To ask my 14 and 12 year old sons to help with the household chores?

[BevMidge]

It seems to me that most kids these days dont feel they should help out at home. Am I the only mum who feels guilty for putting my foot down? I have taken away their x boxes and other tech stuff to try to get them to understand. The way they leave their rooms is really not for here but I can say it is really minging !!!

I've got my 15 month old helping me as much as he can around the house - at nursery they think it's hilarious that whenever they do any messy play, at the end of it, DS will march off to get the broom, and redistribute the mess sweep up :o I suspect it's all down hill from here, but I want him to be as involved as possible in family life, so am including him in all aspects of it :o The main trick now is to stop him emptying his toy box once we've tidied everyhting into it! He thinks it's a game.

I would never expect children to do housework that a mother should do.

i.e washing/ironing/cooking family dinner.

Clearing up after themselves is surely all that should be expected.

When I was their age I was helping out around the house. Mum cooked meals but dad washed up and I dried.

For bigger jobs such as mowing the lawn or washing my parents cars they paid me a little something - usually 50p for mowing the lawn.

I didn't get pocket money as such so this is how I funded treats.

Ds has had 'chores' since he was around 3. They have got a bit more onerous over time though!

He's just 7, and they now include setting the table, making sure his dirty clothes go in the washing basket, putting clean clothes away, sorting out his own footie/running kit, loading the dishwasher and putting the bins out/fetching them back. He has been known to hoover, but that job has evolved into entertaining his baby bro (who HATES the thing with a passion) elsewhere so I can do it.

I can't wait until he can start making me a cuppa and doing my ironing

fabbyChic why?

That would be YANBU btw! Though tbh I would say Y were BU if you've let them get to this age without doing anything!

I've started early, DS who is 2, tidies up his toys during the day when virtually everything has been pulled out to play with and in the evening before bed, helps to fill and empty the washing machine, and switch it on, wipes up the table after his meals, helps to put the shopping away and anything else that is within his abilities. He loves it as it makes him feel grown up and fingers crossed it will continue into the teenage years

Though I was a bit worried when he was sick the other night and when I went into his room and turned on the light he started to clear it up himself. Maybe I've gone to far on the clearing up after yourself mantra

I just don't like seeing children being used as work horses.

I used to have to use a launderette and I would see a girl of 7 with a family load of washing every Saturday morning at 8am, then going to get bread and milk.

Where were the parents? Sat in bed getting some sleep.

Kids are only kids once.

My son went to uni knowing how to iron and wash, he could also cook basic meals.

I taught him three months before he went.

MY ds1 is 6 he loves to help out. He gets things for ds2, 6 weeks old, and sets table, clears table. He also helps with cooking sometimes, he does fancy himself as a bit of a Jamie Oliver. Just recently we have linked chores into some pocket money, as he wanted games for his wii. This way he learns how to save, gets a bit of independence and learns value of money.

Although a funny story: he was discussing jobs with gran and told her that he wasnt interested in money he just wanted a fun job when he gets older!!

My son LOVES going to the corner shop to buy milk - I have to 'invent' things that I have forgotten to buy from Tescos just so he can go

Forgot to say - he would give his eye teeth to go to the laundrette! He's most put out we have a washing machine!

I was astonished when I went to university at how many people in my halls seemed to have no idea what a kitchen was for. We were living in uncatered halls - you would have thought their parents would have ensured they could have cooked at least basic meals? Some lived off toast, others figured out how to microwave ready meals but then ran out of money pretty soon. One guy (who is still a good friend of mine now) would go to the supermarket and buy a big thing of Ribena, a big box of washing powder and a bag of potatoes, and nothing else. I used to take pity on him and cook for him quite often. Ironically now he is an excellent cook.

My DS (only 6 months now) will certainly be expected to help out from very early on.

I don't worry about ds 9 at all coping with cooking when he's at uni - he can already knock up a lemon drizzle cake

Obviously I meant mmmmmmmmm cake on the brain now!

Bit torn on this.

My Mum never asked me to do anything. She said that there would be time enough in my life to learn to cook, clean etc and to be frank it was all unimportant anyway and I should just concentrate on doing things I enjoy. I think she was right and I always looked sadly on friends who were expected to do things in the house as a kind of servitude.

