Slave labor, a.k.a chores

I, Beanstalk Mom, do solemnly admit to being the world's meanest mom. To whit, I make my innocent, tender lads get up by 9 am during summer vacation, and not only must they be out of bed, but they must also actively engage in all manner of vile, odious (and odiferous) tasks, the sole purpose of which is to make them suffer. Swabbing, scouring, swiffering -- they have to do it all.

Actually, we have a very equitable and, dare I say fun? -- way of divvying up tasks. I make a list of the day's chores, and assign a score from 1 to 3 points to each, the harder and less desirable tasks getting the higher score. Then we divide the total score by the number of laborers to determine how many points each must do. So it's up to each to decide if they want to do a lot of easy chores, or just one or two more challenging tasks. The first to rise gets first pick of the chores. Hence the origins of the aphorism, "the early bird gets the swiffer."