I wrote earlier about teaching my children to work, and just this week I stumbled across another useful device. It happened early one morning when I was checking on my tomatoes and saw the lady across the street also outside in her yard. She is a recent widow with a yard full of orange trees. We chit-chatted for a few minutes, and I asked if I could take her yard trash for my compost pile. She said that she wasn’t done, so I offered my strapping seven-year-old boy to her to complete the job.

Most kids would grumble and complain at being offered out as free labor to neighborhood, but I said it like this, “Hey, hon, the lady across the street needs some help in her yard, and I thought you might want to go over there. We won’t start school until you get back, and then if we don’t finish all of it, it won’t be the end of the world.”

He lit up like Methuselah’s birthday cake. In fact, my daughter inquired about his whereabouts, and when I told her, she flew over there to join the effort. After a long time passed, I thought they should have finished, returned home, and begun their language work. So I went outside and surveyed the situation.

They were at another neighbor’s house sweeping the driveway.

I stood there and “humphed” with my hands on my hips, but what can you do…