I have often thought that I should be doing more to coax my boys – aged 12 and 14 – into doing chores, but when I read this thread, I was cast into a fug of despair. Six-year-olds emptying the dishwasher? That's absolutely right and proper, of course, but at home when I ask "So - who's helping me with the washing up, then?" in an artificially bright voice, I am met with a wall of testosterone-fuelled silence.
I used to be better at it. Aged 7-10, the boys were trained in tidying up their own toys; they actually liked mopping the floors ("ME! ME! ME!") and occasionally enjoyed scaring the cat with the hoover. But then, their descent into tweendom - coupled with me and their Dad divorcing - meant that the domestic momentum came to a sudden halt.
I became a single mum, and initially, I was consumed by guilt at what I had 'done' to my family. I desperately wanted to make things feel settled for my children – and in my head, that meant comfortable and homely.
This manifested itself in me treating them like toddlers, doing everything for them short of offering to help them go to the toilet. I didn't want them to feel more loved at their Dad's house, so I went completely overboard and smothered them with affection. A clean and tidy home plus lovingly prepared (read: labour intensive) meals was my way of showing them this was still a solid family unit, and they got used to me catering for their every need.
It's me who is at fault. I should have trained them properly from the start. As Mr Miyagi says, there's no such thing as a bad student, just a bad teacher, and since then, I've had to find pathways out of my own stupidity – offering pocket money in exchange for chores, for example. The difficulty here is that the boys are motivated by different things. Tween likes money, and happily drew up a huge list of tiny tasks ('draw the living room curtains', 'turn off the TV,' 'take off shoes and put on rack') with dollar signs spinning in his eyes. Teen is motivated by… well, frankly, nothing. "I don't need money," he muttered, in a rare breather from his iPad. Oh.
In desperation, I asked some of my friends what their children, all of a similar age, do around the house. It seems that none of us are doing very well on the chore-training front. Erin, mother of two girls, said "I am weedy when it comes to insisting on help, and listening to the whining is generally worse than doing it myself. I have to make myself make them help for character building purposes and then clear up after them anyway." Another friend said, "I come home from a full day's work on Wednesdays and fly around the house vacuuming and doing the bathrooms whilst swearing at everyone. They all just shut themselves in the front room so I don't disrupt their gaming. I'm getting depressed at the thought of it."
Only one of my friends was having any real success, having somehow convinced her 12-year-old daughter that 'putting the bins out' was a fun thing to do. That woman is a bloody magician.
Apart from Bin Girl, there didn't seem to be any difference between boys and girls; they were both equally bad at helping. However, I do worry that my sons see me, a woman, as their domestic slave. What if I am - inadvertently - bringing them up to be misogynists? Which is, ironically, one of the reasons I left their father some years ago. I have dug this hole for myself and, although I recognise it, I am finding it quite hard to climb out of.
I have to remember why helping at home is valuable, to children and parents, and strengthen my resolve. It helps them with all sorts of things: to stand on their own two feet, to learn the importance and value of hard work, and of helping others – as well as making them feel that they've made a contribution to the family unit. Research also suggests that children who participate in household chores are more socialised, or 'pro-social', than those who don't.
And of course, it's rather lovely not having to do every last little thing yourself. So, I am taking a leaf from the Book of Mumsnetters and hopping back onto the chore train. It will be bloody difficult; no doubt there will be tears (mine, probably) and an awful lot of hard cash being passed into the sticky, cunning fingers of not-so-small boys, but it will be worth it.