Should kids get paid to do chores?

Jazzy1

Jazzy1

Crazy Cat Lady 🐾
Some parents feel that because they pay the bills their kid shouldn’t be paid for doing chores. But a lot of parents give their kids allowance for doing chores.

Do you think kids should get money for doing chores? (Why or Why Not)
 

I don't feel children should get money for nothing at all..I feel they should learn that to have money means to earn it, and that should mean some small chores...

I never got an pocket money when I was a kid, none... but I was expected to do a great majority of the household chores.. there was no incentive for me to want to do them.. except a hiding if I didn't.. but if I'd got some pocket money for doing them I oul have carried them out with a better grace knowing that I was working to earn money for something I would enjoy

My daughter otoh, got pocket money and she only had to occasionally wash dishes and keep her room tidy... she didn't like doing either...
 
In the 1950's, my sister and I were given a 25¢ allowance a week. We were able to buy up to 25 pieces of candy with it. In one apartment we lived in in Rochester (N.Y.), there was a little store down the street. It was run by an old man called Zip. We would go into his store and buy about 4¢ worth of candy each. He'd look at us and say, "That's all your buying?" For crying out loud, we made him 8¢ richer! You just couldn't please him.
 

No, chores are a part of everyday life and an important part of being a family member.

I do believe that kids should have some sort of age appropriate income/allowance that they can use to help them develop money management skills.

Including the harsh reality of what it means to be flat broke when they focus on wants instead of needs.

Letting them sink or swim when dealing with small age appropriate problems will pay big dividends when they eventually get out into the world.

The difficult question is how much. 🤔
 
My kids did chores as their contribution to the family. Whatever money they had was earned by doing extra work.

I always had a running list of work that needed to be done on the refrigerator, with a dollar amount next to each job. When the kids wanted money they’d check the list. Upon successful completion of the job(s) they’d be paid.
 
Starting in my early teens, my parents gave me a weekly allowance. I believe the purpose was for me to be able to buy certain wants that weren't considered essential, instead of me having to ask them each time for money to buy a soft drink, candy bar, etc. Having an allowance gives a child a certain dignity and lesson in managing small amounts of money.

Allowance or no allowance, I was expected to do chores, such as mowing the yard, helping clean the house, and starting supper when I got in from school. If I had refused to do chores, they may have suspended my allowance - I don't know - that never became an issue for us.
 
yes and no🥸

I was expected to clean the entire upstairs of our old turn of the century farmhouse, weekly, without pay.

when it came to the feed for the horses, I was expected to go down and work on grandad’s farm, baling hay and shucking corn to feed them for the winter, so that’s how I earned their feed. with great pleasure I might add. I loved working on the farm.

In those days, my horses ran on 98 acres with an uncle’s beef cattle. They mostly got fed corn and oats up at the barn just to keep them coming up to the barn.
 
My parents had to do everything. My mom cleaned all the windows as a kid, stuff like that. She didnt go to middle/high school. With 12 she lived with her older sister, who really had to do everything like cook for 8 siblings and she'd say eat it. The goats eat it too, when they complained. She helped her with the household and her kids. Sis taught her how to cook. When she laughed the dad from the sister's husband would bark and throw Bible texts at her. It was his farm so he was the boss.

That's why we didn't have to lift a finger. They wanted us to be a kid and enjoy our youth. So my kids don't have to lift a finger either. Would be weird if I never did anything and then now with my fancy part time job expect them to clean when they make more hours than me going to school. They do clean at their dad's house cause his mother drilled him and they all had a task: clean the bathroom, kitchen, everything and spotless. His sister became a cleaner.
 
As a kid I received a weekly allowance, probably starting about $1 per week when I was 7 or 8, up to maybe $5 a week at age 12. Of course I was expected to complete an ever increasing list of chores to "earn" my allowance. After age 12 I had a newspaper route so my allowance ended but not the list of chores.

We always gave our daughter an allowance but more to help her learn to manage money and learn the difference between needs and wants. We were much less harsh about tying chores to the receipt of an allowance.
 
