essay chores at home

10 Reasons Why Household Chores Are Important

Whether we like it or not, household chores are a necessary part of everyday life, ensuring that our homes continue to run efficiently, and that our living environments remain organized and clean, thereby promoting good overall health and safety. Involving children in household chores gives them opportunity to become active participant in the house. Kids begin to see themselves as important contributors to the family. Holding children accountable for their chores can increase a sense of themselves as responsible and actually make them more responsible.

Children will feel more capable for having met their obligations and completed their tasks. If you let children off the hook for chores because they have too much schoolwork or need to practice a sport, then you are saying, intentionally or not, that their academic or athletic skills are most important. And if your children fail a test or fail to block the winning shot, then they have failed at what you deem to be most important.

They do not have other pillars of competency upon which to rely. By completing household tasks, they may not always be the star student or athlete, but they will know that they can contribute to the family, begin to take care of themselves, and learn skills that they will need as an adult. Here is a list of household chores for kids:

1. Sense of Responsibility

Kids who do chores learn responsibility and gain important life skills that will serve them well throughout their lives. Kids feel competent when they do their chores. Whether they’re making their bed or they’re sweeping the floor, helping out around the house gives them a sense of accomplishment. Doing daily household chores also helps kids feel like they’re part of the team. Pitching in and helping family members is good for them and it encourages them to be good citizens.

Read here a detail blog: Routine helps kids

2. Beneficial to siblings

It is helpful for siblings of kids who have disabilities to see that everyone in the family participates in keeping the family home running, each with responsibilities that are appropriate for his or her unique skill sets and abilities.

Having responsibilities like chores provides one with a sense of both purpose and accomplishment.

4. Preparation for Employment

Learning how to carry out household chore is an important precursor to employment. Chores can serve as an opportunity to explore what your child excels at and could possibly pursue as a job down the road.

5. Make your life easier

Your kids can actually be of help to you! At first, teaching these chores may require more of your time and energy, but in many cases your child will be able to eventually do his or her chores completely independently, ultimately relieving you of certain responsibilities.

6. Chores may make your child more accountable

If your child realizes the consequences of making a mess, he or she may think twice, knowing that being more tidy in the present will help make chores easier.

7. Develop fine and gross motor skills and planning abilities

Tasks like opening a clothes pin, filling and manipulating a watering can and many more actions are like a workout for the body and brain and provide practical ways to flex those muscles!

8. Teach empathy

Helping others out and making their lives easier is a great way to teach empathy. After your daughter completes a chore, you can praise and thank her, stating, “Wow… great job! Because you helped out, now Mommy has one less job to do. I really appreciate that!”

9. Strengthen bonds with pets

There is a growing body of research about how animals can help individuals with special needs. When your child feeds and cares for his pet, it strengthens their bond and makes your pet more likely to gravitate toward your child.

10. Gain an appreciation and understanding of currency

What better way to teach your child the value of a rupee than by having him earn it. After your child finishes his chores,  pay him right away and immediately take him to his favorite toy store where he can buy something he wants.

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(15 Comments)

I love this! This has a lot of awesome information.

Thank you! Glad you like the information.

very well done it is resanoble reasons

cool info it helps me see why chores are important.

Thanks for your kind reply.

This was really helpful for a school debate!

Very helpful article!

My daughter has to speak about a topic which is why and how we should help our parent in household chores and this helped her a lot

Thanks so much for your feedback! All the best to your daughter.

Thnks a lot! the article helped a lot in my assignment and there is very nice information, Thank you!

Thanks, glad you found it useful.

Very nice article…Thank you 🙂

Thank you! Glad you liked it.

Very good article about house chore

This is very helpful for a student like me

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I Created a System to Make Sure My Husband and I Divide Household Duties Fairly. Here’s How It Works

I was just pulling up to the departures gate at LAX, where I was catching an early morning flight to my one-day business meeting up in Seattle, when I got the following text from my husband, Seth: Some guy left his jacket and beer bottle on our lawn.

Weird. Gross. And, more importantly, what am I supposed to do about it from the road?

When I returned home 16 hours later and long after the sun had gone down, I’d forgotten about the text until I pulled into my driveway, and there they were sitting in the dark — some guy’s jacket and beer bottle on our lawn. Seriously? I began to seethe. As I unlocked the front door, I quickly tried to work out why.

I was reminded of the many girlfriends who had described “the text” and its spiritual cousin, “the email forward,” as trigger issues in their marriages — a correspondence comes through to both you and your partner from your child’s school, coach, music teacher, doctor’s office or the DMV, and your partner forwards it to you. The implication: I don’t have time to handle this — it’s on you.

That night, standing in the doorway to our bedroom, I understood that my husband expected me to put down my carry-on, grab a trash bag and a pair of rubber gloves, walk outside, pick up the jacket and beer bottle, throw them into the bag, walk the whole thing to the bin in the alley and return home. When I did just that, I made note of how long it took me to do this: 12 minutes. Of my time. That I’ll never get back. I briefly considered these 12 minutes multiplied by thousands of “this is on you” instances required to get through each of my days and began to understand acutely why so many women are running against the clock from the moment we wake up.

What might not be so clear, because it wasn’t to me that night, is: Why was this on me?

Why domestic work falls to women

The answer came to me 12 minutes later when I returned to our bedroom after cleaning up the mess in the front yard, still wearing rubber gloves: Seth was not valuing my time equally to his.

