Chores and Children: Fallacy #2 Kids Must Help with Housework

20-Apr-2021

Reposting a blog series from 2011, here we talk about the second fallacy (the first fallacy, parents claim 'listening isn't obedience' in the Chores series is here) about how children are tasked with chores, with a hint about why it doesn't work well when approached from this direction:

Parent says 1.	I really need kids to pitch in (write in reason of choice: single parent, busy schedule, ailing parents, demanding job, kids waste time, they have to, it’s their turn…)
Response to 1.	Uh-hunh. How much of what you do in a day is optional? TV, computer time, re-organizing organized things, cleaning clean things, pampering, socializing…
Rebuttal 1.a.	I deserve a break.
Response to 1.a.	From what?
Parent statement 1.b.	From all the drudgery and hard, menial work I do for them –laundry, cleaning, tidying, picking up after them, shopping, cooking…
Response to 1.b.	So, because you’re you and the work you do is beneath you, you’re entitled to free labour from ‘not really people’ because that’s what you had kids for: slaves?
Parent says 1.c.	No, no, no! Not at all!! They need to learn to do it and I need a break.
Response to 1.c.	Popular answers, but failing to address the issue: the work is beneath you, not them?

Can you see why approaching others with tasks we think are beneath us does not make kids don't just go along with the idea that they're any closer to that work than we are?

Linda Clement is a parenting coach who works with highly successful parents who are seeking to break the cycle of transgenerational trauma. If you're ready to leave a legacy your great-grandchildren will thrive with, you're invited to start here with half an hour on Linda's calendar...

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