transgender son - same chore expectations as any other son?

[Anonymous]

I agree with the previous posters, this is largely a problem of your own creation because you gendered chores all along and now anything you do with respect to chores comes across as a commentary on your child being trans. You need to course-correct on that, but then address the general unwillingness to do chores separately. So first, anything you would consider a "girl" chore, you need to start doing as well to model for your son that everyone does all the chores, regardless of gender. Second, you need to stop accepting excuses for helping with chores. If you've asked your son to do X and he says he can't because they don't have the upper body strength, assess whether that's a valid concern or not. He may need more upper body strength for heavy lifting, but not for mowing the lawn. For things that he may not be strong enough for yet, you offer to help him but tell him that actually doing those tasks is how he'll build the strength to do them on his own.

[Anonymous]

I am female and did “boy” chores with my dad every weekend. I think I could have done “girl” or “boy” but there was no way in hell I was doing nothing. One of my brothers did a lot of cooking.

Just give him a list of chores and tell him to pick however many you feel is fair.

[Anonymous]

Daughter or son, your child should be helping around the house when he or she is old enough.

It doesn't matter so much what the chores are; what matters is a certain level of contribution.

Sit down as a family and map out what is:

Daily and weekly personal chores (make bed, pick up room, clean bathroom, laundry)

Daily and weekly household chores (empty dishwasher, make dinner, take out trash, clean common areas)

Weekend/monthly/"special occasion" household chores: Gutters, lawn, leaves, deep clean house, organize linen closet

The point is: sit down and figure out these expectations as a family. Then, you'll be on the same page, with a plan, and you can refer back to that plan as needed. That way, it's the family plan, and not "Dad woke up one day and decided I was Gutter Guy."

[Anonymous]

I have a trans questioning kid, OP. She uses a female name and pronouns. Gender is a social construct. Part of the reason transgender issues are so complicated is because we created these ridiculous concepts of gender normative behavior. In our home, chores are chores. My girls mow the lawn sometimes. My boys do dishes sometimes. Everyone contributes and chores are never divided by sex or gender.

[Anonymous]

Chores aren't sex based. They are need-to-get-done based.

You can be considerate and allow members of the family to pick and choose some chores (my DD prefers to cook rather than clean, so she volunteers for cooking chores over cleaning chores, this is something we can accommodate). You can also be blunt that some chores no one wants and they still have to get done (none of us prefers to clean bathrooms, so cleaning the bathroom is assigned on a rotation).

Any chores I had a child plead "too weak" or whatever (unless it happened to be a real reason, like they're physically disabled in some way) would become a chore they'd have to do because I'm not willing to unleash an adult into the world who's incompetent. Yes, a female teen is generally weaker than a male teen, but she's not too weak to mow the lawn, do yard work, and so on. She might struggle to hold up heavy items but surely she has a brain and can work out a solution (use a wheelbarrow instead of hand-carrying, make use of scaffolding instead of holding something over her head). A transgender boy has no more excuse than any biological female for not doing physical chores. (Unless he knows his parent is ridiculously, harmfully, old-fashioned and is willing to take advantage of that in order to get out of work.)

You might want to consider what else in your household you have illogically made sex based, and consider whether an outdated adherence to harmful performative gender roles have been inflicting mental damage on your child.

[Anonymous]

Trans doesn't get to be an excuse. All kids wake up and are responsible for the same chores, on a rotating schedule. Of course a physically weaker child may not be able to lift or carry as much as the stronger one, but realistically how often is physical strength that important in chores?

[Anonymous]

Why would you enforce different chores on your child according to their sex, instead of according to their abilities?

Just require them to do a little bit of everything, so they know how; then if you need more help in a certain area, be aware of their individual capabilities. There are things my son can do better than my daughter and vice versa. Lean into the strengths, OP.

[Anonymous]

Gender based chores are not all that uncommon still. I know lots of teen girls and women who can't:
use a drill,
add oil / windshield washer fluid to their cars
set or empty a mouse trap
use a weed wacker
do basic household repairs
shovel snow etc

No different from teen boys or men who can't
operate a dishwasher
do their own laundry
cook a meal
change a diaper etc

Lots of people have been raised with very gendered household tasks and some definitely still perpetuate those. I used to work at a college - there were a lot of helpless young men and women who didn't know how to do basic tasks that they should have learned a long time ago. Young women who didn't know how to unscrew a light fixture and change a light bulb and young men who had never made a bed and didn't know about top and bottom sheets. Some just didn't know how to do any chores regardless of gender but many others had been raised to only do more traditional gender chores (and this was a very liberal college).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter came out last year as transgender, changed her name and uses "him, his" type pronouns... so I stopped using the dead name etc.

