by Stephaine Iszard

As I sit and listen to my ten-year-old and eleven-year-old chatter about their “have to do” lists, I devilishly smirk as they name each one by one.  My daughter whines about “having to” clean her room, put the laundry away, and maintain great grades.  My son has a bit more of an extensive list.  He moans and groans about “having to” clean his room put away laundry, weed the backyard, put groceries away, and maintain great grades while maintaining a gentlemanly attitude through it all.  I recall when I was their age my mama only gave us one “have to” assignment.  My mama said the only thing we “had to do” was “just stay black and die.”

Now, I don’t want the reader to get me wrong… my mama believed in making us work.  As a matter of fact, I think child labor laws were created with my mama in mind.  .  We did chores before school and after school.  We were southern po’ folks.  We did not have much, but the little we did have my mama made sure we took care of it. My mama was a part time cleaning woman.  She cleaned white folks’ houses to help supplement my poor daddy’s minute income.  So, when she came home she was too tired to work in our house.  That’s what we five kids at home were ‘pose to do. We all had jobs.  My sister had to cook, because she was the oldest and probably the most likely not to burn our little one bedroom shack down.  My brothers raked the yard and emptied the bucket that caught the dish water under the kitchen sink.  I had to flush the toilet with a pot full of water.  Lord help me if I would spill water on the floor.  You’d swear the Hoover Dam broke!
We all had to take turns going to the store.  I hated walking to the store.  I hated having to greet folks on the way to the store and back.  You would think that one “hey” was enough, but it was considered disrespectful if you didn’t holla every time you saw grown folks.  We all had to walk to the laundry mat with the dirty clothes.  I hated that chore the most.  It was over a two mile jaunt.  I am not speaking in lying miles, but truthful “I am too embarrassed to be walking down the street with my draws in a basket” miles.

I’ll never forget one day I temporarily lost my mind while dusting the furniture.   I told my mama I did not understand why we children had to do all the chores in the house; that is what mothers “have to” do.  Before I could utter another syllable, my mama introduced me to the back of her hand.  It was a swift but firm greeting.   My mama looked at me with her tired eyes and said to me, “The only thing I have to do is stay black and die”.   As a ten-year-old, I was not quite sure what she meant by this, but I could tell by the look on her face that that was not the time to ask.  I just put my daddy’s old sock back on my hand and continued to dust the furniture.  I remember thinking to myself…”I can’t wait to be grown folks; then the only thing I “have to” do is stay black and die.”

Well, now I am grown folks and much has change in my life.  I have two wonderful kids who sometimes jokingly refer to themselves as the “help”.   Contrary to what my mama taught me, I realize that as a mother I need to do more than “just stay black and die”.  I have two worker bees that need me to do so much more.  I need to love, encourage, and challenge them to become what their Creator has called them to be.  I want them to be responsible, to be hardworking, and above all to stay Godly and LIVE!