Chores in Our Family (Update)

I believe I've blogged previously about chores in our family. Here is an update in case anyone is curious.

My ten year old is a real worker and always has been. He requests to do jobs to earn money. He wishes he could have a real job in the real world and make real money. In response to his begging, we have given him more jobs than I normally would give a child of that age.

My thirteen year old has not wanted to do chores for money until about the last six months. He has been more, shall we say, lazy? He would rather forego having spending money in order to not do anything that may be unpleasant, smelly (dealing with the cat litter box) or visually unpleasant (the sight of the compost bucket can make him vomit). Due to him being selective on what he is willing to do my husband and I have not been able to come up with workable new chores that he should get paid for.

Both my husband and I feel kids should help out as part of being a family. Thus we have a bit of an aversion to giving assigned chores with pay attached. I also didn't want to give chores that would basically create a new job for me to oversee and nag about. As a homeschooling mother I feel I am up to my eyeballs in being responsible for seeing that my kids do certain work. I can only take so much! My husband does not want to be the overseer of the chores.

We also don't like the idea of handing out cash weekly for doing nothing. We provide our kids with plenty of material things. Some would label my kids as over-indulged with material possessions. Most of what they receive is for a birthday gift or Christmas gift. I don't tie fees for sports or sports equipment or cleat shoes to be paid for with their allowance. I don't require that they buy their friend birthday gifts with their own money. (These are some things I've heard other families do but no one I know in real life does that.)


So here we are with two sons, thirteen and ten. They both ask to do jobs for money so now they are doing things that I normally would do but am happy to have offloaded.

The exception is the laundry. I blogged the long version once, long story short, in autumn of 2008 the kids started being nasty with me proclaiming I was not keeping up with the laundry (an untruth). In reality they had lost their clothing items at wilderness school where they sat in the lost and found and other hoodies and jackets were crammed under the third row of seats in the minivan (when they proclaimed nothing was there). After several bouts of nastiness I proclaimed they had to do all the family's laundry, they were 11 and 8 years old at the time. We are on month 28 of them doing all the laundry. They have learned that laundry is relentless and never-ending and they wish they didn't have to do it. My husband and I tell them many things that we do as adults to upkeep a house or to run a family are that way and it's good for them to have nearly daily reminders of that. They still have a pretty cushy life as far as the life of a kid can go, believe me.

Here is a list of what they do or did and the pay scale.

Younger Son aged 8, started in 2008-mid 2010: $2

take the garbage out once a week
bring the empty garbage can in once a week
take the compost bucket to the compost bin outdoors as needed (about every two days)
wash his own bathroom counter and sink and mirror
do all the laundry with brother (no pay counts for that)
empty dishwasher when asked (not a strict chore)
carry groceries in and put them away (no pay counts for this)

Younger Son at age 10, updated mid 2010: $3

hand wash all pots, pans, knives, gadgets, serving utensils
rinse all dishes, utensils and drinking glasses or mugs then load those into dishwasher
run the dishwasher when full
empty the dishwasher
take the garbage out once a week
bring the empty garbage can in once a week
take the compost bucket to the compost bin outdoors as needed (about every two days)
wash his own bathroom counter and sink and mirror
do all the laundry with brother (no pay counts for that)
carry the groceries in and help put them away (no pay counts toward this)

Younger Son, age 10.5, updated January 2011 $4 a week

scoop 4 cat litter boxes & replenish with new litter & sweep up scattered litter off floor
hand wash all pots, pans, knives, gadgets, serving utensils
rinse all dishes, utensils and drinking glasses or mugs then load those into dishwasher
run the dishwasher when full
empty the dishwasher
take the garbage out once a week
bring the empty garbage can in once a week
take the compost bucket to the compost bin outdoors as needed (about every two days)
wash his own bathroom counter and sink and mirror
do all the laundry with brother (no pay counts for that)
carry the groceries in and help put them away (no pay counts toward this)

Older Son, all of 2010 at age 12 through now when age 13: NO PAY

take empty 5 gallon spring water bottle from cooler and put in garage
bring in full 5 gallon spring water bottle from garage and load into water cooler
wash his own bathroom counter and sink and mirror
do all the laundry with brother (no pay counts for that)
carry the groceries in and help put them away (no pay counts toward this)

Note: Gets paid $1 if he shovels the front porch and brick steps well, the winter he was 12 and the winter he is 13.

Both Kids

Extra projects earn extra pay such as moving pruned tree branches to the woods or shoveling mulch from the pile onto the garden or raking leaves at Grandma's house. This is usually met at first with glee then complaints of how hard it is then begging to quit the job and forego most of the payment.