Kids Stirring

The trick of turning good gumbo into great gumbo is stirring the roux for a long long time. Ideally, I like to keep the roux cooking for 30 minutes on low (which is why we usually have good gumbo instead of great gumbo), letting the flour get nice and dark brown. But it needs to be stirred, and the bottom of the pot needs to be scraped constantly, so that the flour doesn't burn on to the bottom, but just gets nice and crusty brown on the outside of the celery and peppers and onions.

"Yoo hoo. I need a kid to come stir for me while I pick the stewed chicken meat off the bones."

Obedient child comes traipsing into the kitchen to help with dinner. Hooray!

WHY, though, do these people not understand that "stirring" does not mean simply moving the contents of the pot around a little bit, but that the important part of stirring is keeping the contents of the pot from sticking to the bottom of the pot and eventually burning???

I keep thinking "when will they learn?!?" And yet, when will I learn that I should know by now that they won't remember, and thus I should nag .... I mean, remind them every single time?