A few months ago, in a drastic cost cutting measure, I had to let the housekeeper go. I figured with enough able bodies around pitching in we could all handle it. So far so good. The kids have taken over doing the laundry, “cleaning” their rooms ( I use that term loosely)  and bathrooms. I vacuum and Paul mops and all is well. The only thing no one seems to volunteer for is the dusting. Since I am allergic to dust I usually only tackle the task once every six months or so which is why I always had a housekeeper.

A few weeks ago, before we put out all the Christmas decorations, I summoned my five kids into the laundry room, gave each of them a dust rag, sprayed it with some Pledge and sent them all into a different room in the house. They complained, but their objections weren’t what you would expect like “boring, tedious, dirty…” No. My dusting method was simply not sophisticated enough for them or as Sophia put it, ” Mom (elongate the monosyllable in a lengthy whine) your dusting is just so low tech.” Low tech dusting???? “Why don’t you get a Swiffer? If you got a Swiffer I would dust all the time.” Really???  So I bought a Swiffer, which is  cheap flimsy piece of crap probably made by slaves in a foreign country stealing manufacturing jobs from us, but I bought one anyway and my kids LOVED IT. They all fought over it. So. The moral of this story is  …. If you want to get your kids to dust get high tech and buy a Swiffer. Note:  I am not a paid endorser of this product.