Chores, Children, and Responsibility

It seems everyone has an opinion when it comes to chores and children.  Some people feel that kids should enjoy their childhood and chores are completely inappropriate.  Others feel that children should do all the chores since their parents spend all their time and energy working to keep a roof over their head and food in their bellies or actually staying at home and parenting.  There are, of course, tons of people who fall somewhere in between.

Where do I fit in all of this?  Well, I'm certainly not an extremist by any means, but I do have my opinions on the matter.  Some of them come from my own upbringing.  Some of them come from my own experiences.  Also have taken the time to understand the wide range of varying opinions on the matter.

Thinking back to when I was a child, my sister and I had no chores.  We didn't have any responsibility around the house, and therefore, didn't have any respect for my house.  I didn't need to worry about doing my dishes because someone would always be there to do them for me.  I didn't need to worry about cleaning up my room because my mother would eventually get fed up, come in, and do it for me.  I didn't have to do anything but go to school, do my homework, and play.  It wasn't until I got older and my mom stopped doing everything for us, and seemed to stop caring all together, that I finally picked up and started doing my own chores and cleaning.  It got to the point where doing a dish meant washing one to use, and everyone really stopped caring.

I've known plenty of kids who have grown up not having to lift a finger around the house.  In many cases these same children have grown up to have challenges in cleaning their own homes as adults.  I've even known a few who, as adults, have their mother come over and clean their home for them.  It seems there's a correlation between having no responsibilities or chores and learning to keep house later.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are the kids that have all the responsibility for the chores in their house.  I've known a few like that.  When the kids do all the chores and get the feeling that their parents sit by and do nothing all day, it can often end up with adults who feel that, now that they are adults, they shouldn't have to do any cleaning either.  It leads to challenges with keeping their own house clean, and the added hatred and frustration of having no choice but to do it.  They may want a clean home, but hatred of the task leads them to despise the work involved.

For those of you who know, I've been working a lot with the whole FlyLady system of house cleaning.  The Artsy Eclectic over at Otherwise Quite Good introduced me to FlyLady about two years ago now.  The idea is that a clean home is a blessing to your whole family.  The emphasis is on decluttering, doing everything fifteen minutes at a time, and organization.  Everything for the next morning should be ready to go on the "launch pad" the night before to reduce the craziness of finding things to get out the door and get stuff done the next day.  When going through items in your home to reduce clutter, if you don't use it and don't love it, it's gone.  There's no reason to be carrying around things you don't love and don't need, especially if you're not going to be able to display them so they can be enjoyed.  She believes that if you have a problem with something, rather than getting upset about it and taking actions that lead to negativity and don't get things done, leading to more negativity.  The final thing she encourages is for children to get involved in the process with the Riley Challenges she puts out.  If children learn that keeping a clean house isn't about doing work (work is a four letter word in my book!) and instead it's about loving themselves, respecting their home, and respecting their family, then they'll be more likely to carry that on into their adulthood, bringing forth another generation of organized people with clean, clutter-free homes!

Well, more on FlyLady later.  Right now my topic is about kids and chores.  For the longest time I believed that children shouldn't have chores.  Children shouldn't even have to clean their room if they don't want to because it's their space and they'll keep it the way they like it.  I somehow had this vision of my son's room always being tidy (because that's the way he likes it) and my daughter happily surrounded by scattered toys everywhere.  Once I was finally out on my own and away from my ex I became very aware of exactly how unrealistic that was.  Letting my daughter's room stay a mess often ended up in toys being scattered all throughout the house that she didn't want to pick up.  She would always demand, "Why do I have to put them away?  I don't have to clean my room.  Why should I have to clean anywhere else?"  Then the two children were forced into sharing a room for a while and things got worse.  My normally organized son didn't want to clean up any of his sister's toys, and refused to clean up when she was anywhere to be found.  He wanted to do it on his schedule, before a nap (if he took one) and before bed.

That very day that my daughter complained to me was the one I started putting my foot down.  My children couldn't live chore-free anymore.  They had to learn to keep after themselves, if nothing else, because I just didn't have the energy to keep after them anymore.  I started to feel under-appreciated, like I was expected to be a maid in my own home, and worse still, no one cared if the house was clean or dirty.  Something had to be done about it!  I started instituting room cleaning as a chore.

Just this past fall I found Chore Wars.  I started setting it up and assigned points to each of the chores.  I started with simple things for the kids that they could really handle themselves and really should have been doing anyway, cleaning their rooms and putting the dishes next to the sink when they were done eating so the table was clear and the dishes could be washed.  I told my daughter that they could earn rewards for things like that, and the gold was going to be directly exchangeable for money.  This wasn't something that we were just doing for the kids.  This would allow my partner and I to have an allowance for our own fun spending.  This would mean I could earn my yarn budget from my partner's paycheck without having to dip into child support (unless it was to make something the kids needed) or my business.  It would mean I could pay for a date night to the movies, dinner out now and again, and everything else without feeling too guilty about spending my partner's hard earned cash.  It would also give me a great way to keep track of exactly how much each family member got done each day.  Since my partner was often under the misunderstanding that I did nothing around the house all day.  Let's be honest here, if I do my job well enough, no one will notice that I've done anything, just that things (at the very least) don't get any more messy and cluttered than they were before.  More importantly, it's easy not to notice that the house is cleaner and less cluttered when it doesn't suddenly happen all at once.  The small changes are the hardest ones to notice.

So how does this really tie in with my kids?  My daughter has been asking what else she can do around the house.  She's asked me if she can have doing the dishes as a chore.  She's informed me (didn't know she was in a position to tell me how it is!) that she was doing the sweeping and I'm no longer allowed since it's her chore.  Part of this is the whole Chore Wars thing and the ability to earn a bit of money to buy things she wants, but part of it is the whole feeling of helping.  She's seen how incredibly happy the whole family is when the house is cleaner, so she wants to take part in that.  I have no problems with it.

Since my daughter's started doing chores around the house, she's become more aware of how much of a mess she and her brothers really make.  She and her older brother use team work to manage the dustpan and broom, since we don't have a regular dust pan and brush.  She has decided that making the table before dinner is going to be one of her jobs.  Now that we're in our own home, washing dishes is going to be her responsibility too.  She's not going to be washing sharp knives or incredibly dirty cooking pots, but the difference in her behavior and her outlook on everything has drastically changed.  She cleans up after her own messes more often.  She even keeps after her room more regularly!

I'm not saying I'm going to pay my children with allowance to clean the house.  However, I don't believe in giving children money just for being kids.  In the real world, you don't get paid to do nothing.  I don't believe in my children being my maids either.  However, I do believe in including my children in keeping after the house to teach them the valuable lesson that a clean home is truly a blessing to your family, and cleaning is just one of the many gifts you can give your family.  Helping with house cleaning will create positive patterns for their future, something they can take with them through their whole life, and encourages responsibility.

Children having chores is a benefit to the whole family.  It makes keeping the home a process that the whole family is a part of, so it truly feels like every member of the family is contributing to the home.  Most importantly, children learn important life skills from having the responsibility of doing chores in their own home.  As much as I would like my kids to do nothing all day but be kids, these valuable lessons will help make their own futures brighter.  Not only are my children learning to "bless their home" as FlyLady puts it, they're learning to create a positive, healthy, happy home in their adulthood long before they even get there!