Question for dual-income households with active kids: CHORES!!

[Bianca and Bernard]

Our rule for the kids was keep enough stuff off the bedroom floor that you can get to the door and the window in the dark in case of emergency, without killing yourself. No food/drinks in them (until they show they are responsible enough to keep the trash thrown away, dishes put in kitchen/etc). Electrical stuff (consoles, etc) need to put up correctly when done with them, and keep the doors closed so I don't have to see the unmade beds.

As far as the rest of the house, the kids had chores. Dishes (whether washing or putting away clean ones), caring for the animals (whether feeding/watering/walking/playing/cleaning up poo), picking up personal stuff in public areas (i.e. dining room or living room) were daily requirements, and if they didn't get done, they didn't get to have fun. Chores came before fun (but after homework). As they got older, cooking meals, making their own breakfast/lunches got added to that mix. Other than that, DH and I handled the rest of the daily cleaning (tossing laundry in, pulling it out; sweeping and spot mopping, wiping down counters in bathroom/kitchen, childcare, cooking). If personal stuff was left in common areas, it might disappear, be read by a parent, or be hung out the window in the cold.....depending on the item (nothing worse than an ice cold stocking cap on a snowy cold morning).

Once a week, bathrooms got scrubbed down (as the kids got older, and got their own bathrooms, those became their responsibility to scrub down), floors got vacuumed/full mopped, and bedding washed (and put back on beds...why fold more than you have to?) once a week. Dusting once a month or so, and that was me, as I was the picky one. DH did the high up dusting when I bugged him about it (ceilings, fans, lights) and all the electronics (cause that's his thing). I tended to do more housecleaning, as I'm the picky one about how things are done; DH did more funtime child care than me (going to zoo, etc).

BTW, 2 girls out of the house, running their own houses, and both knowing how to cook, sew, iron, clean, balance a checkbook, and change a tire. One boy to go.

 

[barkley]

Stop sorting clothes.

things got so much easier when i had 2 males in the home that were wearing the same size undergarments. they liked the same style so i started only buying 1 color/1 style for socks and undies. no more sorting-there's a basket w/both so grab your own supply to fill your drawer.

 

[Southernmiss]

things got so much easier when i had 2 males in the home that were wearing the same size undergarments. they liked the same style so i started only buying 1 color/1 style for socks and undies. no more sorting-there's a basket w/both so grab your own supply to fill your drawer.

I'm sorry, but that's creepy and gross.

I used fabric paint and put a different colored dot on like clothing items for my boys.

No chance of getting your brothers underwear.

 

[DLgal]

I'm sorry, but that's creepy and gross.

I used fabric paint and put a different colored dot on like clothing items for my boys.

No chance of getting your brothers underwear.

My boys share socks. What is gross about that? They don't share underwear anymore because they like different styles, but they did for years and years. They are the same size and they don't care. There is nothing gross about it if we are talking about clean stuff everytime. It's not like they are pulling out dirty underwear and rewearing it.

 

[RamblingMad]

Do a little each day. I run my dishwasher every night before bed, and I unload it when I get home from work. I'll vacuum every other week, and I'l clean my kitchen every weekend.

Friday is laundry day. Saturday/Sunday is put laundry away and iron day.

Break up the chores into tasks you can complete in 15 minutes or less.

I hired a landscaper to save me some time.

And definitely have you kids do chores. My parents wouldn't give me a dime if I didn't do mine. This is a much bigger deal when you're in high school than grade school.

 

[wilbret]

The kids do chores. We do laundry and dishes every day. Vacuum almost every day (dogs). Etc etc. It shouldn’t be rocket surgery, but no matter what we do, there’s always stuff. It’s amazing how quickly work is undone.

 

[AgentMama]

We straighten up and put things away regularly. The kids have chores they're expected to help with (laundry, helping clean up after meals, etc.), but we decided life is too short and we have a cleaning service come in. There are just other things we want to spend our limited free time doing. Agree with other posters that decluttering makes a huge difference.

 

[mrodgers]

I'm all for helping out sure, but chores for the kids... no. My kids didn't do them because my brother and I were slave laborers in the summer so mom could sit on the phone all day long.

I expected them to help, not do chores. Help cook dinner. Help clean up the kitchen after dinner. Keep their own rooms cleaned. Of course none of that happened because Mom didn't allow it.

 

[aggiedog]

We have 4 kids, 2 dogs, 6 cats. That's a fair bit of straight up entropy in my house. And I have ADHD and I function way better when things are clean and tidy.

When the kids were little, we had a housekeeper once a week. When they got older, I let them be responsible for their areas and laundry, and I use that money for family vacations.

So my biggest tips/rules:

Learn to live with a little mess. Don't look at the floor too closely some days. We vacuum almost every day, but mopping not as much as I probably should.
Learn to live with dust. I swear it's a futile task anyways. Darn stuff just keeps coming back.
Organize religiously. Kids all have cubbies and their school stuff, shoes, projects to turn in all go there.
Age 13 you start doing your own laundry in our house. Completely. I don't care how often, or if you live from the clean basket to the dirty basket, you just need to have clean clothes on when you leave the house.
Age 13 you clean your own bathroom once a week (see #1) I try not to look too closely at ds's bathroom. Once a year I deep clean it.
When my life gets very busy, and the kids are home, they get a rotation of chores - vacuum, dishwasher, feed the animals, clean the litterboxes, get the mail, take the trash out.
No food in their rooms, take your trash out. Other than that, I don't look closely.

I don't expect the kids to keep my house spotless. I DO expect them to know how to clean and to help take care of the space I provide for them.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

There's two of us, we split the chores. We teach do stuff we don't absolutely hate. For example, I take out garbage, my wife sweeps. We swap who makes dinner and who cleans dishes. Stuff like that. When the kids were old enough, we started asking for help.

Some stuff we don't do as often as we like -- like cleaning bathrooms, mopping, sweeping.

 

[clh2]

My DD is now 26, and out of the house.
When she was about 10, we started expectI got her to contribute 1 hour of household chores from her a week. Allowance was not tied to this hour. That hour was just a “you are part of this household expectation”. I did not care what she did. Oddly enough, she liked doing the kitchen floor. While she did that, I did the bathrooms.

if she did not do her hour, we did not take her to friends houses. We had no issue paying for her help after the hour was done for other chores.

 

[Aladora]

We have a cleaner who comes in every week, she cleans the bathrooms, the kitchen, and the floors. Our 15 year old does have to do some chores though, he folds all the laundry (I *HATE* doing that!), he and DH clean up from dinner (I do all the cooking because I love it), he also makes sure that his bedroom and the basement are tidy enough for the cleaner to do her job. (The basement is where his computer, tv, and gaming systems are.)

 

[barkley]

When she was about 10, we started expectI got her to contribute 1 hour of household chores from her a week. Allowance was not tied to this hour.

this was our thing too. allowance was in no way tied to the household responsibilities every member of the household was expected to do.

 

[DopeyDame]

We get behind. We just do.
We have a cleaning lady every other week that helps keep things relatively under control (both because of what she does, and because we have to pick up before she comes).
So my biggest advice is to prioritize. And it's OK if a perfect household isn'tyour priority.

 

[aggiedog]

I had a dd that wanted to make extra money. For that I paid her to clean the big jobs, or stuff I didn't want to do. Sadly, none of my other kids are interested in more than what's expected of them. LOL

 

[wildride]

For me it is easy. I married a guy who is OCD about clean. If it’s not done his way it’s not right. So I sit back relax. OBTW he used to drive kids nuts about it. They all moved ASAP.