Thoughts on Chores

There seem to be as many ways to try and make or coerce a child into doing chores as there are parents out there.  My whole parenting style tries to avoid making or coercing my child into doing anything, and Kris and I have had discussions about chores and cleaning since before I was even pregnant.  Most of our thoughts involved setting a good example and trying to create an environment where our children enjoyed a clean house and wanted to help out.  How to accomplish this, we weren’t entirely sure, but we knew it was a good goal.  Enter radical unschooling.

I don’t agree with all of the RU ideas, but I do like the theory behind most of them.  It is a way of looking at children that says that children are innately good and have good intentions, rather than the far more common theory that children, if given any leeway, will take advantage of it and turn wild.  I’ll probably talk more on my thoughts on this in general in another post, but to get back to chores, the RU way of “making” a child do chores is to make chores optional.  Sounds radical, eh?  It’s recognizing that you don’t always feel like cleaning the bathroom right this minute, so why should your child have to clean their room because it’s bothering you?  It doesn’t mean chores don’t get done, and there are different ways that people put it into practice (from not expecting children to help at all, to asking for help but not forcing it, to everyone having set chores but no set time to do them (and the option of switching up chores), etc).  I like Joyce Fetteroll‘s way of looking at it here.

I liked the idea when I first read about it, but wasn’t sure how it would work in practice.  However, Kris and I had decided it was more in line with our way of life than chore charts, bribes, or groundings, and we’re prepared to give it a go.  A recent post of my sister’s (#50, her least favorite chore) got me thinking about this again.  My least favorite chore is vacuuming too.  Coincidence?  Probably not.  There’s a story here.

When I was about ten years old, I wanted to learn how to vacuum.  It was something my father did every week, and I thought it looked fun.  I begged him to show me how.  I had never been forced, coerced, bribed, etc into vacuuming.  He took me up on it, and I had a blast.  The next week he asked if I wanted to try it myself, I said sure.  Suddenly, it became my chore.  Every week, I had to vacuum our 2500 square foot house by myself.  My dad would make me redo it if I missed spots.  Pretty soon, my younger sister Alice was roped into doing it every other week.  While I was relieved for myself (since I only had to do it half the time), Alice started vacuuming when she was a year younger than I was when I started.  My dad would often joke that part of the reason he had kids was to do the chores.  Sadly, to this day I wouldn’t place bets on the fact that he was really joking.  While whoever was vacuuming, my dad would take the rest of the family out somewhere fun, to get away from the noise of the vacuuming.  So we would spend two or three hours vacuuming the house while the family went to the zoo, or the pet store, or some other such place.  Is it any wonder we both hate vacuuming now?  Luckily for me, once I got a job, I discovered that my youngest sisters love money more than they hate vacuuming and was able to pay them to take my turns for me.

So I went from being happy and anxious to help when I had a choice, to hating it and arguing over it every week when it was my job.  After this happened, I was very careful not to show any eagerness for any other jobs or chores, lest they suddenly become my responsibility.  Kris only had one chore he had to do growing up, and that was mowing the lawn.  His least favorite chore now is mowing the lawn.  (And since mowing causes my eyes to swell up to the point I can’t see, unfortunately for him it’s a chore he’s stuck doing.  But I never force him to do it and he actually does it most weeks quite happily.)  Another thing Kris dislikes is gardening.  I disliked it too.  It brought back memories of being in the hot afternoon sun weeding my parent’s garden.  But one evening I decided to sit down and start, and before I knew it I had got a lot done and was actually quite enjoying myself.  And then Kris, who has always warned me he would never be caught gardening, was next to me, helping me dig holes for bulbs and spread manure on the newly weeded plots.  Maybe there is something to this after all.  The funny part is that Kris, who was never forced to do most chores growing up like we were, is far better at keeping house and getting chores done than I think I will ever be.

One other thing my father used to say that I hated was that it was his house, and we had to earn our keep.  (To be fair, he did pay us for vacuuming and other chores we did.)  The unschooling philosophy is that it is the family’s house, and that children are children and don’t have to earn their keep.  Their jobs are to play and learn and be children.

Meredith likes to come out and help me garden.  This afternoon while I was weeding, she plopped herself down in the dirt right on top of some newly-growing-in flowers, picked up the little shovel, and started digging.  I pointed to a patch of weeds and she shifted her attention to them, but even if she had kept her attention on the flowers, I wouldn’t have stopped her.  I enjoy her company and don’t want to discourage her from trying to help.  They are only flowers (and were planted so late this year I don’t even know if they will bloom anyway), and if I want her to be interested in helping in future years, I think trying to stop her now would only be counterproductive.  My plan as she grows is to point out ways she can help me if she shows an interest (or even if she doesn’t but is nearby), not to fuss if she chooses not to help in that instance (after all, I don’t always help Kris if I don’t feel like it, and he would never try and force me), and not to nitpick when she does try and help.  And like everything else with parenting, to keep an open mind and be willing to try something different.

Related posts:

1. A video & an addendum
2. Garden thoughts
3. TV, ADHD, and other random thoughts