In my day job, I’m a Harvard-trained lawyer and mediator who works with families. But at my own home, I realized, I wasn’t cutting a very good deal for myself. Like so many women — whether they work outside the home or not — I was picking up more than my fair share of the slack in the running of our household . In heterosexual partnerships, women still do the bulk of childcare and domestic work — the National Survey of Families and Households showed that as recently as 2010, married mothers like myself and many of my friends did about 1.9 times the housework of married fathers .

It turned out that my husband (a good guy and progressive in many aspects of our life together — really!) took on less housework after our kids came along , just as a 2015 study in the Journal of Marriage and Family showed is common. I determined to find out why even men like him assume that domestic responsibilities should be so unevenly stacked. In my interviews and conversations on this topic over the last several years with more than 500 people — women and men in straight and same-sex relationships and from all U.S. Census categories in terms of ethnicity and socioeconomic status — overwhelmingly expressed a related idea that contributes to the same outcome: the notion that men’s time is finite and women’s time is infinite. And while women’s time is known to be treated as less valuable in the workplace (see the ongoing battle to achieve equal pay), according to my research, this mental discrepancy where men’s time is guarded as a finite resource (like diamonds) and women’s time is abundant (like sand) can feel even more stark at home and after kids.

So what’s the solution? In an attempt to make visible all the invisible and often unacknowledged work it takes to run a family, I created a document I proudly called the “Sh-t I Do List” that included every single thing I did day-to-day with a quantifiable time component. Tallying every brain-zapping, time-sucking detail of my domestic responsibilities was no small feat, but when I was finished — with the help of women all over the country who wrote in with their own list items — I’d enumerated and categorized 100 household tasks with 20 subtasks that totaled over 1,000 items of invisible work (from laundry to pet care to meal prep to birthday presents) that kept our happy home running smoothly.

When I sent my master list to Seth one triumphant afternoon, expecting a pat on the back (or at least a little recognition for a job well done), he’d texted me back a single emoji: 🙈.

Not even the courtesy of the full trio. Regardless, I got the message — he didn’t want to see, hear or speak of it.

My husband is a smart, caring guy. So why was it so hard for him to understand and appreciate how much extra work I was doing to benefit our family and the home — and the eventual burnout effect it was likely to have on me? Then it hit me: lists alone don’t work; but systems do.

How I fostered more fairness at home

For more than a decade, I’ve consulted with hundreds of families in my professional life by providing my expertise in organizational-management strategy. What if I applied these strategies in my own house by creating a new system in which every task that benefits our home is not only named and counted but also explicitly defined and specifically assigned?

I began to fantasize about what my life and the lives of all of my friends would look like if — in partnership with our spouses — we brought systematic function to what was currently a sh-t show of family dysfunction. I couldn’t think of a couple out there who wouldn’t benefit from a practical plan of action to optimize productivity and efficiency, as well as a new consciousness and language for thinking and talking about domestic life.

The result is a system I termed Fair Play, a figurative game played with your partner, where each partner holds certain “cards” that correspond to domestic tasks. Here are my four easy-to-follow rules that set you up to play.

Rule #1: All time is created equal.

Both partners need to reframe how you value time, and then commit to the goal of rebalancing the hours that domestic work requires between the two of you. The reality is that many straight couples, the mental load will continue to fall on the female partner as the list-maker/planner/household manager until both recognize that time is a limited commodity. You both only have 24 hours in a day. Only when you both believe that your time is equally valuable will the division of labor shift toward parity in your relationship.

Rule #2: Reclaim your right to be interesting .

When your time and your mind become fully focused on the tasks required to run a household, it’s easy to feel like your personal passions aren’t priorities. Both partners deserve to reclaim or discover the interests that make you each uniquely you , beyond your roles as wonderful parents and partners. And Fair Play requires you both to demand time and mental space to explore this right — and to honor that right for each other.

Rule #3: Start where you are now.

You cannot get to where you want to go without first understanding: Who am I? Who am I really in a relationship with? And what is my specific intention for engaging my partner in renegotiating the household workload? Ask yourself: Am I seeking more acknowledgment of everything I do for us? More efficiency so I can have more time for myself? Less resentment and a greater sense of fairness? When you have a clear sense of what you want, you’re more likely to get it. Start the conversation by laying it all out to your partner.

Rule #4: Establish your values and standards .

Take stock of your domestic ecosystem and choose what you want to do in service of the home based on what’s most valuable to you and your partner. Just because you’re in the habit of doing a task doesn’t mean it’s a task that absolutely needs to be done. Maybe you value cooking a homemade breakfast for your child each morning — or maybe, when you and your partner consider what’s most important to you, you decide you’d rather have a few minutes in bed to check in before you start the day, and fruit and yogurt to-go are perfectly fine. After you and your partner determine what “cards” — tasks that must be done because they hold value to your family — are in play, you must mutually agree on a reasonable standard for how those tasks are handled. It’s not enough for your spouse to say he’ll be in charge of the “baseball” card — he has to pack the sports bag with all the necessary gear and snacks, arrange for pick-up and drop-off from practice, make sure all the games are on the family calendar and then show up on the right field at the right time. The more you invest in unpacking the details, the more you will be rewarded.

