What you’re describing is a business arrangement. My SIL had live in help when her children were small. In exchange for a small salary, room, and board, she looked after the children and performed housekeeping duties. I don’t understand why there has to be an exchange with your daughter or how do you decide how much is enough to compensate for what you’re providing without piling on so much that it negatively impacts her grades. Nobody wins in that scenario.
Do you and your husband have assigned chores? We expect everyone in our home to participate in its upkeep as time and abilities allow, but when our children were smaller that looked different than it does now that one’s a college sophomore who commutes to a local university and the other is an 18-year-old high school senior. We share responsibilities (whoever sees something that needs to be done takes care of it). Everyone takes care of their own belongings, keeps their personal space tidy, and handles their own laundry. The rest we kind of organically split up. When it snowed 12+" recently, my husband and son grabbed shovels and cleaned our drive, I shoveled my MIL’s walks, and my daughter made us all soup. My husband and daughter love cooking but don’t like dealing with the dishwasher. My son doesn’t cook much, but doesn’t mind unloading the dishwasher. I can cook – but not as well as my husband – and I’d rather load the dishwasher than unload it, so I do that. Amongst us, we’ve sorted out how to get dinner made and the kitchen cleaned up and keep everyone happy. We play to our strengths. I couldn’t tell you what anyone does in a given week, though, because I don’t keep track.
Until you and your husband get on the same page, you won’t solve anything and you’ll just add to your daughter’s stress. If you think your husband’s expectations are too much, you’re the one who has to sort that out with him. I don’t see how piling on chores is preparing her for life. When she has her own place she’s the one who will get to decide what needs to be done and when, so if you wanted to mimic real life she’d have no assigned chores at all.
Wow, never thought I’d side on the team saying too many chores for a kid living at home but…this is too much to ask of this young girl IMHO. Any student for that matter who is taking full time classes and working another 20 hours/week. Maybe if you could give her one chore (beside doing her own laundry and keeping up with her own bedroom/bath to her standards) that took two hours each week or something like that it might be more manageable. Like dust the entire house each week or vacuum and wash floors each week, something she can do weekly but at her convenience?
My kids always had more chores than any of their friends. I never paid them. I believe sharing in household responsibilities is part of being a family. That being said, I would let them off the hook for certain periods of time…studying for finals, don’t worry about the dishes, big research paper coming up, I’ll mow the lawn this week. So long as they were really studying or otherwise being productive.
That seems like a lot of chores for a busy college student with a job! I make my 15 year old do chores because he needs some money and I feel like he should do something to earn it - once he has a job, I’ll probably ask him to do less. He basically inherited his sister’s chores when she left for college. If OP’s daughter is used to doing chores, I’m sure she’s happy to do stuff around the house when she has time, but that might not be on a day when she has class and work!
I think by the time he’s 20, I’ll treat my son like an adult and won’t assign him specific chores to do any more than I would assign chores to my husband. We work full-time and do what we can on the weekends, but yeah, no one is mopping my floors twice weekly. Big fan of the Swiffer.
Thanks for pointing out that it was mentioned that the dad had put himself through college, thumper1. Then I will restrict my commentary to the second scenario in my earlier post:
. . . then I’d bet it would be instructive for him to look at the wages of typical student jobs on offer now, and see how many hours a student would have to work at that pay rate to cover tuition. Then contrast that with his situation. Back when I was in college, at a large state school, it was possible to earn enough to pay for tuition with a common type of student job, while still in school. I know many people who did this (though it would not have been possible at a private school, even then).
In addition to that, some the highest-paying jobs that are available to students, either as summer work or during the school year, are in construction. Women are rarely hired for these jobs. A student who is willing to go to Alaska in the summer and work in the fishing industry, can make a good amount of money; but this work is very hazardous, and again, rarely open to women.
Another way of looking at this: How much free time does each family member have per week? Subtract time on job, school, appropriate amount of studying, and home responsibilities from 168 hours. How would you balance this out?
Is it possible that your husband is just resentful of the fact that he is still supporting his daughter, and feels that therefore she “owes” him a disproportionate amount of time spent on household responsibilities?
How much does she make from the part-time job she has? How does the pay rate compare with what the dad earned as a student? Now apply the inflation index. Also, look at how much more rapidly tuition has risen than the rest of the Consumer Price Index. This may put things in a clearer perspective.
