Had enough of my family. I've gone on strike!

[Glastonbury2020]

Locked down with DH and 4 teenagers. Apart from me, no one:

• cooks any proper meals
• loads/ unloads the dishwasher
• puts a wash on
• wipes kitchen surfaces/ cooker top
• sweeps the floor
• cleans the bathroom
• makes lunch

I have had enough and I'm not doing it all anymore. Last night, I made myself a fish finger sandwich for dinner and ate it in my room. Ignored everyone when they wanted to know what was for dinner. This morning, I made breakfast for me and I'm now sitting in bed drinking tea. Rant over. Thank you for listening!

he’s 13. Should he be doing his own washing? I don't think he should, bit he absolutely would know where to put his clothes and to have no clean ones if he fails.

Brilliant, but why have you waited this long? I think in your situation I'd have started my strike around 9 months ago.

How long have they been like this. Have you and your husband not taught them how to be domesticated. If you’ve never had them do these jobs then it’s an own goal on you. If you have and they are just not stepping up then I don’t blame you one bit for going on strike.

Yes we print off a sheet with days of week, DD shifts, column for meals, columns for morning/lunch/evening dog walk etc.

Printed on a Sunday and sits on the kitchen worktop!

@2me2u2u2me I started mine cooking at 8 and 9, doing their own washing at 13.
Helping clean and dog walking around 8.
At 15&16 we sat them down in a family meeting and agreed that we all worked and studied full time, so we all needed to contribute to the running of the household.
We then drew up our first formal roster. It covers cooking, cleaning, dog duties and plants.
Girls are responsible for their own washing, cleaning their bathroom and bedrooms.
They also cook 1 night a week each and clean up kitchen 2 nights a week.
The roster sits on the kitchen door and is modified each uni semester to take into account class schedules.
OP keep up the protest, call a family meeting when you sense the time is right for negotiation.

Thanks sexnotgender £80 a month ! Gosh I’m tight! And a bit ad hoc, atm I just give her ten quid here and there when she goes out. Think I need to get her a bank account and do what you are suggesting. Maybe I should give myself that too!

Well done op

I did this a while back and it was actually quite effective.

People didn't take on the full burden but they learned to do quite a bit and have carried on doing it.

Teenagers can be so oblivious to what needs doing in a home to keep it running on a day to day basis, its very infuriating ! Totally please yourself today - go for a nice walk, read, watch TV, nice soak in the bath pamper yourself. Then tomorrow sit down and have a chat with all of them over the fair division of labour.

@whaa

Thanks sexnotgender £80 a month ! Gosh I’m tight! And a bit ad hoc, atm I just give her ten quid here and there when she goes out. Think I need to get her a bank account and do what you are suggesting. Maybe I should give myself that too!

Bet your tenner here and there adds up though?

And I’ve only had to pay out the £80 a few times 😂 mostly she gets around £35.

Start of 1st lockdown last year I told my household - you get your own breakfast, lunch and any drinks you want. I will cook dinner (no set time). If I see stuff not in the dishwasher I call the person who left it there to come and sort it - the message soon got through to them all

I had 2 adults WFH, 1 uni student studying and 1 6th former studying and I couldn’t work (work place closed) and I’d just had an emergency major op - I am not their skivvy

DD helps me with washing - the rest of them help me with other jobs

[quote Weenurse]@2me2u2u2me I started mine cooking at 8 and 9, doing their own washing at 13.
Helping clean and dog walking around 8.
At 15&16 we sat them down in a family meeting and agreed that we all worked and studied full time, so we all needed to contribute to the running of the household.
We then drew up our first formal roster. It covers cooking, cleaning, dog duties and plants.
Girls are responsible for their own washing, cleaning their bathroom and bedrooms.
They also cook 1 night a week each and clean up kitchen 2 nights a week.
The roster sits on the kitchen door and is modified each uni semester to take into account class schedules.
OP keep up the protest, call a family meeting when you sense the time is right for negotiation.[/quote]
Thanks for the tip @Weenurse

Good plan to sit them down before the move and agree on chores, you've made some good points there, I'll get started on a roster :) thanks

Another one saying that a roster plus designated jobs makes life much easier, fairer and not resentful, in our household . (Three teens).