It didn’t happen overnight, but starting with Rule #1, attitudes started to shift within our home. After the drunk guy’s jacket incident, my husband began to notice and appreciate that we both have the same number of minutes in a day. (The “All Time Is Created Equal” sign that I posted on the bathroom mirror did help to hammer home the point.) It hasn’t always been easy; a shift in thinking takes deliberate effort. Whenever Seth and I would revert to our old, familiar dialogue like, “I don’t have time… so, can you?” or “I don’t have time either, but I guess this is on me,” I’d attempt to reframe the conversation with words that honor and respect how we each choose to spend our finite time. I finally understood that how I’d spent those particular 12 minutes picking up the drunk guy’s jacket and beer bottle was really irrelevant. I wasn’t interested in keeping a minute-by-minute scorecard with my husband; I simply wanted both of us to begin to value our time equally — and to act accordingly.

From FAIR PLAY by Eve Rodsky, published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright (c) 2019 by by Unicorn Space, LLC.

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Household Chores and Ways to Avoid Them Essay

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It’s another lovely Saturday afternoon, and your lovely couch is beckoning. You feel so tired, and you need to relax your body after a week of hard work. All over sudden, you are lying there feeling the enticing warmth of the couch and getting a well-earned sleep. But wait! Your wife walks in with her authoritative gesture and, like a tyrannical dictator, orders you to help with the household chores. That is the time you have to say good-bye to your beloved couch and hello to the lawnmower.

In order to avoid such calamities, there are a number of useful guidelines, which, if followed, will offer an escape route from the horrific chore monster. Some of these tips have successfully been tried, while others are hypothetical. Nevertheless, they are all constructive (Keller 1; Marx 1).

One of the most famous tactics known globally but never thought to be of great help is camouflage. Camouflage has been used for a very long period of time by the military personnel and is considered the best technique in escaping detection from the enemy radar. This technique can also be used, especially when you do not want to be seen for a certain period of time. This technique is well elaborated in Harry Porter volume 2 and involved wearing a cloak of invisibility (Gyaan 1).

In our case, get yourself a fabric that precisely matches the object you intend to blend into. For instance, putting on clothes or cover yourself with materials that match the couch or bed. If you wish to hide successfully outside, use some materials that match with the lawn. This is basically achieved by covering yourself with these materials and taking a nap beneath them. They will effectively render you invisible to many people except the most suspicious characters. Caution should be taken to make sure that no one steps or sits on you, and if it happens, pray that they are not heavy (Gyaan 1).

Another way of avoiding chores is by using lookalike. It is eminent that every individual has a person who resembles him/her or a “double.” If you want to avoid chores, you should get a lookalike or a person who closely resembles you. These lookalikes are found everywhere, for instance, in church, library, grocery, pet stores, and supermarket, among other places. Once you have identified the right person, make a deal with him/her (Keller 1).

The deal should be that he/she comes into your house and carry out your chores while wearing your clothes. On the other hand, you can take a break from the chores and have a nice time. The deal, in this case, should include payment or any form of reward agreed upon. This look like must be a single person or unmarried. This is because his or her partner may also engage you with other chores diluting the initial purpose (Marx 2).

Another trick of avoiding household chores is the use of a mannequin. This trick can be traced from Conan Doyle’s book “The Adventure of the Empty House.” The mannequins can be bought from the retail stores as long as you are ready to pay the right price. The mannequins can be used in a variety of ways. If your chores involve cleaning cars at home, just dress it in your clothes and keep it in your garage. If your chores involve mowing the lawn, just set the plastic fellow pushing the lawnmower. In this case, you can go out and join your buddies or lazy around. You can put on sunglasses and a hat on the mannequin and leave instructions to one of your neighbors or family member to move it every ten minutes. You will be surprised at how much time you can buy away without being suspected (Marx 2).

An additional trick of avoiding chores is fiddling with the clock. However, this trick is technically more challenging. The trick here is setting the alarm clock in a way that it switches itself on and off without being detected. In this case, you can give an excuse for performing the task at a particular hour, which in reality never really comes, and you are scot-free. I know one friend of mine who pulled off this prank until he was discovered. Presently, their lawn is considered as the most well trimmed in the locality (Gyaan 2).

The most common prank used by many is feigning sickness. Kids learn this trick at a tender age, and without a doubt, almost everybody has used this trick in one way or another. If you do not want to be caught, make sure you vary the sickness every time. The trick won’t work if you insist on one particular illness each and every time there is work. Jot down a number of common illnesses on a piece of paper and pick one randomly each time to make them believe it is real (Keller 2).

Hiding has been used for a long period of time and has proven to be among the most effective methods of avoiding household routine jobs. There are many places to hide, but you simply got to make the wisest choice. Some of the places you can hide include attics, ceilings, closets, out in the garage, in the neighbor’s house, at the backyard, in the wardrobe, among other places that suit you and are safe. The larger the house, of course, the more the hiding places.

There are other tricks of avoiding household chores, including working slowly to avoid additional work, feigning emergency phone calls from the office, faking an old friend who has just arrived in town, and performing poorly, among others (Marx 2).

Other methods of avoiding chores require some form of deception. For instance, if you are asked to perform a particular task, and you don’t feel like doing it, you can deceive your colleague or a member of the family that task was meant for him or her. In this case, you will have plenty of time to do your own things or to enjoy yourself. Another way of avoiding household chores is by pretending to have a lot of work. This trick is common among school-going children. Most of them pretend to have a lot of homework or exams the following day and therefore need more time to finish their work or revise for the exams (Keller 2).

In summary, there are numerous ways of avoiding household chores; some of them are mere tricks, while others entail deception. Some of these tricks are practicable, and others are technically hard to achieve. For instance, the use of camouflage, lookalikes, the fiddling of alarm clocks, and the use of mannequins is very rare. On the other hand, feigning illness, hiding, feigning injury, and excess work is very common since they are very easy to achieve.

Some tricks are easily detectable, while others are difficult to suspect. Therefore, it is upon you to choose the best trick that suites the occasion. Believe me or not, most of these tricks are detectable; if you do away with it today, sooner or later, you will be discovered. But in the meantime, enjoy yourself with the small respite from the monster chores.

Gyaan, Aditya. How to Avoid Doing Chores. 2008. Web.

Keller, Helen. How to Avoid Doing Household. 2009. Web.

Marx, Woody. Tips for Men: How to Get Out Of Doing Home Chores . 2009. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2021, January 23). Household Chores and Ways to Avoid Them. https://ivypanda.com/essays/household-chores-and-ways-to-avoid-them/

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IvyPanda . (2021) 'Household Chores and Ways to Avoid Them'. 23 January.

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1. IvyPanda . "Household Chores and Ways to Avoid Them." January 23, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/household-chores-and-ways-to-avoid-them/.

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Why kids should do chores at home (and how to get started).

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Happy family man doing chores at home with daughter.

As parents, it is our job to teach our kids financial responsibility and independence. One excellent way to do this is with chores at home. For our family, this is something we’ve been experimenting with a lot recently.

About six years ago, on a random Friday evening, I came home from a long day of work. To my surprise, I saw my 5-year-old daughter vacuuming our kitchen.

I asked my wife what our little one was up to, but she was just as perplexed as I was.

During the previous year, we’d been helping our daughter to do her chores every Saturday morning, but she never had taken the initiative to do them on her own.

After she finished vacuuming, she asked us to leave the kitchen while she put away the silverware. She told us that she wanted it to be a surprise.

We let this cleaning frenzy go on for another 15 minutes before we stopped her and asked, “Why are you doing your chores today?”

She said, “I love you. I want to help the family.”

When those words came out of her mouth, my heart filled with such pride and love. Our little girl understood what it meant to be a part of our family.

We don’t just express our love through words. We also express our love through action.

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Now, were the spoons on top of the forks when she was done? Yes.

Did she vacuum every last Cheerio on the ground? No.

But at 5 years old, we’re not looking for perfection. We’re just looking for her to understand why it’s important to help and how her effort means a lot to us.

Fast forward to today, my daughter is now 11 and I’m happy to report that not only is she still doing her chores, but she’s extremely helpful.

It’s not just cute anymore. The chores she does actually make our lives more relaxing and peaceful.

She knows how to wash, dry and fold her clothes. In addition, she fills the bird feeder, empties the dishwasher, takes the garbage to the street, fills the cat dishes, vacuums the kitchen and so much more.

We’re raising a responsible, family-centric, independent girl. And I’m so proud of her.

And her younger brother is watching her, learning from her and contributing in the same way.

Benefits Of Kids Doing Chores

There are so many benefits of kids doing chores at home. I shared some personal benefits already, but here are some more.

• You are teaching your children that being a part of a family means everyone contributes.
• They learn the importance of teamwork and collaboration (crucial skills for life).
• Eventually, their chore skills get better and better and before you know it, you’re a lot less swamped as a parent.
• While chaos may seem to be the MO for kids, structure is what they crave.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , “Structure helps parents and their kids. Kids feel safe and secure because they know what to expect. Parents feel confident because they know how to respond, and they respond the same way each time. Routines and rules help structure the home and make life more predictable.”

Chores At Home Are Falling Out Of Favor

With all the benefits associated with chores for kids, it appears to be falling out of favor in our society.

According to a recent survey by BusyKid , they found that while more than 90% of parents say they did chores as a child , only 66% of them regularly have their own children do chores.

That honestly doesn’t surprise me.

The mindset from parents might be something like this, “Well, I want my kids to have it better than I did when I was a kid. And so they don’t need to do chores.”

This is the wrong mindset in my opinion. And there’s research to back it up.

A 75-year Harvard Grant and Glueck study followed two groups of people: 268 Harvard graduates from the classes of 1939 through 1944, and 465 men who grew up in poor inner-city neighborhoods in Boston.

The study participants were observed for over a 75 year period.

What did they find?

“The researchers found that those who were given chores as adults ended up being more independent, better able to work in collaborative groups, and better able to understand that doing hard work means you’re a valuable member of a community.”

Those are the type of kids I want and those are the types of community members I want as well. Chores are good for kids.

Getting Started With Chores For Kids

Helping your kids learn the importance of contributing to the household responsibilities is a big deal. That’s why it’s important to be in lock step with your spouse on the chore rules and schedule.

It takes teamwork and consistency from both parents to help make this life-changing tradition become a habit for your children.

Here are some of the things to discuss upfront with your spouse:

• What are the chores we feel are appropriate for our child?
• Which chores should we pay for and which ones should we not pay for?
• When is the best time and day to complete these chores?

When we started this whole chore and reward program, my wife and I agreed that our kids would have both “Family Chores” and “Money Chores.”

Family Chores are activities that our kids do as members of the family.

Some of these chores include putting dirty clothes in the hamper, setting the table before dinner, clearing dishes after meals and making the bed.

Money Chores are contributions that go above and beyond typical responsibilities.

Our 5-year-old would receive $1 for each of her money chores.

Some of those activities where she got cash included putting away the silverware, emptying the trash receptacles around the house and putting away her laundry (after Mom and Dad folded it).

We found that Saturday morning was the best time to complete the Money Chores with our kids.

In the years that followed, we all agreed that after school would be a better time so the weekends could be set for total relaxation. I’d suggest doing whatever works for your family.

We do our best to stay consistent with a schedule so it becomes the normal way of life for our kids. When our kids get home from school, they know they have to complete their chores. They are used to it at this point.

My now 11-year-old daughter doesn’t require many reminders at all anymore. My 8-year-old son requires a bit more encouragement, but he’s gotten so much more responsible over the last year. Watching his older sister helps a lot.

Do we miss a couple of days here and there? Absolutely.

But overall, the regular schedule has helped our kids succeed and truly bring a sense of harmony to our home.

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The complete household chores list

Without a plan for keeping your house clean, it can seem like the to-do list is endless: the spice rack is impossible to navigate, the towels constantly need to be washed, there’s a weird stain in the cupboard by the stove. And everyone’s already busy this weekend. Nip this problem in the bud by creating a household chores list as soon as you move into your new home.

Table of contents

Why a household chores list is important.

A household chores list helps you and the members of your household put upkeep on autopilot. Not only does creating one ensure that everything gets done on time, it also takes the guesswork out of navigating conversations about cleaning. It can be awkward to broach this subject with the people you live with, and if you haven’t practiced communicating about household tasks, you might be tempted to avoid it, eventually compounding the issue. That’s why creating this list (maybe as an addendum to your roommate agreement , if you have one) is essential. 

Once your list is made, check out our guide to creating a roommate chore chart to split the responsibilities.

How to create a household chores list

Whether you live alone, with a partner, or with roommates, the process for creating a chore list is pretty consistent: You compile a comprehensive list of all the tidying and cleaning tasks that needs to be completed for your home to feel clean. If you live alone, you’ll compile this list yourself, according to your own standards. If you live with others, you’ll need to put your heads together to create a list that captures everyone’s preferences.

What to include on a household chores list

If you colive with others, you’ll want to include both personal chores and communal chores. Personal chores are things you need to do to keep your own space clean and tidy; communal chores are those that go towards the spaces you share. 

You can organize your master list by room or type of task, but a more action-oriented method of organization is grouping by frequency. Everyone’s list will be a bit different depending on what type of space you live in and what’s important to the members of your household. Below are some common types of chores to get you started.

Consistent household tasks

Some tasks are even more frequent than daily household chores . Decide which tasks fall under this category in your home and discuss expectations surrounding them. Some examples could include:

Meal preparation

Doing dishes after each meal 

Removing shoes when you enter the home

Putting items in shared spaces like the living room away in their proper places

Cleaning up messes like hair in the bathroom, spills, or stray food scraps

Daily chores

Daily chores can also change depending on your individual needs, but here are some common ones.

Taking out the trash when it’s full

Taking the trash out for pickup, if required 

Unloading, loading, and running the dishwasher if you have one

Sweeping the kitchen floor

Wiping down countertops

Squeegeeing shower doors and walls

Weekly chores

Your weekly chore list is probably the most important. This should consist of:

Cleaning the bathrooms, including:

Scrubbing sinks, tubs, showers, and (yes) toilets, 

Sweeping and mopping the floor

Windexing mirrors

Cleaning the kitchen, including: 

Removing items from countertops and cleaning the countertops with soap and water

Wiping down the outside of the items if they’re dirty

Cleaning the stovetop

Cleaning inside of the microwave

Cleaning out the fridge, throwing away food that’s gone bad and washing out containers that can be reused

Vacuuming and/or mopping floors 

Dusting surfaces

Laundering and replacing dish and hand towels

Maintaining your personal space, including changing your sheets, tidying up your room, and sorting your mail

If you’ve decided to do shared shopping, making a grocery list and visiting the store, then putting grocery items away

Monthly or seasonal chores

Some tasks aren’t realistic to accomplish once a week, but setting a monthly reminder can help maintain your home over time. Some of these things fall under the category of deep cleaning , which you might want to do monthly or even seasonally. We’re talking about stuff like:

Cleaning inside and outside of kitchen cabinets 

Scrubbing out the fridge

Reorganizing and wiping down the pantry and cupboards in the kitchen

Reorganizing closets, storage cupboards, and medicine cabinets

Laundering curtains, carpets, furniture, and other fabrics throughout your home

Tackling tough dirt that has accumulated on floors, walls, baseboards, and tile

Checking for mold and mildew in bathrooms and scrubbing grout on tile floors and walls

Washing windows inside and out (if you’re able to do so safely)

Dusting difficult-to-reach spots like light fixtures

Living in an organized space free of grime and germs will improve your mental and physical health, and communicating with your roommates about chores will improve your relationships. It can even be cathartic and satisfying to put away your phone for a few hours, blast some tunes, and make your new home sparkle. So don’t fear the household chores list—instead, fill it up and learn to love checking off those to-dos.

Having a cleaning service come monthly reduces your chore-load—leaving more time for doing the things you love. Bungalow offers private rooms in shared homes where monthly cleaning is always on the books—and included in your monthly rental cost. Find a Bungalow near you .

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The Importance of Chores for Kids

• Preschoolers
• School-Age Kids

Sometimes parents wonder if they should really give their kids chores. After all, isn't it the parents' responsibility to manage the household? And don't kids need an opportunity to 'just be kids' for now because they have the rest of their lives to worry about chores?

