19 August 2010

Some lessons aren't worth it.

I had an a-ha! moment a couple months ago and called our local free paper to sign Liam up to do a paper route. Once a week he'd have to stuff flyers into a newspaper and deliver them to about 90 houses.

This is perfect, I thought. It's maybe 3-4 hours of work a week and will teach him a valuable lesson about earning money. He's 11, he's more than capable.

I was the one who ended up learning a lesson: don't do anything so damn stupid again.

It was a headache from the get go. It was reminiscent of me sitting him down to do his homework with him. The huffing and puffing and slamming things around when he's forced to do something he doesn't want to do.

They never got done on the day they were supposed to.

It took him 4 hours just to stuff the papers if I didn't help him.

A couple times I ended up delivering them myself (or putting them in the recycle but shhh).

Yesterday after fighting with him for the umpteenth time to just get it done and by-god-if-you-huff-one-more-time-I-swear-you'll-regret-it, I decided that the lesson wasn't worth it.

I fired off an email to the coordinator telling her effective immediately we wouldn't be delivering the flyers anymore. She called me and suckered me into doing it just one more week.

After that, though, we're free. I haven't told him yet but something tells me he won't be heartbroken.

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