That’s a good way to look at it, QuantMech. I calculated the free time based on OP’s description of her daughter’s schedule (for school, work, and minimum study time) and estimated the rest:
Daughter
72 hours/week minimum for school, work, and studying
56 hours for sleep (although the daughter said she doesn’t get enough so we know it’s less)
7 hours to eat (20 min/meal per day)
10 hours to commute (30 min each way to school and another 30 to work later on)
3 hours to shower and get ready
TOTAL: 148 hours
That leaves her 20 hours/week.
Parents
40 hours for work
56 hours for sleep
7 hours to eat
5 hours to commute
3 hours to shower, etc.
10 hours to cook/clean up
7 hours for shopping and misc.
TOTAL: 128 hours
That leaves the parents 40 hours/week each.
If my kid was driving somewhere 4x/day every weekday and they told me they weren’t getting enough sleep, I wouldn’t be worried about dog hair and vacuuming. It sounds like the daughter has a full schedule. I’d make an effort to reduce her load, not add to it.
@thumper1, We did this calculation when our son was deciding between attending an in state residential college and commuting to our local cc.
Direct Costs
Tuition at cc: $4k/year. Tuition, room, & board at state university: $21k.
SAVINGS: $17k/year
Commuting costs
Used car: $1200.
Insurance: ~$2400/year. He pays for gas.
Used phone: $100
Cell service: $300/year
TOTAL: $1300 one-time purchases + $2700 yearly fees. If we estimate $1300 for repairs and misc., that’s $4k/year.
TOTAL SAVINGS : $17k - $4k = $13k/year
We’d have to spend ~$200/week on food and utilities just for him to equal what it would cost us to pay for a residential college. Our rough estimate is that commuting to a cc would have saved us between $8-10k/year. If he paid his tuition with the federal student loan the savings to us would be ~$12-14k/year. That might not be much to some people, but it was a lot to us.
I did not read all posts. I think your H expected too much from a college student working 20 hours/week and trying to maintain A. I worked 12-15 hours/week in college and those working hours sometimes affected my grades.
“She is getting overwhelmed with her school/work schedule and the chores we want her to do at home.”
Hubby and I both have degrees. But neither of us did the “traditional” 4 yr college experience. We both had times where we worked full time and took classes at night.
What I was really asking was how to talk to my hubby, as he has very strong opinions. And he is better at expressing his position than I am. He is an awesome human being, great husband and father. Our daughter is an only child and the three of us are very close. She knows we are proud of her and knows we love her very much. The chores are really not that bad. She doesn’t “have” to mop. I ask her every now and then. She has to vacuum, take out the trash, clean her bathroom and do dishes. I have started not letting dishes accumulate in the sink so she doesn’t have to do many dishes that are not hers. And I’m not going to ask her to mop anymore. She listens to podcasts while she vacuums. School stresses her out more than chores and I have told hubby that we are going to cut her some slack since she is so busy. I wish she didn’t have to work every weekday, but that is her job and she loves it. Her job is 5 minutes from our house. She is not a social butterfly, but has several friends and coworkers who she goes out with on the weekends. She is transferring from community college to 4 yr university in the fall, HOPEFULLY, but that is a different topic all together! Once she leaves home she will have more freedom and opportunities to grow.
George- Our D is starting to show the stress from all the activities she is balancing right now. College is demanding; she has a commute; she holds down a job; she has to study. Since we’d like her to make a good transition from community college to university in the Fall, I think we need to cut her some slack on her chores to give her more downtime in her schedule. I’m going to take over dishwashing for her- you can decide if you want to take over the vacuuming and occasional mopping, or hire a cleaning service to come in and do it. Get back to me tomorrow and I’ll make some calls to set up a service if that’s the way you want to go.
You can’t have it both ways OP- either your D has some anxiety issues- in which case, you as a parent need to help her succeed in college more than another parent might have to, or your D is a cheerful social butterfly who has a good work/life/study balance in her life and can happily pitch in on dog maintenance and vacuuming without it interfering with her state of mind.
If you apologize to your husband for advocating for your D then you need to own that- that you value your husbands state of mind more than your daughters. And I don’t think that’s the case. I don’t think you want some random dog hairs interfering with your D’s transition to college in the Fall. And if you make this semester harder and more stressful than it needs to be, then I feel for your D…