Should Kids Do Chores? What I’ve Learned As A Parent Of Two
I was leaning against the kitchen counter last night, sipping cold mint tea while waiting for my migraine medicine to kick in, scrolling through my local parent group when the question popped right to the top: Do you think kids should do chores? I paused, thumb hovering over the comment box, because I’ve been answering that question for myself for seven years now, ever since my second kid was born and I suddenly couldn’t keep up with all the little things that keep a house running.
When my oldest was little, before my son was born, I was one of those parents who thought kids should just get to be kids. I’d read all the thinkpieces saying childhood was too short, that we were pushing responsibility on them too young, so I did everything. Picked up the toys, packed the lunch, folded all the laundry, even cleared her plate off the table half the time. Then my son was born, I went back to work part-time, and suddenly I was sitting on the living room floor at 7pm one night, surrounded by a bin of duplos that spilled when my toddler pulled the shelf, and I couldn’t make myself stand up to clean it. I just sat there, crying, because my feet hurt and I hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in three months. Then my oldest, who was five at the time, padded over, pulled a stack of paper towels out of the drawer (don’t ask why she thought that was what we needed) and started picking them up, stacking them in the bin. She didn’t do it right—she put all the big ones on top so the lid wouldn’t close—but she did it. That was the first time I thought maybe this chore thing isn’t just for me to get more work off my back.
The thread on the group was split right down the middle. Half the people said no, why make kids work when they’ll have to work their whole lives, just let them play. The other half said kids need to learn responsibility or they’ll grow up expecting everyone to wait on them. Both sides were really heated, and I thought about all the mistakes I’ve made with chores, and what’s actually worked for our family.
I tried the allowance chart thing first, like every parent does. I read that you should tie chores to allowance, so I made a pretty laminated chart: $5 a week if you check off all your daily chores. A month in, my daughter decided she wanted to save for a $30 art set, so she just stopped doing chores entirely. Said she didn’t want the $5 weekly anyway, so why bother. That didn’t work for us, so I scrapped the chart and the allowance tie-in entirely. What we do now is really simple: chores are just the stuff we all do to keep our house running, same as I go to work and same as my husband takes care of the yard. Everyone gets chores that fit their age, no exceptions.
The small, concrete things that have worked for us, that I wish someone had told me when I started: First, start really small. When they’re five, don’t ask them to clean their whole room. Ask them to carry the silverware from the dishwasher to the drawer, or feed the dog, or pick up all the action figures off the rug. That takes two minutes, it’s not cutting into their play time. Big overwhelming jobs just make kids quit before they start. Second, stop redoing their work right in front of them. I used to refold all my daughter’s laundry as soon as she was done, because the folds were all wrong and the shirts were wrinkled. She stopped wanting to do it after a month, because she said she could never get it right. Now I let it go. If the towels are folded lumpy, I don’t fix it until she’s at school. If the dishwasher is loaded with all the plates on the wrong side, I just rearrange it after everyone’s gone to bed. It’s not worth making them feel like their help isn’t good enough. Third, don’t pay for basic household chores. If you want to pay for extra work like washing the car or pulling weeds, that’s fine, but taking out the trash isn’t a paid gig—it’s just what you do when you live with other people.
Back in January, I got that really bad stomach flu that was going around, and I was stuck in bed for three days. My husband was working remote, jumping between meetings and checking on me, and the kids just stepped up. My 12-year-old made toast and oatmeal for breakfast, she walked the dog, she helped my little brother brush his teeth. She burned the first batch of toast, and my brother spilled a whole jug of orange juice on the floor, but they got paper towels and cleaned it up together before anyone even had to ask. That’s when I realized what chores actually do. It’s not about having a clean house. It’s about letting them know that they belong here, that their contribution matters, that they can take care of themselves and other people when they need to.
It’s not all perfect, of course. We still have arguments every Sunday about taking the trash out. My 8-year-old still leaves his socks under the couch even after I’ve reminded him a hundred times to put them in the hamper. Last month my oldest forgot to lock the back gate after walking the dog, and our dog got out and ran around the neighborhood for 20 minutes. She had to walk around apologizing to all the neighbors and help round her up, which was consequence enough. I didn’t add extra punishment or anything.
I still don’t think there’s one right answer for every family. If you have a kid who’s really overwhelmed with school, therapy, and extra activities, cutting back on chores makes total sense. For us, it’s worked. I don’t know if my kids will grow up to be the type who always make their bed or keep a spotless kitchen. Maybe they’ll leave their dishes in the sink for three days when they get their first apartment, same as I did when I moved out. But so far, they know that they can show up when someone needs help. They know how to do laundry, how to clean up a spill, how to feed a pet. That’s more than I had when I moved out at 18, honestly. Last night, I closed the parent app and went to check on the kids, and saw that both of them had hung up their wet towels after their shower, something I didn’t even remind them to do. Little things, right? That’s enough for me, right now.
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