Bauer Five Family Blog

So, if you have followed the Bauer posse for any time you know someone (me) is constantly coming up with new angles of getting household chore done.  Consistently that is.   As our friend Carlyle said:

“Labor is life.” Carlyle (1795-1881)

And what labor goes with you throughout life?  Cleaning.  And so my pondering of chores for so long.

Regardless, recently a new concept began to emerge to help the boys be accountable for part of the daily chores w/o being asked.  The concept I called regions.  Regions?  Say what? Yes, it sounds strange.  In short it goes like this.

• Each person owns 1 or more regions around the home (kitchen, bathroom, etc)
• They have to keep that area clean
• If someone messes up their region, and they catch em, they can demand payment of some kind
• To demand payment all regions under your control must be clean
• A region owner can create rules/laws on what defines a region as ‘clean’ for those using it.  Read Pax’s below for an example.
• If your region is not clean due to normal use (not a person messing it up) someone else can tax you

And no, Carmen doesn’t like this either.  But hey the boys do (for now) so why not?

Paxton sees this as an opportunity to catch his brothers unawares and tax them for their computer time so he fought to get the most highly used areas.  Jace is just a victim (too little, but he owns the living room where no one is usually).  Carm got the pantry and masterbath even though she says this is dumb due to it being a competitive not teaming model.  Bry got the mudroom and dining area but is suspicous of how amused Paxton is by this opportunity.

Should be interesting to see how this plays out.  It actually fits w/ love and logic even though Carm is in denial.  The get to be responsible for something.  They own it.  It’s not so big they don’t know what it is.  There is no question of what they own.  It’s a constant responsibility not a point in time thing.  There are consequences for not doing something.  There is a simple rule to avoid trouble (”Leave nothing behind”).  There is a delegation of monitoring.  What’s not to like?

Here is a video of the boys thoughts on the matter.

Here is Paxton’s rules as of today:

Here is Bryson’s Rules: