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Subject: |
Allowance and Household Chores |
| Date: |
2009-03-16
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Allowance and Household
Chores
By Armin Brott
www.mrdad.com
Dear Mr. Dad: Our 12-year-old daughter
says all her friends get paid for helping around the house, and she
wants an allowance for doing chores too. This sounds crazy to my wife
and me. Is it really a good idea?
A: I can see why you might
scoff at the idea of paying your daughter for doing household chores.
After all, when we were growing up, chores were a given, and our
parents never would have paid us for doing simple things that
contributed to the smooth running of the household. But that was also
the era when we walked 12 miles to school every day, uphill both ways.
In the snow. Barefoot. Without a cell phone.
Today, things are different. Allowances are – right or wrong – part of
our culture. That said, there’s a big difference between mandatory
chores your daughter should do just because she’s part of the family,
and the extra ones you might consider paying her for.
Before you cringe at the thought of buying your daughter’s services,
look at it this way: You’ll be teaching her some worthwhile lessons
that will serve her well in the future: a sense of responsibility,
strong work ethic, and the knowledge that you value and appreciate her
efforts.
So how do you decide which chores are obligatory and which ones are
extras? First, mandatory tasks should be age-appropriate. In your
daughter’s case they could include setting and/or clearing the table
after meals, loading and unloading the dishwasher, keeping her room
tidy, taking out the trash and recycling, sorting laundry into lights
and darks, helping care for family pets, doing some babysitting for a
younger sibling, and helping plan a meal now and then. As she gets
older, that list of responsibilities should grow as well. Your daughter
should understand that everyone in the family chips in to the best of
his or her abilities without expecting to be paid for every single
task. That’s what families are all about.
Bigger jobs, tasks that take a lot more time than her daily to-do list,
or projects that aren’t strictly related to the day-to-day running of
the family could be paid. These might include doing yard work,
organizing the garage, cleaning the attic, or installing insulation in
the basement.
Of course, these are just examples. I suggest that you and your wife
sit down with your daughter and discuss which chores should be
freebies, which ones you’d be willing to pay for, and how much. It’s
important that all of you participate in this negotiation process and
that everyone’s point of view gets taken into account. There are going
to be some non-negotiable topics—health and safety issues come to mind.
But by being flexible and open-minded, you’ll be helping your daughter
hone her critical thinking and bargaining skills.
How much you should pay depends on what her peers are getting. You
wouldn’t want to either overpay or underpay her, right? Rather than ask
your daughter, make a few calls to the parents of some of her friends
and ask them what the going rates are. If there’s a wide range, you
can’t go wrong with a mid-range figure. The kicker here is that if you
notice that your daughter isn’t performing her paid tasks as well as
she should, or if she’s slacking off in her mandatory duties, it’s back
to the negotiating table. And that offers an opportunity to teach her
one more valuable life lesson: Bargains are a two-way street. If you
don’t hold up your end, you shouldn’t be surprised if you don’t get
what you were expecting.
Armin Brott bestselling books
including the recent release Fathering Your School Age Child have
helped millions of men around the world become the fathers they want to
be—and their children need them to be. His most recent is Fathering
Your School-Age Child. Armin has been a guest on hundreds of radio and
television shows, writes a nationally syndicated column, “Ask Mr.
Dad,” and hosts a weekly radio show. He and his family live in Oakland,
California. For more information visit www.mrdad.com. Permission
granted for use
on DrLaura.com.
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