I learned household stuff at an early age. Cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, laundry—I was pretty self-sufficient before I went to college. Part of this was because I was a loser with very few friends, so anything that gave me an excuse to stick around the house and not go out where the kids were being their horrid selves was a win.

My sister didn't learn any of this until after college, when she was married. She learned it all the hard way or through panicked calls to Mom. I listened to Mom's half of the, "How to make chili" conversation and laughed and laughed.

by the age of seven, most kids will protest violently at the idea of having their mother dress them.

HA! not mac. He would happily let me dress him every morning. There is a reason I have made the rule that there is no tv on in the morning until all clothes and shoes are on.

I should say also that there is a significant amount of regression with mac, most things revolving around direct care especially if there is physical contact involved - it is all bonding stuff.

Burrell, it's that I want him to do the things without asking 4-5 times that the guy at work was chiding. He was all, "you can't expect him to just do things on his own."

Being latchkey kids, my sister and I learned cooking pretty young as well. Our one big screw up was the time we were too lazy to reheat the veggies in a pot, so we just put the glass dish on the gas burner (pre-microwave era). When it went "boom!" we learned not to do that again. We were lucky it broke into large pieces and not little flying pieces of shrapnel.

I lived in squalor as a child due to circumstances beyond my control. (Growing up, if I had friends over, I'd actually put headbands around their eyes at the front door, and lead them blindly to my room. Once inside my room, I'd remove their blindfolds.)

As a result, I am uptight about housekeeping. No one else in my life really cares, though, so the pressure is all mine, and all on me. This is good and bad.

Yah, "boom" is incredibly educational.

Casper sometimes gets dressed after being asked once, and sometimes it takes 437 askings. She's almost 5. Brushing teeth however is a a big parenting FAIL. We realized yesterday she hadn't brushed them in about a week. She will never do it herself and if they're to actually get clean you still have to basically do it for her. We need to get some of those little pink plaque-dye pellets for her to chew, to teach her to do it better.

One answer to the morning issues is me just getting up earlier and having myself dressed and ready when mac gets up, but I am not so great at that.

Sara likes to get dressed all on her own, without being asked. Which leads to some interesting outfits, I have to say. I always have to remind her to brush her teeth, though, and sometimes I forget.

Speaking of class, this article about college students turning to food stamps and food banks. Which....well, I didn't think it was a very good article. And kinda agreed more with some of the commentary on Seattlest. Not that there aren't valid reasons for some students to be getting food assistance, but...dude. That article made it sound like "OMG? So I blew all my money on BEER, and I'm like, so embarassed to call my MOM and ask for MORE? And I have to pay my CELLPHONE bill! So I think I might have to go the FOODBANK!"

I don't remember not helping with the laundry. No dryer, so wash days were a full family event. Since it was NM, usually by the time you got the 4 lines full, the stuff you started with was ready to come down. Doing dishes (when we were little, at least) was an exercise in bonding with our dad. We had a tall stool we'd sit on and "help."

Later, it became a responsibility that all but the cook rotated through, one I'd often get out of by helping with/making dinner. Funnily enough, doing dishes is actually very soothing to me. The bagel shop loved me because after the morning rush, I'd always volunteer to do the dishes, which they hated. For me, it was a guaranteed 45 uninterrupted, people-free minutes to decompress, play in the water and relax.

Most skills my brother may have missed (out of sheer laziness. The boy looks for shortcuts,) the Army took care of. He *can* fold stuff up so neatly, it looks like it's in a department store. However, he reverts to the roll'n'stuff method most of the time.

His feeding habits suck. He can cook, but again with the shortcuts. He's made some truly foul "meals" for just himself because he doesn't want to get another pot down. He does much better for the kids.