The Dreaded Chores

I was talking to a friend one day, his daughter was 6 months old and he was asking me about my children. He wanted to know if I gave my children chores. I, of course, answered yes. He was puzzled and responded, but how could I force my children to do things around the house, wasn't that my responsibility as a parent. I remember smiling at him and explaining why I make sure my children have chores. There are a few reasons and I am going to talk about them here today.

I believe that children need chores for several reasons. The first is that they help make the mess in the house and therefore they can help clean it up. If they leave something laying around, it is there responsibility to make sure it is picked up. Now that is the main reason...responsibility. If children don't have responsibilities in their life then how can they learn the satisfaction of doing a job well. How can they learn that picking up after yourself is common courtesy? Children need to have responsibility in their lives, whether it is with chores or with school work. They need to learn they are responsible for their own actions and that they can't blame someone else for their shortcomings.

The man was further flabbergasted when I proceeded to tell him that my children will be able to handle their own house when they move out. They both know how to do laundry, clean a house to hold up under a military inspection as both my husband and I were military (not that we force them to clean to this standard), they can cook (my daughter is still working on this and my son is a better cook than I am), they can figure out a menu and then figure out the grocery list from that and they both know how to budget their money (not that they always do). The man was shocked and said to me, Patti, I don't even know how to do all of those things. I said then I am sorry for you.

I never want my children to believe that there is something they can't do. Some people believe that by having children do chores you are using them as child labor, but what parent wants their child to go out into their life and fail. By having my children do chores, I am working on setting them up to succeed. If they can succeed in the daily household items now then they don't have to focus on them later and they can focus on their family, education and careers. But most important they can also focus on God. This is extremely important, no one should be consumed with the learning of daily chores, that isn't where our focus should lie. It should lie with improving ourselves and if by teaching my children how to do chores now then I am helping to make their lives simpler when they mature.

I fully believe that it is our responsibility as a parent to teach our children as much as possible. If we can teach them to have how to handle the simple things, they will be able to handle the bigger things. It is our responsibility to make sure they are prepared to go out into the world and when they start their first job, their boss isn't going to come by and tell them it is okay to be late on an assignment, I will take care of it for you. This is what we have to teach our children, that it is okay to take care of yourself, that it is important to handle the small things so they don't become big things. I know some of you will disagree with me, but I hope this has been helpful to some of you.

Enjoy your children and love them enough to teach them to stand on their own feet. They will thank you for it when they mature. Thanks and have a great day
Patti