need to be done someone is magically in the bathroom, McKay. So we sat down for FHE last week & decided things were going to change in a big way at the Smith home. We listed all chores and the amount they are worth. Then posted them. We made job applications & the kids got to choose what jobs they wanted to interview for. We made some real job rules. They had to come to their interview in their Sunday best, if they didn't do the job properly they would get one warning & be docked pay. ($.50 for a bathroom makes you really want to get it done right). We went over all the expectations for each job. If it wasn't done right the second time they would be fired. Now so you know we don't just give our children money. There is and never has been allowance at our home so if they want something they have to figure out hoe to earn it & we thought this would be a great way to introduce them to the working world. Eliza is already in debt in the bed making. Tomorrow she will actually be kept home from school. Remember we are the mean parents. Bed making comes before socializing.


Now my next rant. Friday night Taylor & I were at a party for his football team & a woman that I have the highest reguards for had a boy coming to pick up her 15 year old daughter to take to a party. It sat so wrong with me. I grew up in a home where there was no dating before you were 16. My brother got asked to a dance that was the night before his 16th birthday & my parents didn't let him go. I didn't turn 16 until I was a junior. I missed every dance of my sophmore year. It was hard. I remember one night going into talking to my dad & crying and saying how I was so mature so really what did an age have to do with it. He said something to me that I will never forget. He told me that if we cannot obey something as simple as waiting until we are 16 to go on a date, then how can we ever do anything greater that the Lord asks of us? He said because truly it'sour obediense to the simple things that make us who we are. That was so profound & I never once questioned him again. We can justify it all we want they were just driving to a party together or it was a group of couples going to a dance together. It is still a date. When you are one on one you are dating & that has to go with adults when they go to lunch with just another person of the opposite sex or long walks alone.