Parenting Without a Manual
with Talyaa Liera
I'm Talyaa, the poster child for the concept that there's no one right way to be a parent. I went from stay-at-home attachment-parenting mom of four to being the non-custodial parent, working as a professional writer and channel-psychic. Let's talk about throwing away the parenting manual and exploding the myths and mystique of motherhood!
Check out my personal blog at Juxtapositioning.
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My daughter Serena, 11, needs a job this summer. Or maybe next year. Her older brother Nathaniel is heading off for a year in France and she will miss him terribly, so I am conspiring now to help make her life awesome instead of lonely while he is away.
I already suggested she get a kitten. But a kitten will only go so far and won’t pay her any money. She needs something more, something Super Awesome, something that will capitalize on the sense of responsibility she is building this year as a top-of-the-elementary-school 5th grader.
Yes, my kid needs a job*. But what?
Please, oh please, don’t say babysitting. Is that all there is? Serena already spends a lot of time with her little brother. She’s good at it and he dotes on her, but aren’t there options for tween girls who are much too young to drive and who live in a detached neighborhood in semi-rural suburbia where it’s a 20-minute drive to anywhere and where there is no one there to drive her? (much like the zen koan of the sound of a tree falling in the forest where there is no one there to hear…)
[Back to babysitting. I know I am judgy about it. It never appealed to me and I avoided it as a teen (I had a lame weekly paper route instead). So please help and regale me with your I Heart Babysitting stories, or feel free to convince me why it's an awesome option for Serena. Because it could be and I am just not seeing it.]
Lawnmower? Car washer? Dog walker? Pop star? Bershon model? Paint the fence, wax on wax off? What tween jobs have emerged from our nascent 21st century? Nathaniel scored a great job at an organic orchard when he was 10 and has worked every there autumn since then. (Lucky. He brings home apples and wads of cash.) A friend’s daughter, 14, just got a job helping a blind man around his house. Win!
What awesome and creative job did you have as a kid? What jobs do your own kids have? Have things changed much?
*I know she’s young and still needs to be a kid. I figure she can start slowly.
[photo: Taran Rampersad]
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I don’t have a tween - a 3-year-old, a 1-year-old, and one on the way, actually. But I have recently started paying someone to clean my house (TOTALLY wish I would have done it long ago!) I chose someone who is a young Army wife, who just wants to make some extra money with flexible hours, so she only charges $10/hour (the going rate around here is $20/hour). On many occasions, I’ve thought, “Wow, any industrious teenager could totally do this job!” I don’t ask her to do much - basically she comes once/week for general vacuuming/sweeping/mopping, and cleaning the bathrooms. And I’m not too picky.
Kind of like babysitting, I know there were MANY other things I would have rather done than clean when I was her age (… and now…) but it might be another option?
Sara | March 24th, 2011 at 12:21 pm
Good point, Sara! Plus I am remembering that cleaning for someone else — for pay — sounds a lot more palatable at that age than doing chores at home.
(Oh, and having someone clean your house for you ROCKS. Like you, I wish I had been doing this years ago!)
Talyaa Liera | March 24th, 2011 at 12:23 pm
Lawn mowing is a nice option, that is the one my sister chose. Other creative jobs, assisting the elderly with chores, sometimes as mundane as filing bills, writing out checks, things that are excruciating with bad arthritis, or impossible for someone who had a stroke.
I’m going to put in a plug for babysitting. I worked as a mother’s helper one summer, taking care of the baby when she puttered around the house, and it slowly built, from her taking 2 hours for lunch & golf into being the “go to” sitter, culminating in a “summer nanny” gig where I got to travel with the family when I was 18. Babysitting can be awesome.
And you can carry that through and the $$ go up for you as you become more in demand. In our town sitters age 18-21 command $10 hour and sitters over 21 command much higher.
Mich | March 25th, 2011 at 2:31 pm
I am loving your idea of starting as a mother’s helper and working up to nearly-nanny. That’s awesome! I hadn’t thought about how the position can evolve like that. And I also love the idea of assisting the elderly. Great ideas!
Talyaa Liera | March 25th, 2011 at 4:53 pm
can’t help with the babysitting part, i hated it and avoided as well!! was so not worth the money to me… lol
it’s tough when someone that age wants to work and there aren’t many paid working positions available (that young).
I think the biggest question is what does she like to do? If she loves kids/adults then maybe helping with either is perfect. Does she like baking? maybe sell baked goods to neighbors. is she into jewelry making (or other crafts?) maybe she can sell stuff on Etsy? (yes she might need some parental help, but you might also find that she likes figuring out the business side too!)
Good luck!
kate | April 11th, 2011 at 4:16 pm