Hard Work

Excerpt #2 from Out of the Chaos: Notes on Raising Nine Independent Children

The Azevedo Family 1985

By Lex de Azevedo, President of Two Little Hands Productions, and father of Rachel Coleman and Emilie Brown, the creators of Signing Time

From 1974 through 1986, because I worked in the music business, we lived in a community called Toluca Lake outside of Los Angeles. I was determined that living in the city would not deprive my children of the opportunity to work. Since life in Los Angeles required year-round mowing, edging, raking, and weeding, I felt this would be the ideal opportunity to teach the kids to work. I bought all the necessary garden tools including a gas mower, edger, and weeder, and started to train the kids how maintain a yard and even how to wash and detail the cars.

The next-door neighbor, an old man named Jim, laughed at me.  “It ain’t going to work,” he chided. “I’ll give you one, two months at the most and you’ll be hiring a gardener.”

“Look, I’m not mowing lawns, I’m raising kids!”  I replied.

Well, there weren’t many kids in our neighborhood, let alone families with nine children, so I doubt if the neighbors understood. I have to admit that trying to manage a team of gardeners ranging in ages from 2 to 18 was less than fun. Just more chaos! Our yard never did look as good as the neighbors and every Saturday left me exhausted and stressed, yelling and screaming. Sometimes I was so frustrated with the kids that by the end of the day we weren’t talking. Their allowance was based on the fulfilling of their chores – and children never seem to have the same standards for completion as parents do. Again and again I was tempted just to hire a gardener, but then, I wasn’t maintaining a yard, I was raising kids. Continue Reading »