Even Though This Mom's Clever Trick to Get Kids to Pick Up a Piece of Trash Failed Miserably, I'm Trying It Tonight

I do it to myself all the time. I'll notice a Crayola marker with the cap off or an errant sock on the floor next to the hamper or a crumpled paper napkin atop an otherwise cleared dining table. My impulse is to snap the cap back on, toss the laundry into the bin, and throw the napkin away, but I resist. And I wait. And I wait some more to see if anyone will see what appears so obvious to me. But, eventually, I'm assured that these things are all invisible to everyone but me.

Well, invisible to everyone but me and all the other hyperaware mothers out there. Miranda Crimbring has dealt with this same issue enough to have devised a clever trick to see what it'd take to get her children or partner to take note of the little things that she does.

She ripped a scrap of paper and taped a folded-up $5 bill to the bottom of it and simply set it down on the floor of the small bathroom that her whole family uses. The planted paper was meant to remind her kids to pull their own weight when it comes to basic household chores.

"Well, while trying to prove a point to my kids, we've just surpassed the 48-hour mark of the 'who will pick up the random piece of trash that they KNOW isn't supposed to be there' challenge," she wrote on Facebook. "Between the kids and the husband, and multiple trips in and out of the bathroom, this little piece of heaven may just be in it for the long haul!"

What she had thought would be "easy money" is proving to be a hard lesson to teach. Still, although her clever hidden-cash trick failed miserably (I predict that paper scrap will be there for at least five more days . . .), I'm definitely going to start putting dollar bills beneath those socks that are literal inches away from the hamper.