We had many chores growing up but I give my kids chores on an as-needed basis, which means every day, but rarely hours. My house is reasonably tidy and I keep my own room pretty clean but prefer to spend more time reading, exercising, and playing board games with my kids. I used to hound and nag them about cleaning their rooms but now they take the initiative to clean when it becomes too messy because they see the contrast with my room. They must help clean common areas every single day. Trying to keep dwellings perfectly clean drains and limits women. I write poetry and prose so my house is only going to be so clean.

Anonymous wrote:My husband never did chores as a child and grew up in kind of a dirty home. It’s a little frustrating sometimes because he doesn’t seem to realize that they need to be done or how long they take. He has had periods in his own in the house for a few weeks here and there, and when I get back, he tells me that the fang shui is off or that we need to redecorate. No man, you need to vacuum and dust and do your laundry. And it takes a couple of hours.
There are a lot of things I love about him, but this drives me nuts.

My husband is similar, but his single mom definitely had a dirty home. He still has trauma over roaches because of an infestation and subsequent bombing where they had to clean up all of the dead bugs.

He's pretty good about cleaning because his mom was so disgusting while I was the one who never really did chores growing up, so I drove him nuts by not cleaning as I go when making food. However, now that we have kids, I'm the one more obsessed with cleaning, since babies will literally find and lick food off the floor.

I'd love a housekeeper... but believe we should be teaching our kids to clean and I worry they're growing up too privileged.

Anonymous wrote:My husband never did chores as a child and grew up in kind of a dirty home. It’s a little frustrating sometimes because he doesn’t seem to realize that they need to be done or how long they take. He has had periods in his own in the house for a few weeks here and there, and when I get back, he tells me that the fang shui is off or that we need to redecorate. No man, you need to vacuum and dust and do your laundry. And it takes a couple of hours.
There are a lot of things I love about him, but this drives me nuts.

That’s my DH! Except when left to his own devices while I’m doing solo travel, he’ll obsess over Redfin and tell me that we need to move. His parents actually kind of let houses go until they get gross and grimy and then move, so to him this is normal. Upkeep and maintenance are surprising to him. If I’d truly understood this before we bought a house, we would have just kept renting. My husband grew up with parents who were from a country where everyone who isn’t poor has live-in help, and since they never really learned to clean or maintain a home, they didn’t teach him to, either.

We've never assigned regular chores. However, if we get busy or ill, our kids have always happily taken over the household tasks. So I see no evidence in our case that omitting regular chores has had any adverse effect.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

NP. They become adults who either don't see or don't value and consequently, don't do the work that's necessary to maintain a home.

Obviously, there are naturally neat/clean people who will maintain a neat/clean home because that's their personality. So they're doing what they want to do anyways. There are also people who are intuitively good team players and want to share the work equally.

However, for most people, they need to learn and practice the good habits that lead to maintaining a clean/neat home, starting in childhood.

Multiple people have stated that the opposite was true for them...

Anonymous wrote:

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?

From my sample size of one, I can say I never thought I was too good to do chores even though I never did them. I never looked down on the people who did them either. I still don't.

I started doing my laundry around 9, had dishwasher duty. I started working at 16 and dishwasher duty went to my brother.

My husband never did chores as a child and grew up in kind of a dirty home. It’s a little frustrating sometimes because he doesn’t seem to realize that they need to be done or how long they take. He has had periods in his own in the house for a few weeks here and there, and when I get back, he tells me that the fang shui is off or that we need to redecorate. No man, you need to vacuum and dust and do your laundry. And it takes a couple of hours.
There are a lot of things I love about him, but this drives me nuts.

Anonymous wrote:

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?

NP. They become adults who either don't see or don't value and consequently, don't do the work that's necessary to maintain a home.

Obviously, there are naturally neat/clean people who will maintain a neat/clean home because that's their personality. So they're doing what they want to do anyways. There are also people who are intuitively good team players and want to share the work equally.

However, for most people, they need to learn and practice the good habits that lead to maintaining a clean/neat home, starting in childhood.

From what I've seen, people who had no chores or responsibilities as a kid did not turn into pleasant adults to live with. Can't cook, don't clean, some are completely helpless and cannot or refuse to do housework.

My 10 yo son doesn’t have regular, set chores, but I might ask him to feed the dog, take the trash out, clean the bathroom (mostly wiping surfaces and emptying the trash), unload the dishwasher, putting laundry in the dryer and folding it (I don’t trust him to check pockets so he doesn’t start the laundry), help in the yard, as needed. He probably spends maximum 3 hours a week helping around the house during the summer. He’s fully responsible for picking up after himself- putting his dirty clothes in the hamper, wiping his toothpaste out of the sink, putting his dirty dishes in the dishwasher, etc, but I don’t really consider picking up after himself chores. During the school year he does less, especially if he’s playing a sport.

It helps me out and I hope it teaches him how to do some of these things so he doesn’t think the house getting clean is some magic thing that just happens.

My DH and I never did chores growing up as we grew up in another country with cooks, gardners, chauffeur, maids. We never even filled a glass of water for ourselves because there was always someone at our beck and call. We have managed very well here and both DH and I have a well run household. Yes, we are not bringing out the expensive china to eat our meals, and our tables are not laid out beautifully now because we have to do it ourselves and so we forego it. But we have a clean beautiful house and we are fabulous cooks. My kids do not do chores but they are watching and learning. I do not think it is a negative for them. They have started to help out during the pandemic and I will probably start teaching them cooking a dish each week going forward.

If you are raised in a household which is clean and organized, if you eat wonderful, hot meals; if you sleep in beds with clean crisp sheets; if you saw lot of socializing in your home and lots of dinner parties - you will want the same and you will create the same household for your kids.

Anonymous wrote:I ask my kids to help out (make their beds, pick up the table/load dishwasher, etc) but they don’t have formal chores. This is pretty much the same situation I had growing up. I didn’t have any issues transitioning to life on my own or with a family.

Same here. My kids help out because that’s what family members do. They are all under five so they set the table, tidy their toys, put their clothes in their laundry bin, etc. We have daily housekeeping stuff for the heavy lifting, but that won’t make them lazy sloths.

I ask my kids to help out (make their beds, pick up the table/load dishwasher, etc) but they don’t have formal chores. This is pretty much the same situation I had growing up. I didn’t have any issues transitioning to life on my own or with a family.

Anonymous wrote: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.

I had set chores growing up. I'm a horrid housekeeoer. I think it might be random.