9 year old can’t come to play until he’s done the housework

I started properly when DS started reception. Start with little things and build up. Pack away toys, dust shelves in his room (there were 2), vacuumed the rug in his room, make his bed (basically means pulling up the quilt) were the 'chores' he started with aged 4-5. He still had a childhood.

Absolutely. The Mumsnet mindset that if you have your kids (in particular boys) doing chores from an early age they will continue to do so in adulthood for their partner I find baffling. My dh didn’t have to do housework/chores as a kid but he was raised as a decent human being and as such is a fabulous husband and father who works incredibly hard to provide for his family. We share all household tasks because I didn’t marry a loser who will sit on his arse watching me do the chores. Nothing is too much trouble for him. Housework is never ending really but new appliances are always being made to make life easier and I know when my kids are grown there will be new products available that they will be able to use that Im sure I will find baffling.

Ive 5 children
Dd12 and dd10 alternate the bathroom & kitchen dishes on a evening.
Dd7 clears the hallway and living room before bed
Ds6 hoovers hallway and living room before going upstairs
Ds1 is learning how to help put his toys away.
Dd12&dd10 are only allowed to go out together if beds are made and rooms are tidy and back by 7pm
Ds6&dd7 are not allowed to play out.

It's hard to know who (if anyone) IBU without more details about what exactly the kid is expected to do. However I have an 8 year old who, god love her, takes the absolute piss with these kinds of things. Homework doesn't get done, toys don't get tidied up, unless I set really firm boundaries. With this type of child sometimes the consequences of not doing what they're asked when they're asked is the only thing they'll actually understand. I'd guess there's every chance that this kid was repeatedly encouraged to get the heck on and do his chores before his friends called round and he failed to listen....

I'm curious OP if kids aren't held to some sort of standard and expected to take responsibility for themselves and the world around them how do you think they learn this? Childhood should absolutely be protected and nurtured but this doesn't mean children should never have to work hard for something or be held accountible for their actions.

I don’t personally do this but I don’t think it’s a wrong thing to do, have times when all the family cleans the house together.

Mind do have chores but they aren’t hugely time sensitive, as in we don’t all have to be doing them at once.

I think it’s important that everyone helps to clean and tidy, even toddlers. Saturday morning was our set time for doing a lot of housework and everyone had to help.

His parents sound very sensible.

When I was 9, I would wash up after dinner, fold laundry, empty the bins, vacuum and help rake the leaves in the garden, as well as tidy my room and put all my own laundry away. That was all unsupervised too.

You seem to think it’s cruel and its not down time from school.

Do it right and it’s quality family time. You can get good conversation while doing housework together. Key bit there being together.

Primary school was great fun. Don't tell me you wouldn't jump at the chance to hang out with your friends whilst learning for a week.

I want to have some fun and downtime too, and I haven't been playing with my mates all week.

I mean, my son is three, so he just understands helping lay the table, vacuuming and putting things he's stained in the wash, but if everyone pitches in, everyone gets to play faster.

My dc had age appropriate tasks and always had to tidy their rooms. I was however, flexible on when they had to do them.
If they were due to start a chore and they were asked to play I'd let them go, on the proviso that they finished the task/did another when they came back.
Life is too short to miss out on fun and they are only young for a short time. Socialising when young is as important as chores imo.
Now they are fully functioning adults with their own homes.
If I'd started a task that could be left until later and a friend invited me out I'd be downing tools to go out too.

It doesn't sound sad to me - surely there are lots of times when if one child calls unexpectedly for the other they aren't available to drop everything and come out?

My DS has a similar arrangement with some of our neighbours but if it is a "call for" speculative situation rather than an arranged meet-up then he or they might be out, hosting other people, having protected family time, doing chores or homework before being on "free time", in the bath, eating, in the middle of doing something else that they want to finish - or even just not feel like socialising with that particular friend right then. That's not sad, that's just having a normal, full life.

Oh yes, this old chestnut, that so many posters on here seem to have examples of how a child being brought up in x style, means they're the complete opposite when adults

The exception proves the rule. We know that children generally grow up with habits and behaviours that are formed out of the behaviours and role modelling they saw and experienced as children. Why people try to deny this I do not know.

Agree, it’s not a matter of them helping with housework OR playing. They can do both.

@likelysuspect - I wasn't denying anything just sharing my experience which I am entitled to do.

Everyone’s kids and family set ups are different. However I’ve found that if we start them young and do little and often, chores are just seen as things that need to be done, like brushing our teeth. We all pitch in and it gets done faster. My kids really rose to it and felt really good about themselves taking on some little responsibilities.
BUT as this is MN, I must caveat this with this being MY kids and MY experience and what works for us, I’m not saying that everyone should do this!

So what's the difference?

I believe in kids accepting responsibility for their environment from a very young age, so that it becomes second nature to look after themselves and their surroundings. The younger they start, the easier it is for them, and we've all seen extremely young children mimic their parents' (usually Mum's) chores with dusting etc. I particularly agree with the Japanese habit of the schoolchildren cleaning and tidying their school and preparing and cleaning away their lunches. It gives them a sense of pride in their abilities and care for their immediate social circle. Adults are primed to love babies and young animals but that shouldn't mean we carry on babying them after they're toddlers.

You'd be horrified here, 10 year old DS has to do washing up. Everyone else can be sat down chilling.

Same with 18 and 16 year olds at his age. Both are now responsible young men who appreciate the work ethic and can actually see when jobs need to be done.

Everyone is responsible for our home being nice.

I did loads of chores as a kid, hence my kids don't do much. But they all seem very nice.

Thankyou,

It was an awful childhood, I was always so happy to escape to school so I could get away from her. Of course now she’s rewritten history and I didn’t have to do all this, and used to hide in the bathroom whenever work had to be done. She said my brother did his fair share too.

Except he didn’t, he was, and still is at the age of 60, the golden child. I have nothing to do with either of them.

Thankyou,

After a lot of therapy over the years I’ve learned to deal with it, though she has been abusive in other ways too. I have nothing to do with her now, and the day I hear she’s died, I’m having a massive party, though I’m taking someone who remembers everything to come to the rest home to make sure she’s really gone!

In my case it’s true though.

I’ve posted about how abusive my mother was, making me do absolutely everything in the house from the age of 8, not being allowed to eat my favourite meals, making me watch everyone else eat. Not being allowed to stop til everything was done, if she was feeling more generous I could eat a reheated portion, but more usually just being allowed to make poached egg on toast.

I didn’t do much housework when I finally moved out, though I’ve got better at doing it since. I still leave things for another day sometimes though, just because I can, and no-one minds.

I brought my own DDs up doing little age appropriate chores, starting from little things like tidying up their toys, to washing up to hoovering, dusting etc. I certainly didn’t treat them like my mother treated me.

I read your post and Im sorry this happened to you

You're talking about abuse and with respect this is nothing to do with what OP seems to have observed about her child's friend and what the posters on here are talking about and what is good parenting for children so is somewhat irrelevant to this thread.

Thankyou

All these lovely words from posters mean a lot to me, they really do 💐💐

I don’t believe it is irrelevant, just stating my experience, but thankyou for your kind words anyway