<p>Several recent posts have highlighted to me differences in philosophy about kids and chores.</p>
<p>Do your kids do regular chores? Is there a list - sort of formal? Do they rotate/alternate? What are the chores? Do they get paid for them?</p>
<p>My kids are college grads…but I’ll comment about what they did when they were younger. Yes, they did chores…and so did we parents. No we didn’t pay them. They were members of this household, and everyone contributed to the chore doing to make the household run. Kids did their own laundry as soon as they were old enough to operate a washing machine. We all took turns cooking. Everyone cleaned their own rooms. Kids tidied up their bathroom. We took turns vacuuming, loading and unloading the dishwasher. Garbage was placed in the cans by anyone…grown ups drove to the dump once a week. Pets were cared for by everyone. </p>
<p>We have someone do our yard work, and we also have a cleaning lady twice a month.</p>
<p>Thumper, are any of them still (or back) at home? </p>
<p>Cleaning your room, making your bed is an every day expectation at our house.
Folding and putting away laundry is something that is done when it’s fresh from the dryer.</p>
<p>The chore list is:
Take out the kitchen trash
Wash dishes
Rinse dishes
Dust
Clean den
Clean bathroom & take out bathroom trash
Clean kitchen table
Sweep front porch and entryway
Sweep den and hallway
Sweep back porch
Sweep kitchen
Take laundry to the garage</p>
<p>And we don’t pay for chores. We gave them each $20/week for lunch and $10/week just for being ours and being members of the household, and because we just sort of like them. HOWEVER, even though the $10 wasn’t supposed to be payment for chores, if someone SEVERELY slacked, DH would dock their “pay”.</p>
<p>When we had 3 at home the list was a bit longer and had things like “wall spots” and “floor spots” - looking for where someone had put their grimey hands or feet and cleaning it, and some other surfaces in the kitchen.</p>
<p>With 2, it looks like the list above. There’s an A list and a B list and they alternate weeks. When D2 was off in college (not summer), my husband took a lot of the sweeping and dishes from D3. They’re both going to be gone soon! Yikes! I may have to get a maid.</p>
<p>I come from a small family (just my parents and I… and a lot of animals). My parents never gave me a formal list and I never had an allowance, but they would give me money if I asked (which I rarely did). We just had an if-it-needs-done-DO-IT policy and it worked. My room was never a fight though. My mom just shut my door if it bothered her and the only rule was that food could not sit out. </p>
<p>The only thing I didn’t do that most kids do is yard work and dusting. Five minutes cutting grass or pulling weeds and I’m sneezing and coughing like I’ve got the plague. Only upside to bad allergies ;). To compensate, I do more dishes than anyone. </p>
<p>I loved growing up in a tiny, open house. So little to clean :)</p>
<p>When I go home now, I do whatever needs to be done. Same as I did when I lived there.</p>
<p>DD is at home temporarily right now. She does her share of the chores without compensation…just like when she was younger. But she now also does grocery shopping and cooking as well.</p>
<p>It’s nice when they can drive! 
</p>
<p>My girls often cook for themselves, but not too often for the whole family. I have specific dietary needs, and my DH is just sort of weird. He eats at odd times and eats specific foods (sort of a creature of habit). No way would they be able to cook for him.</p>
<p>romani - you had it easy! :)</p>
<p>I didn’t really do chores as a kid. I had to keep my own room and things clean, and we all rinse our plates and put them in the dishwasher when we’re done so nobody has to do dishes besides the one or two pots we cooked with. I cooked most of my own dinners for myself once I was 13 or so. I did my own laundry. At one point I was responsible for emptying the dishwasher, but my mom didn’t like waiting for me to get home from school for it to be emptied so then she wouldn’t let me anymore. I got an allowance in spurts, not really related to whether or not I’d done chores. I didn’t have a very active social life until late high school, and by the time I did my parents were glad to give me a little something to save up for going to the movies or out to eat with my friends. I always took care of the pool voluntarily since I was the only one that ever wanted to use it. We weren’t allowed to leave things around the house in the first place, my belongings weren’t allowed outside my own room, so it was really every man for themselves. </p>
<p>Surprisingly, I grew up not very spoiled. I do most of the upkeep sort of chores around the house, because I can clean the entire house in the time it takes my fiance to tidy up the papers he likes to leave lying under the coffee table. I make him cook and do the shopping. :)</p>
<p>cro… in what way?</p>
<p>“My parents never gave me a formal list”
“…but they would give me money if I asked”
“We just had an if-it-needs-done-DO-IT policy”
“My mom just shut my door if it bothered her and the only rule was that food could not sit out.”
