This column first appeared in CityView Magazine’s “The Military Issue” July 2026 edition.

 After several well-earned, summer break kick-off weeks of sleeping in, more screen time than they are typically allowed, unlimited popsicles, and nary a responsibility, my two children, ages 9 and 12, awoke one morning to the horror of three color-coded documents taped to the living room wall. The first two were customized chore charts for each of them, followed by a third page: a bulleted list of summertime rules and regulations.

What can I say? I can only be the sheriff of a lawless frontier for so long.

Their rosters of daily chores were perfectly reasonable assignments: making their beds (with “neatly” added and underlined in parentheses); taking turns walking our puppy; tidying their rooms and bathrooms (“shoving everything under your bed or in your closet is not tidying”); at least 30 minutes of reading (“no, 30 minutes of watching the movie version of the book does not count”); 30 minutes of practicing the sport of your choosing; washing dishes; folding towels; taking out the garbage; and working together once a week to deep clean the playroom (“no, you cannot pay your sibling $10 to do it all”).

But by the looks on their faces, you would have thought I’d demanded that they pluck the hairs out of their heads one by one with dull tweezers.

The funny thing is, these are things my husband and I generally expect of them anyway, but maybe it was just seeing the chores scrawled in my chicken scratch in itemized fashion that made it seem as though I’d written out, not a list of chores, but the steps to their slow and excruciating demise.

And then came the list of family rules and regulations that I mistakenly thought might stir a little enthusiasm if each rule was written in a different summery-colored magic marker. But my tween daughter and fourth-grade son remained unimpressed.

I may have even sensed a slight air of annoyance and urge to whine. Perhaps they just felt oppressed by the very first item on the list, “No whining about or acting annoyed by these rules.” A list followed:

  • No YouTube. At all.
  • No begging to watch YouTube.
  • No sneaking Mom and Dad’s phones to watch YouTube.
  • No uttering the words “YouTube.”
  • No thinking about YouTube.
  • No sneaking sweets or sodas without permission—a rule implemented only after I discovered a certain someone’s secret hiding spot for empty candy wrappers, and an empty Diet Coke can stacked neatly in the fridge behind the other five full cans from my emergency reserve.
  • No fighting with your sibling. (I think the enthusiasm might have finally kicked in on this one because they both actually let out a little chuckle!).
  • Be generally helpful with Rowdy. (Rowdy is our puppy, and they knew better than to balk at this one because rule No. 1 on the “Rules and Regulations of Getting a New Puppy” list was “be generally helpful.”)
  • No food or drinks upstairs in your bedrooms—inspired by my discovery of a long-forgotten, long-expired fast food milkshake in my son’s bedroom trash can.

And another few highly oppressive directives thrown in for good measure. 

When my children finished surveying their commandments, my 9-year-old had but one question, “Mom?! After all this, when are we even going to have time for any fun?”

I’m happy to report that since the sheriff laid down the law, all chores continue to be completed and rules and regulations continue to be followed, for the most part. Summer reading completion is well underway. We’ve had one little YouTube slip-up, but only because my son “really, really needed to see this funny video my friend told me about what it feels like to eat a Dorito the wrong way.”

I don’t think a snack or a soda has been snuck, although a pessimist might say that I just haven’t yet discovered the new hiding spot. Rowdy has enjoyed his daily walks with two kids who actually have the energy to keep up with him, and I have enjoyed my daily breaks from dog doodie duty. Beds have been made, with “neatly” remaining relative. Rooms have been tidied, although I need to remember to check under beds.

And as for that whole “no arguing with your sibling thing,” it was probably a pie-in-the-sky goal to begin with anyway. I mean, when there are two of you, and one of you is near collapse from walking the dog in 95 degree heat, the other is exhausted from 30 minutes of mandatory backyard soccer practice, and you both reach the freezer simultaneously—after asking Mom’s permission, of course—to discover that there is only one popsicle remaining, what else is there to do other than engage in a good, ol’ fashioned familial fracas?

So I think it’s safe to say, generally speaking, we are killin’ it. Even if it has only been two days since I laid down the law.

Feel free to check in with my kids in August to see if they managed to squeeze in even an ounce of fun between all their endless toiling and law abiding under the subjugation of the summertime sheriff.

Claire Mullen can be reached at ClaireJLMullen@gmail.com.