Do You Do Chores?

Chore lists seem to be super popular among parenting groups but are they really effective? Or are they just an opportunity to argue with your children? Unpopular opinion. Chore don't work.

What an intro huh? Now I am going to add that in this post you can also get a free chore list printable. Pretty indecisive of me.

Let me start with my parenting journey. I have a total of 9 kids aged 22 to 5. I've been doing this mom thing for a while now. I am not saying I am expert but I am saying I am going to give you my opinion on chores. We don't do them.

Gasp!

I know, I know. Our kids don't do chores so our house must be a disgusting nightmare.

Nope. Not even close.

****Warning**** what I may say going forward will probably upset the majority of people who will read this and you know what, that's okay. We all parent different, have different relationships with our partners and run our households differently. These are things I remind my children of daily "no one parents the same" so if they can understand it you can do.

I am the responsible one for everything household. I am the default parent. This is my ship and I run it strictly. I actually can be quoted as saying "Its my house, I run this b*tch."

It is expected of me to have a clean and well managed home. This idea started when I left my full time job and being a stay at home mom became my full time job. He worked outside the home and I worked inside. The flow worked for us.

Flash forward to starting and running a couple businesses that I run from home PLUS homeschooling. My work load tripled. Is it hard? Most days. But this is why I preach early wake up, routines and schedules to every single person I can.

So now that you are all worked up about what is expected of me in MY home by MY husband lets get into the point of this post. Chores.

I have chores our children do not. I use a chore list to track what I want to get done for the day and what needs to be done for the week. Weekly stuff is more of a deep clean type thing. I only use a chore chart as a list because I love lists. I have lists for lists. I am a list maker. If you want the exact copy of the chore chart that I use you can grab it here for free.

So what do the children do? Instead of saying you must take out the trash and vacuum the floor plus clean the toilets we teach them how to take care of themselves. When you demand children do a chore that means they are cleaning up after someone else mess they are going to give you push back. Let's get to the root of the mess. Let's teach them to live differently.

It's breakfast time. Everyone is eating their breakfast and when they are done they clean their spot at the table, put their dishes into the dishwasher and move on. They take off their clothes to shower they put them in the hamper, when the hamper is full they bring it downstairs and do their laundry.

Do you see where I am going with this? As adults they need to know how to maintain a clean and organized space. They shouldn't be trained that they need to clean up after their partner because it is a chore that they have to do. They are learning how to maintain their future homes.

Is this practice perfect? Nope. 15 and 13 year olds are still going to test the limits with their bedrooms but the common areas of the home are respected by everyone and that ultimately is all a mom can ask for.