Most kids have really busy schedules too. They rush around from one activity to the next with little time to clean the house or mow the lawn . Despite those concerns, however, giving your child chores may be one of the most important things you'll ever do.

Kids who do chores learn responsibility and gain important life skills that will serve them well throughout their lives.

Benefits Kids Gain from Doing Chores

While assigning your kids chores can certainly take some of the strain off you, that's not the only reason you should expect your kids to pitch in around the house. Studies show chores are good for children.

Research from a well-known 75-year Harvard study examined the childhood psychosocial variables and biological processes that predicted health and well-being later in life.   Researchers concluded that kids who had chores fared better later in life.

Chores were the best predictor of which kids were more likely to become happy, healthy, independent adults.  

Why is sweeping the floor and clearing the table so important to kids' well-being in life? One reason is that kids feel competent when they do their chores. Whether they're making their bed or they're sweeping the floor, helping out around the house helps kids feel capable.

Doing chores also helps kids feel like they're part of the team. Pitching in and helping family members is good for them and it encourages them to be good citizens.

Chores for Preschoolers

Preschool children can be given simple chores that involve picking up after themselves. Chores should include picking up their toys each day. They can also begin to learn how to pick up their room and put their dishes away after a meal.

Young children respond well to sticker charts to help remind them to do their chores.

Because preschoolers usually can’t read, a chart with pictures of each chore can jog their memory about what they need to be doing. After your child completes a chore, put a sticker on the chart. For young children, the sticker can be a good incentive. Older children may need bigger rewards to stay motivated.

Chores for School-Age Children

Once children begin attending school, their responsibility with chores should increase as well. School-age children should continue to do chores that involve picking up after themselves. For example, teach your kids to put their shoes and backpacks away when they get home from school.

Gradually add new chores to your child's chore list. As chores become more complex, teach them in a step-by-step manner how to do each task.

For example, if a child is expected to put his own clothes away, teach him where to put the clothes and discuss your expectations. Praise his effort and encourage him to keep practicing. Don’t expect perfection.

Chores for Tweens

Tweens can start learning how to take on more responsibility. Cleaning the bathroom, sweeping the floors, and dusting might be some of the tasks you add to your child's to-do list.

There's no need to reward a tween for every task they complete. Picking up after himself and cleaning his room, for example, are part of pitching in and helping the family.

Paying your tween an allowance for doing extra chores can be a good way to start teaching your child financial responsibility.

If you don't want to pay your tween real money, create a token economy system . Let your tween earn tokens that can be exchanged for time with electronics or outings with friends.

Chores for Teenagers

Teenagers need chores that will prepare them for the real world. Assign chores such as meal preparation, mowing the lawn, or doing the laundry. These life skills will be important after high school so your teen can live independently.

Giving your teen an allowance can motivate him to do chores. It can also serve as a way to teach your teen about how to manage money.

Make an allowance system similar to the way your teen will earn money at a job. Provide payment one time per week. Don't give out any loans and don't hand out money if your teen hasn't earned it.

George E. Vaillant; Charles C. McArthur; and Arlie Bock, 2010, " Grant Study of Adult Development, 1938-2000 ", Harvard Dataverse,V4. doi:10.7910/DVN/48WRX9

Albernaz A. Sparing chores spoils children and their future selves, study says . The Boston Globe. December 8, 2015. https://www.bostonglobe.com.

Harvard Medical News:  Sparing chores spoils children and their future selves, study says .

• Michigan State University Extension: Benefits of Kids Doing Chores .

By Amy Morin, LCSW Amy Morin, LCSW, is the Editor-in-Chief of Verywell Mind. She's also a psychotherapist, an international bestselling author of books on mental strength and host of The Verywell Mind Podcast. She delivered one of the most popular TEDx talks of all time.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Doing Household Chores

Looking for advantages and disadvantages of Doing Household Chores?

We have collected some solid points that will help you understand the pros and cons of Doing Household Chores in detail.

But first, let’s understand the topic:

What is Doing Household Chores?

Doing household chores means completing tasks at home like cleaning, washing dishes, doing laundry, and organizing things to keep the house tidy and running smoothly.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of Doing Household Chores

The following are the advantages and disadvantages of Doing Household Chores:

Advantages of Doing Household Chores

• Promotes cleanliness and organization – Keeping your living space tidy and everything in its right place makes it easier to find things and live comfortably.
• Enhances time management skills – Learning to keep track of chores and manage when to do them helps you get better at planning your day.
• Encourages physical activity – Moving around to clean, sweep, or tidy up gets you moving, which is good for your body and health.
• Instills responsibility and discipline – Taking care of your home teaches you to be reliable and to stick to routines, which are important life skills.
• Provides sense of accomplishment – When you finish your chores, you feel good because you’ve done something worthwhile and can see the results of your hard work.

Disadvantages of Doing Household Chores

• Time-consuming – Doing household chores takes a lot of time that could be spent on other activities, making the day feel shorter.
• Can be tiring – Chores often involve physical work which can leave you feeling exhausted, reducing your energy for other tasks.
• May cause stress – Cleaning and organizing can lead to frustration, especially if there’s a lot to do or if things get messy again quickly.
• No pay involved – Unlike a job, you don’t get paid for doing chores at home, which can make it feel less rewarding.
• Interferes with leisure – Chores can eat into your free time, leaving less opportunity to relax or enjoy hobbies and time with friends or family.
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Self-Esteem

Why chores are important for kids, reframing chores as personal responsibilities helps kids learn vital skills..

