Dominican Children

When I met my Dominican husband some 11 years ago, he had his 3 young sons living with him. It is traditionally the case that if the parents split up the boys go with the father and the girls with the mother. As I had never had children of my own I thought it would be quite fun to play mother for the first time in my life. For the most part it was. They were very well behaved, helped with the cooking, did the cleaning and washing up, laying and clearing the table, made the beds, and would no more dream of arguing with either of us or answering back, than flying to the moon.  We had some great days out as well

The boys in Boca Chica

Day out at the zoo - err "Do not feed the animals?"

On holiday in Barahona

But there were two problems. The first is that they believed, like many Dominicans do, in sharing. Anything that was in the house was there to be shared with those less fortunate. If someone had nothing to eat, then the food bought at the supermarket the day before by me, to last us week, would be shared with friends and neighbours. I would come home from a days diving looking forward to a glass of coca cola and the two litre bottle which was there in the morning, had gone. I would ask the children where it was:

" No fue yo," "It wasn't me," would say the first one.
"Yo no se," "I don't know," would say the second.
"Yo tampoco," "Me neither," would pipe up the third.

I would go to get a chicken out of the freezer to find it was gone. The answers were the same as above.

It wasn't only the food that was shared, so were sheets, towels, cutlery and crockery, my clothes and my shoes. I would see motoconcho drivers wearing my Armani T shirts and little Haitian boys going to school in my trainers.

Number two stepson - butter wouldn't melt

The second problem was the one of not doing something if it was too much effort, but making it look as if it was done. Number two son was, and still is - even aged 21 - the expert at this. He would wash up, but if a pan was difficult to wash, maybe it had been used for the con con (burnt rice), he would not wash it. But he wouldn't leave it to soak, he would hide it.  In the cupboard, the fridge, the oven or even the dustbin. I used to have to check every week before the dustbin man came to fish the dirty pans out.  Nowadays he leaves things to soak, but he is unable of screwing the lid back on anything - he puts the lid on the top, just doesn't bother screwing it down.  Empty bottles get left in the cupboard to save throwing them away.  Always takes the easy way out, and won't make that tiny bit more of an effort to make sure the job is complete! Drives me potty.

All grown up - but still taking the easy way out!

I have no idea if this is a Dominican trait, a child's trait or a boy's trait, but it does my head in! Any ideas how to train them?