Thursday, November 04, 2004

Chores

I don't believe anyone should be forced to do chores in a family.

If someone thinks the kitchen floor needs sweeping... let 'em sweep it.

Forcing children to take on certain responsibilities teaches them that the opinions of others about the state of their house are more important than their own dust-tolerance threshold. It makes it harder for them to find out how clean and tidy they prefer things to be

Left to themselves, children do learn about household tasks - by helping when they feel like it, or doing tasks because they want to do them for themselves.

It's important that parents should also only do the household tasks they want to do. If if you want a tidier house and don't want to clean it yourself? Make enough money somehow to hire a cleaner. Swop cleaning for cooking stews for a non-chef neighbour. Give a local teenager piano lessons in return for hoovering. But don't make it your children's problem.

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