One of the sacred cows of parenting, one of those deeply held societal values that all us breeders share, is that children should do chores – required, independently and regularly performed household tasks.
I'm against chores. And here's why.
1) Kid's stink at them. Almost whatever you ask your kids to do, you will have to do over, probably requiring more time than it would have taken you to do in the first place. Doing laundry (all pink), mowing the grass (uneven), picking up their stuff (that has to be taken out of the fridge and put in the "Hot Wheels" toy bin) all require parental revision. I don't ask my eight year old to put away the dishes because I like having dishes.
2) It's an invitation to conflict. Why not cut directly to punishing the child without the pretense of asking them to scrub the john? My kids and I find plenty of reasons to come into conflict. Do I really want to die on the hill of asking my five-year-old to fold laundry, when I'll just have to refold it? I'd like to save teaching "accountability" for things that I consider to be in the Kid Job Description (see #3).
3) Their plates are pretty full. Kids have to: learn to walk, to talk, to poop in the potty, to spell, to get dressed, to say "thank you," to add, to play soccer and lacrosse, and yet to not kill their siblings, to ride bikes with the neighbor kids, and to do algebra. I don't like children to do a lot of sitting around and watching TV -- they should be as busy doing their jobs as I am doing mine -- but let's not confuse the two.
4) I can teach the essential household "life skills" in 30 minutes the day before they go off to college. Laundry is not like tennis. They don't need a lifelong training regimen in order to be good at it. They will have plenty of time to do household work when it is their turn to be parents. They understand this is part of the deal, because they have watched their mother and I do it.
5) Shared or opt-in household work is better. Whenever I head for the driveway with the hose and buckets to wash the car, I never want for helpers. Same for my wife when she is cooking. If the table needs to be set, we put out the call, usually somebody answers it.
(note: I think there are maybe about a million reasonable exceptions to the Chores Optional rule. First and foremost: if there is more household work than the grown-up/s can do, because there are lots of kids or a reduced number of adults, then all bets are off. Time to pitch in, kids.)
For me, the choice not to assign chores is a curriculum issue. I think there are ways to teach kids the important values of understanding hard work, being a member of a family unit, the significance of sacrifice, competency, honoring authority, and accountability other then by giving them tasks that are better suited to adults.
Are giving kids chores really a chore parents should take on?
Clay Nichols, Health Correspondent:
Clay’s column, Dadventure, published twice monthly to Gather Essentials: Health, is a sure-fire guide to raising flawless, perfectly behaved, and always obedient children. Yeah, right.
Clay is the co-author of Filmmaking for Teens: Pulling Off Your Shorts, an award-winning playwright, and the Chief Creative Officer at DadLabs.com, a fatherhood website.
You can find all of Clay’s Dadventure articles at http://gather.com/dadventure
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Comments: 17
We have 5 children. We teach them they are a part of this family, this home is also their home, thus it is everyone's pride and responsibility to care for our home.
I do not think children shouldn't be doing things to care for their home though. I've had too many experiences with friends/family/boyfriends who didn't grow up with home responsibilities and grew up expecting someone to always do things for them.
Melanie, I'm with you -- I want to teach my kids to not expect others to take care of them, to be independent, I'm just still looking for the best "curriculum" to do that. I'm not convinced that chores are the best way.
An aspect of kids and chores I like is the opportunity to build kid's self-esteem through "mastery." Learning to do something well is good for the ego. I used to have the kids be with me when I did the chores I was going to assign to them and I'd have a running dialogue about what I was doing and why as I was doing it — as if talking to myself.
This gives the kids all the information they need to imitate [which they are superb at] without it coming across parental. [By the way, this is a great way to teach kids "mental" games like backgammon].
Okay, so you run the risk that your kids will grow up talking to themselves every time they do something, but I say that's a small price to pay for getting my shirts folded properly.
Habits are best that are created early with some fun involved
There are ways that kids can do the chores alongside the parent so that there's active supervision.
When a kids hands are busy is the best time for that heart to heart talk. All eyes on laundry - eliminates the embarassment of parental questions to a great extent.
John -- Your babbling children are cracking me up. I'm with you on sharing the work. Modeling good habits is the key here. I think you recognize that much of this piece is a "modest proposal."
Leslie--I agree that one of the best opportunities to talk comes as we share work. A great observation. Thanks.
I think parents spend too much time worrying about social activities for their kids, and not enough time teaching life skills. If little Mary has piano on Monday, Ballet on Tuesday, Soccer on Wednesday, Softball on Thursday, Girl Scouts on Friday...when does she learn how to actually take care of herself? I see young people (gods...did I just use the phrase "young people"?) who were so "busy" as kids and can't figure out how to balance a checkbook.
Chores teach responsibility. If the kids are "too busy" it's time to cut back on some of the social activities and spend more time teaching them how to be responsible. Because amazingly, responsible people have a much better time balancing their social activities with the real world.
People use to be amazed that I attended college full time, worked full time, and still managed to serve on various committees and such. But I learned that type of time management because my parents raised me that way. If I wanted to do something, I darn well had to make sure my chores were done, and done right, or I didn't get to go do whatever I wanted. It became second nature to figure out how to balance my time.
And don't kid yourself about what your children are capable of. They learn very quickly that if they pretend they can't do something, mom and dad won't make them do it. My future mother-in-law complains about how my fiancee's teen sister can't wash dishes or do chores right around the house "so I just as well do it myself." Yet amazingly, when she lived with us last summer, she managed to do the chores perfectly fine. Because that was part of the deal for her spending the summer with us. Even now, when she comes over to spend the weekends and stuff, she knows what her jobs are and she does them without a thought. Because it's clear what it expected, and I don't back down. So set reasonable chores, and follow through with them.
By the way, would I open up another can of worms to suggest that getting boys and girls to engage in helping out around the house are two COMPLETELY different issues?
Couldn't say it better. Thanks for dropping in.