Posted August 7, 2019

We all remember them.

Some were associated with allowance, others were simply mandatory. For many kids, they were often an intrusion on other more important things we could have been doing.

As a parent, I’m sure you’ve asked (hopefully without screaming), “Did you take out the trash and clean your room?” In response, you may have received the perfunctory eye roll.

You know what I mean : They’re jobs at home that most of us hated but did out of necessity, because we were told to. And our kids pretty much hate them, too.

Reframing Chores as Responsibilities

It turns out chores have an incredibly important role for the developing child or teen. This is best understood, and far more acceptable to children, if they are reframed as responsibilities – as skills that have a great payoff.

Responsibilities can make children and adolescents feel special.

We should think of and present responsibilities to our kids in two major arenas – taking responsibility for the care of others (your social responsibility) and taking responsibility for the care of yourself.

Let’s start with some principles. All children have the desire to be competent, effective, and to master tasks they previously could not accomplish. The acquisition and demonstration of new skills help foster positive self-esteem . When they succeed in mastering more responsibilities, they not only feel that they can do what adults or older siblings do, but earn respect and validation for their competence.

In short, tackling responsibilities helps kids feel that they are growing up. They are fulfilling an intrinsic desire and drive to become independent, autonomous individuals. In addition, they enjoy the pleasure and great satisfaction in taking care of themselves and others.

What Parents Can Do to Foster Helping Others

It’s important for parents to reframe “chores” or “jobs” as responsibilities and to talk with kids about these as skills they can learn, perfect, and use in everyday life.

Our brains are wired to give. Acts of giving to others release neurochemicals that are far more powerful and rewarding than receiving gifts.

Here are some examples of ways to help others.

Pre-school Kids

Pre-school kids are just learning the basics of taking care of themselves, such as dressing themselves, feeding themselves, going to the bathroom on their own, or putting themselves to sleep. They are not capable of complex responsibilities, so parents need to keep things simple. Responsibilities for preschoolers can include:

• Feed the dog or cat or fill up their water bowl.
• Help set the table.
• Assist in cleaning up after dinner – even carrying their plates to mom or dad to put in the dishwasher.
• Help feed a younger toddler or give them a toy in the high chair if they are getting fussy.

When preschoolers handle these household responsibilities, they really appreciate the praise parents and older siblings bestow upon them.

Additionally, there are things they can do on special occasions, such as making decorations for Mothers’ Day or putting the candles in a family member’s birthday cake. They may also help clean up the house before guests are coming.

School-age Kids

There are many more things school-age kids can do to build positive self-esteem. Responsibilities for this group can include:

• Setting the table.
• Clearing the dishes after a family meal.
• Taking out the garbage or putting recyclables in bins.
• Helping to cook meals.
• Taking the dog for a walk.
• Picking up the newspaper.
• Finding a good family movie to watch for an evening activity.

Again, doing things for others alone makes kids feel special. Sure, they would prefer to watch TV or play a video game. There will naturally be pushback from time to time. But if the culture of the household is one that lavishes praise, validation, admiration, and gratitude , they will feel more motivated to pitch in and contribute.

Some parents may balk at giving praise over and over for what a child should be expected to do. This is a valid point. However, the amount of love, approval, and praise for contributions will never be endless. There will come a time that the ongoing responsibilities the child assumes on a routine basis becomes a foundation for their identity as mature and responsible individuals.

Teens have many more capabilities than younger kids. They can:

• Cook meals on their own.
• Pick siblings up from school and activities or run errands for parents.
• Shop for the household.

They, like their younger siblings, will build positive self-esteem the more they can do and the more they are trusted. And, they, too, will push back on many responsibilities – they also know that they have their own personal lives with their friends; it’s much more fun to hang out with them than babysit or make dinner.

Yet parents can reward them with increased freedom. In my own clinical work, often to the eye rolls of teenagers, I say that there was a philosopher named John Stuart Mill who said (eye roll begins), "Increased responsibility brings increased freedom.” In other words, if you do what you are supposed to do, such as household chores, going to school, and working hard, you should get more freedom. These rewards can include a later curfew, more money to spend on things you want, and fewer restrictions on bedtime or screen time .

One final comment: Kids feel special when they are given a unique age-appropriate responsibility for a special occasion, such as a birthday, wedding, or holiday. And at times of great sadness, such as the loss of a pet, or serious illness in the family, they will feel special by helping in a time of hardship.

What Parents Can Do to Promote Kids Helping Themselves: Allowing Time for Social-emotional Learning

There is a critical balance between giving a child responsibilities at home, in school, and in the community, and allowing them time to be a kid.

Children do feel special when they asume responsibilities. However, they also require time to play, learn social skills, pursue hobbies and interests on their own, and enjoy themselves when they are alone.

It turns out that giving them the time to just be a kid, is, in fact, giving them enormous responsibility in learning the skills required of healthy, resilient adults.

Of course, playing, socially interacting, and engaging in hobbies will vary from child to child and from one developmental level to another. But kids of all ages need time to develop knowledge, attitudes, and skills that go beyond responsibilities at home, in school, and in the community.

