I didn’t have many chores, and now that I think about it, I was never really very good at them. I was fine when I lived on my own, but once we had children, I found it very difficult to keep up.

Anonymous wrote:I grew up generally not doing chores (my parents outsourced most of the housework) and I think that I was still responsible as a kid/teen. However, I've often heard that it's important for kids to do chores. My kids have chores, but DH and I sometimes allow them to do less during the school year.

I had very few chores but I eventually self-assigned them because our house was filthy (no housekeeping).

My parents were super lax on their kids doing chores; they grew up very poor so tended to spoil their kids to "give us more than they had". We had a housekeeper for most of my time living with them and our house was always kept clean. I wouldn't say that's 100% why I'm bad at housekeeping (but I am horrid), but it probably didn't do me any favors.

Fine, my parents had a housekeeper 1-2 times a week. I do all my own cleaning and laundry now.

I did many, many chores as a kid and my husband did very few. He is much tidier than I am, is extremely conscientious, and a great partner. We have kids do a couple chores weekly but more than that we expect them to be helpful without attitude if one of us needs help with something and they are really great at that.

Anonymous wrote:I grew up doing chores. It taught me some useful life skills, but more than that, it taught me that there are things that just have to be done to maintain a home, and you just have to do them, whether you want to or not. It also taught me that I wasn't "too good" to take out the trash or scrub the bathroom or whatever. And, it taught me that being part of family means sharing in both the work and the fun of the family. It's not just about "being responsible," it's about being responsible for something in particular -- the home you live in, and the people you share it with.

I think teaching your kids these lessons is really important.

"It also taught me that I wasn't "too good" to take out the trash or scrub the bathroom or whatever." This made me wonder: Do kids who don't do chores tend to think that they're "too good" to do them?

I didn't do chores growing up, except to help with dishes sometimes, and our DS's didn't have a lot of chores to do growing up; they were just expected to do their own laundry, help with mowing the grass, and take out the trash. They are now young-20 somethings, on their own, and they are doing just fine. Living in a house with friends during college taught them a lot about household responsibilities and different ways of doing things. One is a now fabulous cook, the other keeps his apartment neater than I kept mine when I was his age.

A friend of mine says that her kids jobs are to work hard at school and enjoy their childhoods. I thought it was nuts, but it works for them. Her kids are now in high school and lovely kids. They know how to clean because they've seen her and her husband do it. Sometimes they help, sometimes they don't.

It's the perfect example of "there are many ways to raise kids to become good people."

I grew up doing lots of chores. I resented it at certain times. As a result, I never asked my kids to do chores. They are a teens now and I think I made a mistake.

It doesn't really matter one way or the other, except for children with special needs.

I never lifted a finger in the house as a child and teen. I moved for college and had no difficulty cooking, cleaning, etc, since I'd observed others do it.

I ask my kids for help with everything, but they have no "assigned chores" - they do what's needed when I request it.

I have a child with fine-motor and executive function issues. He spills, cuts himself, and has difficulty figuring out how to move when both hands are carrying/holding things.
So for him, particularly, practicing daily tasks is critical. Not so for kids with normal development, who can just wing it.

I grew up not doing any chores - we had housekeepers who made the beds, did the laundry, cleaned the house, even did the dishwasher. However, I had no trouble doing this stuff on my own when I went to college, and I currently keep a very organized house. I do also pay a housekeeper because I see the immense value in having someone help with those items while I work (my mom also worked a full-time job). I also just don't particularly like cleaning although I like neatening and our house is pretty much always in good shape (I say pretty much always as I can see three Amazon boxes sitting outside my office door that I haven't gotten to putting away yet...).

For what it's worth, I have always taken very good care of my stuff, always been helpful in other people's houses, and never thought that I was "above" any task that was house-related. It was simply that both my parents worked so they outsourced things like cleaning and gardening and as a result we spent a lot of time together doing fun things as a family. My kids are now responsible for making their beds (our housekeeper does not come daily), putting their clothes the right way (i.e. not inside out) in their hampers, keeping their school stuff neat, and cleaning up their toys. They're only six and while they do help with treating stains and getting the laundry into the washing machine sometimes, I have not had them start doing their own laundry. Part of that is because I have all our drawers very Marie Kondo style and there's no way they would be able to keep them like that and I appreciate the ease of picking out clothes that this organization fosters. Oh, they also set and clear off the table. I did that as a kid as well, because our housekeepers were not live in so they were not there during every meal.

I don't judge people whose kids do more or fewer chores than mine because I know people whose parents made them do their own laundry practically since birth who are slobs and others who didn't lift a finger around the house and now do everything themselves.

My (single) mom was disorganized and also never asked us to do much around the house. As a grown up I’m disorganized and have a hard time keeping the house clean And teaching my kids to be organized.

I grew up doing chores. It taught me some useful life skills, but more than that, it taught me that there are things that just have to be done to maintain a home, and you just have to do them, whether you want to or not. It also taught me that I wasn't "too good" to take out the trash or scrub the bathroom or whatever. And, it taught me that being part of family means sharing in both the work and the fun of the family. It's not just about "being responsible," it's about being responsible for something in particular -- the home you live in, and the people you share it with.

I was not made to anything, more I wasn’t taught how to anything and have definitely struggled as an adult.

I grew up generally not doing chores (my parents outsourced most of the housework) and I think that I was still responsible as a kid/teen. However, I've often heard that it's important for kids to do chores. My kids have chores, but DH and I sometimes allow them to do less during the school year.