Do Your Kids Have Chores?
June 20, 2009 by Eliza Ferree
Filed under Family, Parenting
Here’s a question that every parent must face at one point in their children’s lives…..Do we give them chores? I will not lie to you, yes my kids do have chores and I had chores growing up. For a long time though I actually did most of the chores in this house and slowly gave my children certain things they could do with their age. Of course they moaned and they groaned but they got over it. I was probably the same way growing up, it didn’t hurt me doing them so it won’t hurt them.
IMG: Sxc.hu
How many of you do all the stuff in your house…including their rooms? My son told me at the beginning of the summer how unfair he thought I was being with the chores. Here’s his list:
- take trash out to the street on Trash day.
- clean his room
- wipe around his toilet lid since he’s the only male to pee around it. (hoping this makes for great aim)
- upload the dishes to the dishwasher.
Once his chores are done he is free to roam the street. His only problem is he’ll take out the trash and just ask to do stuff. We talked about the chores and I told him they were easy enough he could do them all first thing in the morning. He thought he was ruining his whole day because he couldn’t go out until they were ALL done. He then proceeded to tell me, “My friends’ parents don’t make them do chores, they do all the cleaning.”
My response, “Well that’s your friends’ parents stupidity. They’ll grow up thinking their parents will always clean up their house or they’ll marry someone that will and that doesnt’ always happen. You will know how to do things.” Wow, talk about a flashback, I remember my father telling me he wanted us to know how to do things on our own and take care of ourselves. Now I’m doing it to my kids.
So, do you give your kids chores? Even President Obama’s children have chores to do. Obama told CBS News they are old-school and give both girls a list of chores to do. They must walk their dog, feed it and make their own beds. Not sure if they clean their rooms but by the sounds of it that would be a definite yes.
My kids do chores and I let them know I am not their doormat. In the summer they have more chores because I work and they don’t. I told my son he had to unload and reload the dishwasher because he didn’t take care of it on time and the sink was piled up. He said that who ever loads it should let him know when to clear it. I told him that I could solve that problem by making it his job to load the dishwasher also – then he’d always know when he could unload it.