“I loved growing up in a tiny, open house. So little to clean” </p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>My girls would probably LOVE less structure. But it would drive DH CRAZY!!!</p>
<p>IMHO, I don’t necessarily think I got it “easy”, just different. I still did the same things that other people did (minus the yard work) just without a list lol. </p>
<p>I don’t think my parents could’ve given me a chore list if they wanted to. We’re just not a structured family. Though my mom would sometimes leave notes if she needed something extra done while she was at work. </p>
<p>I also lived on my own for parts of high school so I didn’t just do 1/3 of the house work… I did all of it. Definitely not always easy 
lol</p>
<p>I don’t really do household chores. I pick up after myself, rinse my dishes, wash my own clothes - but that’s about it.</p>
<p>I’ve been in charge of:
My job
The bills
Any business - setting appointments, insurance, budgeting, whatever
Anything that had to do with the kids’ school - support for projects, clubs, etc.</p>
<p>Help with scholarship searches, keeping people on task for extra stuff outside of normal schoolwork</p>
<p>I don’t usually get home until late. I have about 3 waking hours at home a day during the week.</p>
<p>I work out for 40 min.
Eat dinner
Relax for about 20 min.
Have a set time to hang out with DH from 9:00-10:00
Bath and bed.</p>
<p>Romani - Oooooh! Yep, I would say that’s not easy. Like I said, sometimes I think my girls would prefer less structure. Our lives are VERY structured.</p>
<p>Chores were and are done by the children in our household. Because of the nature of our work, no one got a free pass on helping out.
There was no formal list , but my older girls took on jobs they split. As long as they were done then all was fine.
Most of the chores revolved around cleaning up the kitchen after meals.
My 16 year old is the ONLY one of her friends who have to pitch in around the house.
Personally, I think the parents of her friends are not doing their kids any favors by doing everything for them and expecting nothing…good luck to their future college roommates !</p>
<p>My partner did not have to do chores growing up. In fact, he was not really allowed to do chores. The women of the house (his mom) did everything and she rejected any help from the menfolk or guests. She still gets huffy when I try to clean my dishes after a meal at her house. </p>
<p>Living with my partner for the first few months was a PAIN. It’s not because he was lazy and didn’t want to help out, it’s that he legitimately didn’t know what to do. Drove me crazy. I had to teach him how to cook, clean, shop, etc. You’re right, lje, they’re not doing their kids any favors. </p>
<p>cro… I remember sometimes growing up thinking that I wished I lived in a “normal” family where I could get in trouble or break a rule every once in a while. Then I would go visit my friends with “structured” families and I quickly changed my mind every time lol</p>
<p>^I had that problem with my fiance as well. He feels like he does the lions share of the chores because he has to cook dinner and for a while felt like he was the only one doing anything… when in actuality I do all the laundry, the sweeping, the vacuuming, the dusting, the toilet scrubbing, the sinks, the mopping, the windows, the counters, the de-cluttering, etc, etc, etc… But since cooking dinner is traditionally a womans role, and because nobody but his mother ever did any of those other chores, he takes it for granted that they should just magically be done and feels like he is giving 150% just throwing frozen chicken breasts in the oven for me. I have to remind him the cleaning fairy did not come and clean and fold his clothes for him.</p>
<p>^ LOL, Ema. He does more than me and he knows it, but never says anything. Now for THAT I’m very lucky and I have it easy ;)</p>
<p>I’m in college right now and I’ve never gotten paid to do chores. Growing up, my siblings and I had to fold laundry, “do” the socks (twice a month), keep our rooms clean (this rarely happened in my case), wash dishes (AKA load the dishwasher), wipe the table clean, sweep occasionally (I hate this chore), little things like that. My father maintains all of the plants around the house and uses my brother to do yard work, take out the garbage and such. </p>
<p>The work increased when my mom got a full-time job, especially in my case because I was the oldest one living at home. Nowadays, I mainly take care of the laundry along with my mother and load the dishwasher. Not bad. Now that my mother is not working, the house is much cleaner. ;)</p>
<p>My kid did pretty much whatever I asked but there was no list or schedule. If the dishwasher needed unloading and I was busy (or didn’t feel like doing it) I would just ask. Ditto setting/clearing the table. He was responsible for keeping his room clean but if it wasn’t I didn’t fuss - just closed the door. </p>
<p>My husband grew up in a home like romani’s partner but so hated being waited on/taken care of/not allowed to do anything “domestic” he became the opposite. He doesn’t want anyone to take care of things for him and bristles at the thought of it. There isn’t anything he can’t or won’t do.</p>
<p>I have always thought my mom had a large family so she could sit back and let the kids do all the chores (all the while telling us we were dong them wrong!) I am a very laid back housekeeper - never saw the need to make a bed, dust maybe twice a year, so my kids have few chores. They fold their own laundry, sweep and do the dishwasher when asked, clean their own rooms (or not, I don’t really care if their rooms are messy) They actually all are neater than I, their college roommates have been fine with them. I don’t work, so I do all the laundry and cooking. They have managed just fine on their own when they go to college.</p>