Now I have a child I'd like them to help out - mainly so I don't have to do it. I still think having a clean house/able to cook is vastly overrated and just a form of oppression. I think my DP will have to show DD how to cook though as I think if I did it it would reinforce gender stereotyping. Besides which I don't think I could keen my disdain for the kitchen out of my voice.

Mine are 7 and 5 and have a chore chart.

IMO, part of being a good parent is to help them become good adults - who clean up after themselves and know how to organise themselves and have basic life skills.

woodlands - I shared a flat with a guy when we were on work placement from uni, and neither of us had lived away from home before. however, at the age of 20, I knew how to cook, was aware that light bulbs occasionally need to be replaced, and how to do it, that toilets need bleaching occasionally, that shampoo needs to be bought if you want to use it etc etc. He had never even made himself a cup of tea before (at the age of 27). I taught him some basic cooking techniques, and how to use a supermarket and he eventually worked out what one does with an onion, and the difference between a saucepan and a frying pan, but it was a long year... I was quite gobsmacked by his inability to use a supermarket though - I used to have to take him round like a toddler, and although it was a foreign country, so some allowances could be made, he was genuinely shocked that meat is raw when you buy it, and that there was more than one brand of shampoo, and that tea came in bags, not mugs - because his mum had done EVERYTHING for him, and he wasn't allowed in the kitchen at home. Scary.

and he's a medical doctor now, which is even scarier.

I used to do the launderette at age 10. I didn't mind it. I was one of eight and we all did our bit.

Children should do stuff so they accept is as a normal function of everyday life and not some adult burden.

Ds1 has been cooking since he was 12. He sticks to cooked breakfasts, anything with pasta and making chocolates but I know he is comfortable and familiar doing it and he doesn't feel that icky entitled ' it is someones elses responsibility' thing.

He is shit at ironing but washes all his kit. I think a 17 year old boy should have enough about him to want to wash his own skanky rugby stuff.

All these tales of woe about small children struggling with washing to the launderette and living lives of servitude are making my eyes water and is wrong.

There's a difference between age appropriate tasks and treating your child like a servant.

My 7 year olds never go near our washing machine (OK, I let them press the on button if they've been good and ask nicely ) and that's because doing laundry is not age appropriate (and I need my washing machine to be working in tip top order or everything falls apart).
However, I do expect them to put away their clothes that I have washed and folded (ironing is for people other than my good self ) for them.

Teaching a child to cook doesn't involve them preparing a family meal if you do it in an age appropriate way. More that you start of baking cakes with them when they're tinies, at 7 my DC's are asking to help as I prepare meals, so are learning how to put a meal together and what a healthy meal is, with DP (who is more comfortable in the kitchen with children than I) they chop things, wash things, stir things, when they're older maybe we'll ask them to make the odd thing here and there, they won't be responsible for cooking the family meals though, that is my and DP's (let's leave off with what is womens work/mothers jobs eh!) job.

Similarly they are learning to clean (putting stuff away as I tidy, having a go on the vacuum cleaner, doing a bit of dusting.

I'm not in bed smoking fags and drinking booze, everything takes even longer to do if you let your children join in (as I invariably have to redo what they've done) but they feel included, they get to feel responsible (because they've been trusted with said task) and they want to do it because they get to do it with DP and I.
(You gotta grab this time when they want to talk to you as I understand all bets are off as soon as they become teenagers!!).

My children won't ever have an exhausting list of jobs whilst I'm loafing but they are expected to behave as part of a family, because they are part of a family!

Living lives of servitude? FGS, for the hardship of loading a washing machine? It's hardly being sent to scrub the family clothes in the nearest river.

Hey, don't shoot the messenger, we're on the same side here. I was opining on the posters on this thread who think being asked to learn to be adults is somehow ruining their childhoods!

at lives of servitude..

The washing machine clearly holds terrifying challenges for the unsuspecting teenager that I had never fully appreciated.

I clearly had a childhood of deprivation what with the whole launderette thing...

Poor me. I think I will write one of those misery porn books.. " no mummy.. Not the conditioning cycle again...." or ""When The Socks Don't Match"

LOL pagwatch

YANBU Mine all do jobs, tidy their rooms, clean up after meals, make their own beds etc. I feel it is essential that they learn to do it themselves as early as possible. I refuse to be a servant while hey laze about!