Free Write Monday prompt Kitchen
This is my post for #freewrite Monday prompt Kitchen by @mariannewest
From the time I could stand on a kitchen chair I was doing dishes. My earliest memories are of me and my younger sister both standing on chairs, I wash and she rinses and drys. The dishes were never left to dry by themselves. From the kitchen window, I could see our backyard. We did not have toys like other kids but had an awesome backyard. We had a swing set but the sister helping me with the dishes tried to jump off the backside of the slide and cut her head, she had to have stitches so my Dad had my oldest brother haul the swingset out to the middle of what we called the muddy water. From the kitchen window, I could see the legs of the swingset sticking in the air. I could see our hog Bills pen. The zipline my Dad built for us, it went a couple hundred yards. You climbed up a pine tree grabbed the handle on the pulley and away you went, no harness. If you were lucky your hair did not get wrapped up in the pulley stopping you halfway. I could see the rabbit pens. The big rope that was strung between two trees, one person would sit on the rope and several others on each side would swing the rope until the person fell off, you landed hard, sometimes it would knock the breath out of me. And my Dad thought the swingset was bad, he just never knew because if he did he would take it down.
Back to the kitchen, it was Thanksgiving and all the Aunts and Uncles and cousins were having dinner with us after dinner Dad told me to do the dishes. The other kids had all taken off. I remember looking at all the pots and pans and dishes, it was overwhelming for a 10-year-old. I crawled under the table and was crying when my older half-sister crawled under the table with me and told me she would help with the dishes and it won't take long then we could go swimming. I think I will always remember that day and her kindness.
What an interesting childhood. It remind me of myself at 10 years old standing on a chair doing dishes because my mom got work being maintenance at a local school when my baby sister was little. Back then it wasn't unreasonable to make a 10 year old do dishes... Nowadays you think that they were being boiled in oil. The zipline thing sounds fun and scary LOL
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You were that little at the age of 10 you had to stand on a chair to do the dishes or was the sink extremely high?
At the age of 7, I started cooking and did not need a chair for that. At 12 I was as tall as I am now.
I think I only needed a chair till the age of 3, like most kids, to brush my teeth but I think not even then since my parents did it.
My children wash dishes.
(With us it was always at least two doing it together, more social and gender did not matter at home, I do it the same. No one wants a lazy, dirty guy for a partner who wants to be served.)
I had a dishwasher but it never came out clean although I put it in rather clean. We all felt annoyed by the noise and all the time it takes to be ready.
Washing dishes by hand, this way you can chat too.
Wiping floors, laundry, cleaning, they all do it, inclusive cleaning car, garden, dragging the shopping.
It is natural behaviour for mine, just with me, not all our biggest hobby, but none of them dare to say no. They do it and if they don't see it and I ask they drop what they are doing (reading, watching a film or building something, drawing) and do it.
No one starts a discussion.
Once, years ago, one of the eldest said: it's not my task or mess. I said: neither mine.
💕
I was short, @wakeupkitty! I remember not being able to reach the faucet and Mom didn't want anyone else cooking in the kitchen. She was OCD about her kitchen!
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@wakeupkitty I did not need a chair when I was 10, when I started washing dishes I needed a chair. I was much younger. I never had a dishwasher and last year my husband bought a used one for me, it is so quiet and cleans the dishes very well. When I was young most of the time there was two doing the dishes, one washes the other drys.
@wandrnrose I hear you about asking a child to do something nowadays, I wonder how their children will be, and if they will outgrow the not wanting to do anything faze. My Dad made us some awesome things to play on, today's parents would cringe in fear if their kids went on them.
It is a really different world @myjob. I grew up riding in the back of pick up trucks and no child safety seats!
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@wanrnrose we had the same kind of childhood, my kids even rode in the back of the truck and had no carseats. No I remember having a car seat but all it did was hook over the front seat no seat belt or other way of securing it.
Ah! I forgot those over the seat carseats. I don't remember if I had one, though.
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Many children are spoiled, lazy, overprotected and can do nothing if it comes to it.
There was a news item about it, also on YouTube a video.
The biggest worry is the present generation and the next one. Not able to do anything, repair anything, to survive. Spoiled to death although they can learn each profession they miss the necessary extra which you once learned from parents, family, a master in a certain profession. A school is an institute without skills, flexibility, life experiences where something is taught by people without these skills either, all by the books.
It was kind of depressing... If that kind of youth is the future.
💕
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@wakeupkitty yes I have big doubts about the generation that is just now becoming of age. My granddaughter is 18, she has always lived in one town but does not know how to get anywhere without using the gps. I do not know what will happen if for some reason all electronics crash, how will they cope??
I love these glimpses of your childhood that you give us now and then. This one especially. Such clear memories! And there's dear old Bill again.
I'm here to deliver the Tuesday prompt so please write us another!
https://steempeak.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-662-5-minute-freewrite-tuesday-prompt-digital-human
@owasco thank you for the prompt and liking my memories. oh boy, what am I going to say about digital human?
lol. Let's see. In the future, the way things are going and the laws that are being passed, only digital humans will be able to make money fishing?
@owasco that is sad but so true.
Great Thanksgiving doing the dishes pots and pans while the rest has fun. 😭
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I'm pretty sure all of us over 50 did some pretty crazy things when we were growing up, and lived to tell about it. Maybe I could back that up another decade. My kids are in their 30s and I kept a rather close eye on them, but maybe they got into hazardous mischief when I wasn't looking. I'm glad your sister helped you with the dishes that day!
@scribblingramma I thought the same about my kids and now that they are adults they tell me things they did when I was not watching, one daughter said one of the times she was to "sick" to go to school, she had her boyfriend at the house all day and we had come home early and he had to hide in a big plant that was growing by the house. She said we walked right by him.
Oh, that's a great story! But I bet you were appalled when you first heard it!
@scribblingramma I can still see myself under the table crying, the stack of dishes was overwhelming, but with help, it did not take that long and I was happy to go swimming.