I earned money doing extra chores, but had regular chores around the house like washing dishes, keeping my room clean, mowing the lawn, and so forth. My own children had similar unpaid chores. Part of living in a household... I was their mother, not their maid.

DD does the same with her kids (now 10 & 13). DS's are still too little but the 4 year old feeds the dog and picks up his toys.
 
Yeah that was the only task I got. Feed the rabbits. Not just from a can, but walk quite far to pluck dandelions etc. and not where cars drove or dogs peed. 2 rabbits were from my older sister and once I tried to whine that it was her turn, but nope that was my task said my dad, so okay then. She was almost never home, way older and I mostly played with the rabbits and had to have them.

Once I was plucking here in the park and people walked up to me. May I ask what you're doing? I never see any other mom nor kid pluck rabbit food.

Oh lol once next to a biking path I saw these huge dandelions and they looked yummy well if I were a rabbit, so I plucked them and a man came: Hey what are you doing? It was his land. Oh sorry sir I'm plucking dandelions. I was in my 40s. The puzzled look. Some women had been stealing his flowers. He had no fence. You couldn't see it belonged to him. Well for free getting rid of weed was fine. Do you also want a rabbit cage?
 
The way I saw things, helping around the house was expected as part of family living. Pocket money, on the other hand was given as a share of the family income. If we could not have afforded this, they would still have been expected to pitch in with helping out with the work.

Having money that was freely given, without strings attached, was an opportunity to learn the value of the dollar when it came to deciding what to buy with that money. Later, when they were old enough to have paid work after school, the pocket money ceased.
 
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jujube said:
Everyday chores, such as making your bed and helping to clear the table? No.

Big stuff like spending a Saturday gardening or cleaning out the garage. Yes.
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That's how I did with my kids. There were chores, and there was work. They were paid for work, and the pay depended on the level of difficulty and how much time they had to invest.

And I trained them, of course. They got a few hours or so of basic job training for stuff like auto maintenance, home repairs, gardening and landscaping, organizing (i.e. closets, cabinets, drawers, the fridge, etc.).

That was actually pretty fun, having them circle around Dad to watch him repair a hole in a wall and make it look like it never happened (for example). And then I let them choose which jobs they wanted or I assigned one to them, and sometimes we rotated. And new jobs became available as they got older.

As well as learning about saving and spending, giving kids specific types of jobs introduces new interests, helps them discover what their best skills are, and inspires thoughts about what fields or careers they might like to go into.
 
For me, and later my children, there were basic chores that one was expected to do. The weekly allowance was not contingent upon the chores. I can’t remember getting anything extra unless I asked for it.

One of the grandkids (she’s an adult now) was given money continually. Things like bottle return - she got the money, even if she didn’t participate in the process. She’s very thrifty - hates to spend anything. I don’t know if she does any chores. She still lives at home and they all seem happy with whatever the arrangement is.
 
I think it depends on the chores. If it is a part of living with others in the home, picking up toys, putting dishes in the dishwasher, the basics should not involve earnings. If however a child is asked to perform a true task that is outside their daily living chores then a little compensation is fine. I didn't get paid for taking out the trash, but I would be paid for cleaning out a shed or garage area.
 
I think we mostly got allowances (tiny ones when we were little, then bigger ones when we were in high school and buying items for school lunch and needing money for gas for our cars) and not paid per chore except sometimes we did get paid for a chore (I remember getting a penny for each pillow case I ironed when I was maybe 7 yrs old) (now I can't imagine ironing pillow cases, sounds like a waste of time). Pretty sure my brother got paid for mowing the grass, but he was older and presumably had more need for money.

We got paid small amounts for good grades which was very satisfying but I don't think it ever really affected our effort (except once when I was in college and dropped a course to avoid lowering my grade point average because I had an overseas trip on the line if I kept my GPA up, tho dropping a course was probably a waste of money and the opposite of the intention of the parents but at that point I think my parents were just going through the motions and not really paying any attention - they were so eager to push the last baby bird out of the nest they'd already sold the family house and moved several states away to a one bedroom apartment).
 

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