When I was growing up on Saturdays my dad would always wake me up and say "Son! Time to get to work!"
Then we would spend half the day cutting grass or doing some sort of maintenance/repair around the house.

While previously I was always happy for my transgender son (before he was a son) to do stuff with me (auto repair/maintenance, yard work, house repairs/maintenance) but it was always when and if he wanted to and the level of involvement wasn't necessarily a concern. That is not the conditions I experienced as a boy growing up because gutting grass or digging post holes, for example, was not optional.

My transgender son is spending a lot of time focusing on his transgenderism and not doing anything else. I've started to see him as effectively avoiding "girl"-type issues through being transgender but simultaneously avoiding the boy's plight which includes expectations of physical labor and performance. Its like he has found a way to spend all his time on social media and chatting on the phone with his friends by saying things like "I don't have the upper body strength for that..." when asked to participate in a male activity or "that triggers me" when asked to participate in things which might be considered a female activity.

I want to say "I don't care if you are transgender but you can't have it both ways!"

I know I'm likely to get slammed and someone is going to misunderstand the above statements and frame it like I'm some sort of overbearing football dad but that isn't want I'm talking about.

Why have gendered expectations for chores at all? My girls are cisgender and have always done the same chores as any boy in our family.

[Anonymous]

Chores get down, end of story. There's no gender assigned chores. They all cook, clean, take the trash out and do yard work. No exceptions.

[Anonymous]

Y'all? I think we've made the point that chores aren't gendered, etc. Let's stop hitting that particular note.

Anyone got a PLAN that is better than the one I proposed, which is to sit down, as a family, write down all the daily/weekly/monthly/special-occasion chores, and map out a general idea of who does what, when?

If anyone else has a PLAN that OP can use to move forward in a positive way, lay it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Y'all? I think we've made the point that chores aren't gendered, etc. Let's stop hitting that particular note.

Anyone got a PLAN that is better than the one I proposed, which is to sit down, as a family, write down all the daily/weekly/monthly/special-occasion chores, and map out a general idea of who does what, when?

If anyone else has a PLAN that OP can use to move forward in a positive way, lay it out.

?? There have been several posters suggest rotating all chores.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gender based chores are not all that uncommon still. I know lots of teen girls and women who can't:
use a drill,
add oil / windshield washer fluid to their cars
set or empty a mouse trap
use a weed wacker
do basic household repairs
shovel snow etc

No different from teen boys or men who can't
operate a dishwasher
do their own laundry
cook a meal
change a diaper etc

Lots of people have been raised with very gendered household tasks and some definitely still perpetuate those. I used to work at a college - there were a lot of helpless young men and women who didn't know how to do basic tasks that they should have learned a long time ago. Young women who didn't know how to unscrew a light fixture and change a light bulb and young men who had never made a bed and didn't know about top and bottom sheets. Some just didn't know how to do any chores regardless of gender but many others had been raised to only do more traditional gender chores (and this was a very liberal college).

Would you not agree that all of those young people would be better off if they had all of those skills regardless of gender?

[Anonymous]

Yeah I have two brothers and we always had the same chores. Staining the fence, baseboard, mowing the lawn, cleaning out the garage, wiping down the table after dinner, unloading the dishwasher, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gender based chores are not all that uncommon still. I know lots of teen girls and women who can't:
use a drill,
add oil / windshield washer fluid to their cars
set or empty a mouse trap
use a weed wacker
do basic household repairs
shovel snow etc

No different from teen boys or men who can't
operate a dishwasher
do their own laundry
cook a meal
change a diaper etc

Lots of people have been raised with very gendered household tasks and some definitely still perpetuate those. I used to work at a college - there were a lot of helpless young men and women who didn't know how to do basic tasks that they should have learned a long time ago. Young women who didn't know how to unscrew a light fixture and change a light bulb and young men who had never made a bed and didn't know about top and bottom sheets. Some just didn't know how to do any chores regardless of gender but many others had been raised to only do more traditional gender chores (and this was a very liberal college).

Would you not agree that all of those young people would be better off if they had all of those skills regardless of gender?

Of course! I think they should all have all those skills and be able to do basic tasks required - but the reason they don't is often because the chores in their households were gendered. Or as I said in some cases, they didn't know how to really do any tasks because they hadn't helped out at home at all. I also think people don't always realize they are perpetuating gendered tasks - they mention to a daughter / son that 'I'll add that to dads list to fix' etc.