I don't pay her, so it's not child labour

 That's not a quote from some capitalist propaganda. It's from Dr. Seuss, and not even his allegorical stuff (The Lorax came much later). These words are from "If I ran the Circus," in which the protagonist, young Morris McGurk, has plans to turn a vacant lot into a circus, putting old Mr. Sneelock, the man who runs a store nearby, to work doing all sorts of acrobatic stunts and more. And those words, in the mouth of a child, make total sense. Because children love nothing more than working. Exhibit A:

Does your cleaning lady wear pink underpants?

I put this theory to the test on Sunday, which was the rainiest day in the history of New York City. My husband had to work, so I was home alone with our three-year-old. Things can get ugly after too many hours indoors, so to keep her busy, I made a list of jobs. First she scrubbed her stroller clean in the shower. Then we cleaned the kitchen floor. At that point she was looking around, asking me, "What else can I clean?" so I said, "Uh, the chairs?" (That's what she is doing in the picture above). Then she sorted laundry, yelling, "Light! Dark! Dark! Light!" before throwing each item onto its respective pile. Then we did the laundry, Lucy putting in the soap, the quarters, and the clothes. Then we tidied her bedroom and she vacuumed. Then she scrubbed her bike...at that point my husband came home and I handed her off because I had writing work to do. 

My brother once told me to never make cleaning a form of punishment because it will backfire in the long run. He has two kids, and they happily clean the bathrooms in their house. Point taken. Filed. And referenced daily. So don't call Child Services on me. My worker says, "Work me, please work me!"

Of course, tapping into the manpower of children is totally illegal in North America. And yet, we pay huge amounts of money for them to have the same satisfaction they'd glean from working in a factory. Like this exhibit at the Children's Museum of Manhattan, which says it came from Minnesota, but if you poke around, you may find some mysterious Chinese characters that betray its true function:

Lucy making cogs

There's a sign on it saying, "KEEP HANDS OUT" — just like in a real factory! Because it probably came from a real factory. And Manhattan parents are patsies for paying $20 for their kids to have the opportunity to do work like children in China. Because we could save our $20, and put them to work taking care of business in our own homes.

It's no surprise then that many popular kids' shows involve working. Money never changes hands in Bob the Builder, but that doesn't make those machines any less motivated to take on new tasks. Thomas and friends value each other for their usefulness. My husband and I think about this a lot, clearly. I've written about it before, and so has he, at his very funny new blog. Last weekend, we were in Connecticut, and our daughter spent all of her waking hours there repaving the driveway and building a foundation (not for real; we'd get arrested). Most of her imaginative play involves working in some way:

Lucy (in the bath): I'm painting the wall to get ready for the Orchard Show.

Me: What's the Orchard Show?

Lucy: The apples will take your eyes out and add them to their collection, and then give you candies that look like eyes
 
Me: ......What have you been watching?

-30-

That's some dark stuff, right? 


Anyway, the other thing I find funny about children's museums is the jobs that they prepare children for are not the ones their lawyer/banker/editor-in-chief parents are probably hoping they will aspire to later in life. Like doorman, for example, a very plausible job living in New York City:

Going up?

In short: put your kids to work. They may do a crummy job, but you'll save yourself the $20 it costs to take them to a fake factory where their efforts will be wasted on some Zen task like moving foam bricks along a conveyor over and over. And those sweet, little fingers are so good at getting crusted-on food out from between the slats of a kitchen chair.