Even Work We Love is Still Work
Can I tell you a secret? Please don’t tell anyone I told you this. I detest giving kids allowances. It’s the quickest way to teach entitlement, laziness, and create a disconnect between money and work. At the same time, I think it’s important that we don’t create a culture where every bit of work is done with an expectation of financial compensation. In our house, this looks like our twin 6-year-old boys having a number of ongoing chores on their plate, each done with nothing in return. They perform these tasks because we all have roles to play in our family. At their current stage in life, it looks like cleaning the table after dinner, placing their clothes in the hamper, making sure their shoes live by the door, emptying the trash cans, and putting their clean clothes in their drawers. On top of that, however, they also have opportunities to earn money through the completion of extra work. These are optional projects that are above and beyond their normal chores. Whenever they complete a task, they usually make $2 ($1 for spending and $1 for giving). We offer them these opportunities, but they are also able to request them if they’d like.
Yesterday, the kids helped me mow the yard. We had a blast doing it together and they were on cloud nine. After we got done, all dirty and sweaty, I handed them each $2. Finn immediately piped up, “Daddy, you don’t need to pay us. We love mowing.” I expressed my excitement that they enjoyed mowing with me, but then added, “Even work we love is still work.”
This, right here, is one of the primary contributing factors to why people have such a toxic relationship with work. We are taught from an early age that work sucks. It’s not fun, we don’t want to do it, and it’s a necessary evil……which is why we get paid to do it. I couldn’t disagree more with this notion. Work is work. All work matters. All work is deserving of fair compensation……even work we love. (To clarify, I’m not referring to serving and volunteering. There’s a time and place for those things, as they are tremendously valuable and important.)
I hear this same notion from adults. Someone tells me they are going to retire soon, and I know they are beyond excited to leave their current career. When I ask what they are going to do next if they aren’t working anymore, they respond, “Well I’m still going to do something, but it will be something I love. I don’t consider that work.” This is an innocent enough comment on the surface, but do you see what’s really going on behind the curtain? Here’s my translation (which is obviously an over generalization being used for dramatic effect): “I’ve been getting paid for decades to do something I don’t really love. I’m looking forward to being able to ‘retire’ so I can finally do something I enjoy. I’m probably not going to charge what I’m worth for it because I actually like it and I don’t consider it work (even though I probably could have made a respectable living and enjoyable career doing this for the last few decades and not felt the need to ‘retire’ as quickly as possible).”
Let me be clear. I’m not demeaning or criticizing this person. We’ve been conditioned to think and feel this way about work and money from the time we were kids. What I’m suggesting is this person could have had a richer life and career if they had believed even good work is still work. When we can connect something we love with respectable compensation, we enter an entirely new existence. Good news: it’s never too late!!
“Daddy, we love mowing…..and we get paid for it!” If I can get my kids to internalize this perspective, work will forever change for them. It’s the entry point to work that matters…..and they have 80 years of work in front of them! If this happens, it will be one of my greatest parenting wins of all time.