Good for you Op! Stick with it and come back here if you feel a hint of weakening.

Friend of mine did just this. Result was everybody did their own thing and her husband, impressed by the success of WFH, spent all his time in his office. In the end nobody eat together or even spent much time together. Her kids were older teens. Not sure if that made a difference.

I feel your pain op!!!

I am in precisely the same position, and had to remind my lot that I am NOT the housemaid, and as far as I can see everyone has two arms and two legs. So I refused to cook dinner, and I refuse to engage with the mountain of coffee cups and leftovers.

I am putting my foot down.

We pay our teenagers for each job it’s how they earn their pocket money. No chores done=no pocket money and extra chores done=extra pocket money

It’s amazing how they went from doing jobs badly hoping to not be asked again to miraculously learning how to do things perfectly and quickly when their income was threatened.

They are expected to keep their rooms hygienic and as tidy as possible as a bare minimum without payment but aside from that they do things like load and unload dishwasher/wipe surfaces clean/clean the bathroom/hoover and help with babysitting if necessary

In the end nobody eat together or even spent much time together

And this is a bad thing?

This is an outcome I could most definitely live with !!

'Quality' family time now has a similar reaction to 'going for a walk' in our home, we are so done with it all. In fact we are ALL looking forward to having much less quality family time in the near future!!

We’ve had a rota for years, at first it helped with evidence rather than general whinging about not doing anything.
Jobs on the list, initialled when done. So I can see that DS has hoovered twice since Monday, DD has deep cleaned the bathroom, OH has done laundry three times, I’ve cooked and washed up four times...
I don’t like housework enough to want to do all of it for everyone.
Works for us.

Yes do it. I went on strike apparently. I don’t really remember it though think I can vaguely .

DD (22) does though and told her friend to do it with her housemates recently as according to her it was very effective!

From now on your family need to step up! If you are cooking you should not be clearing up too!

I have teen sons, they have a rota for the dishwasher, I do it one day a week, they do 3 each including a weekend load. They also help cook dinner, tonight they are making meatballs from scratch together. They are each responsible for a bin which gets emptied twice a week one of those days being a bin collection day so they put their wheelie bin out and are responsible for bringing it back in.

They do laundry, hoovering, set the table, make lunches. The best thing we ever implemented was after dinner is everyone takes their own plate or bowl and is responsible for scraping it clean (they do this in schools from reception age) then they clear the rest of the table, the dishwasher gets loaded, any hand wash items are washed, dried and put away. They wipe and dry the table, nobody leaves that kitchen until everything is done. Nobody sits until then.

I am a sahm but I am partially disabled, the kids have been responsible for stuff for years. Stay on strike. If you were hospitalised this second they would have to do it all themselves.

There needs to be a rota made, it starts with who makes you a cup of tea first thing.

When I was a teenager (5 of us in a “blended” family), we had a cleaning rota.

My DF generally made supper but we all did our own lunches, washing and washing up.

I assume you've been asking and begging and threatening for ages and nothing has changed? In which case, good for you!

I'm terrified of this happening with the DC, especially as Dh has a habit of doing everything for them. I make DS (9) unload the dishwasher (and I have to physically STOP Dh from taking over sometimes. It's mind boggling) and do some of the vacuuming already, and he's started doing his own breakfast most days (unless porridge but I'm about to make him learn to do that one himself too!) and have told him that when he's 10 he has to start learning to cook.All because I don't want a son like my brothers....

We pay our teenagers for each job it’s how they earn their pocket money. No chores done=no pocket money and extra chores done=extra pocket money

No one pays me to keep my house clean and tidy, no one will pay them in the future so the kids don't get money for chores in this house.

Well done op, that is amazing! Are they making their own meals yet or living on McDonald’s drive through?