Chores - Parenting Issues Message Board

mushroom1 · 11-09-2002, 05:50 PM

I have 5 kids. They are 6, 8, 14, 17 and 21. The 21 year old is away at school, but the others are home, of course.

My husband works a 50 hour week. I do not work. Most weekends, my husband and I are busy doing lots of chores. We ask our 14 & 17 year olds to work 3 hours on Saturday, cleaning. According to them, this is TOTALLY unreasonable. "None of our friends have to do nearly that much!" This is the only work that they do for us all week and they receive $50 a month allowance.

Do you think we are being unreasonable? Please be honest.

Greenberry · 11-09-2002, 07:58 PM

I do not think that is unreasonable at all. Of course I think it would have been easier if you had started when they were very little. When my daughter turns 3 (in 11 months) I will have a (very short) list of chores for her to do in order to earn $3.00 a week "commission." No chores, incomplete or sloppy chores, no commission. They will be easy chores, like feeding the cat and helping set the table, but every year I expect to increase the amount of help she does around the house. By the time she is 10 or so, I hope to turn the housework totally over to her (just kidding about that last part!)

I know that she is a CHILD, but one of the jobs I have as her mother is to train her and teach her what to expect in life. Not everyone will love her as much as her father and I do, and very seldom will she get something for nothing. She is a member of our family and is expected to contribute something to the family. In fact, she already does, and loves doing it! She helps me unload the groceries and put them away, and I got her a little broom so that she can help me sweep (actually, I got the broom so that she would leave mine alone because it is very hard to sweep with a 2 year old hanging on to the broom "helping" me!) Just my two cents.

mushroom1 · 11-10-2002, 12:01 AM

We did have them do a few chores when they were younger and it seemed to go okay. As they have gotten older, we have increased the work...and it has only been in the last couple of years that they complain so much. It is very annoying...I know that it would be easier to do the work myself, but I don't want to reward their bad behavior.

When I was growing up, I had an hour of chores after school every day and then it was my responsibility to wash the dinner dishes. Between this and my homework, I had little free time. I was trying to go easy on my own children, but I need a little help taking care of our home.

I appreciate all opinions.

Lindarella · 11-10-2002, 12:04 PM

If it's opinions you want, I have them.

I think it is unreasonable to require 3 hours of work on Saturday. I also think, that paying your children to do things to help the family is unreasonable. Children should have chores that they do without money rewards because it's part of being a family. Everyone has chores. To me, allowance is money that a child recieves irregardless of chores.

That said. I don't think doing 3 hours of work a week for a teen is unreasonable at all. The part I think is unreasonable is that you require them to do it on a Saturday. Why not let them spread these chores around their own schedule instead of yours? They can set up their own convenient times to do them. Maybe one hour Saturday, one Sunday, one Monday etc. I think they'd be much more willing to help (ok maybe not willing but would complain less

)if the times for the chores were times they could choose themselves. It would probably help to have the chores listed in some way so that the kids could add the day that each chore would be completed by.

Good luck to you. It's a bummer listening to them complain for sure.

Chelle1977 · 11-12-2002, 10:08 AM

Three hours? It takes them each three hours to clean the house? Thats a lot of time. Of course, you have a big family to clean up after I guess.

When I was in high school I was responsible for house-cleaning (almost all of it) along with working a part-time job and going to school. I did not get an allowance.

I'm sorry .. I think kids should help out around the house and I will not give my kids an "allowance", but I can not understand how you can be home all day and still have to spend the weekend doing "chores"? And how it could take 4 people 3 hours on a Saturday to get them all done?

Of course, I'm not a parent at all ... so what do I know?