Being able to play, interact with others, and follow one’s passions fosters the development of personal identity and the belief that they can be competent individuals with their own unique attributes. The capability of learning who I am, what I like to do, and how I like to do it requires interacting with peers in a variety of settings and achieving personal goals – in the arts, sports, writing, playing video games. In short, this process helps them learn to be responsible for themselves socially, emotionally, and recreationally.

Social-emotional learning is key for helping them become responsible moral agents in society. Time alone and with peers is critical for learning the skills of leadership , inclusion, acceptance of others, self-awareness, conflict resolution, and taking responsibility for their actions, including making apologies when they make mistakes, break a rule, or hurt someone’s feelings.

Enjoying themselves when alone and using that time to relax or to learn new skills, such as practicing an instrument, writing, or absorbing a good book are skills that are learned and not innate.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

All of this sounds good, but you know that putting these suggestions into action will not be easy. When kids hear us say, “I know you may not like or understand this, but it’s really going to help you in the long run,” once again, we get the eye roll.

But though there will inevitably be resistance if not outright opposition, it’s the right thing to do, and an effort worth starting when kids are very young.

Originally posted at the MGH Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds .

Eugene Beresin, M.D. , is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

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Andrea Dekker

41 Comments

My Favorite Household Chore

July 24, 2019

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure here.

Do you have any household chores that you truly look forward to doing? Something you clean regularly, even if it isn’t all the dirty to begin with? Something you don’t even let your kids do because you actually enjoy doing it? 

Or maybe I’m the only one!?!?!

It’s very common to hear about “least favorite chores” or “dreaded chores” — often accompanied by various remedies or tips to reduce the time and effort it takes to complete those chores.

In my experience, it’s not nearly as common to share a FAVORITE household chore… but that’s what I’m doing today!!

As someone who generally doesn’t mind cleaning my house, I do still have a few “least favorite chores” — ahem, the dishwasher !

However, I also have one household chore that is actually something I enjoy doing — and not just because it results in a cleaner home.

My favorite household chore = sweeping! 

Under the table, in the mudroom, in the garage, on the porch, in the bathrooms, out on the driveway — it doesn’t matter WHERE, I simply enjoy AND look forward to sweeping various areas in and around our home every day. 

So why do I enjoy sweeping so much? 

As I was sweeping last week, I realized how much I truly enjoy this monotonous (and very necessary) household chore. The more I thought about it, I can totally understand why sweeping is so enjoyable for me, my introverted personality , and my desire for a clean home with minimal effort. 

Sweeping requires no smelly chemicals or expensive gadgets — just me, my broom, and maybe a dust pan. Nothing to buy, nothing to make, nothing to keep on-hand, nothing to smell up the house.

Sweeping doesn’t require massive amounts of physical or mental energy to do a fairly good job — I can sweep when I’m tired, when my back is sore, when I have a billion other things on my mind, and even when I’m wearing a baby.

Sweeping is not messy or germy — I don’t need to wear gloves, I don’t need to keep the kids away, I don’t need to wash or sanitize myself or the area when I’m finished. I just sweep and move on. 

Sweeping can use as much or as little time as I want to devote to it — sometimes it’s just a quick sweep of the kitchen and dining room after a messy meal, other times it’s lengthy periods of time spent meticulously sweeping every last helicopter off our front porch or out of our garage (I’ve been known to sweep the garage several times a week!) 

Sweeping is something I can do in complete silence — usually while children are sleeping, playing nicely in another room, or running around outside. 

Sweeping is very cathartic — when I’m feeling stressed, when I’m too tired to tackle the rest of my to-do list, when I need to process various thoughts or ideas, when I’m excited about something but can’t take action yet, sweeping keeps my hands “busy” while my mind is free to wander. 

Of course, the end results of clean floors and less dirt tracked through my home are “added bonuses” too! 

I’ve tried stick vacuums…

I’ve tried dust busters…

I’ve tried vacuums with fancy hard floor attachments…

These tools are all fantastic; however I ALWAYS revert back to a simple broom and dust pan! 

My Favorite Sweeping “Tools”:

• Rough surface push broom for the garage
• Metal dust pan for the garage
• Full Circle dust pan and hand broom for the kitchen 
• Casabella Wide Angle broom for the kitchen
• Heavy Duty Corn Broom for the porches and decks
• Swiffer sweeper for wood floors
• Reusable sweeper pads (to use with the Swiffer)

There may come a point in my life when I buy a fancier tool to aid in my sweeping efforts… and I might even “let” my children help with this chore eventually! 

But for now, I will continue to sweep every day (sometimes multiple times a day) — enjoying the quiet thinking time while my arms monotonously perform this simple task. 

What is YOUR favorite household chore? 

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07/27/2019 at 9:02 pm

I love sweeping too. I can do it while I’m on the phone, on hold, etc. If you need a new broom, I have one very similar to this one from Harper Brush, made in Iowa and very fine. I have seen them at farm and home type stores like Tractor Supply, I got mine at an Amish grocery store. It’s held up for 10-11 years I’ve had it, like new. Upright Broom 12″ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N8RW4ST/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_-ippDbP8D2ZD3 .

Andrea says

07/29/2019 at 6:53 am

Thanks Dawn — I’ve put that broom on my Amazon list of potential things I’m interested in buying! 🙂

Natalia says

07/26/2019 at 6:52 am

My favorite – by far – is folding the laundry (and putting it away). Relaxing and satisfying. I don’t mind ironing once I get started, but I find myself putting it off “until I have more time”.

Your post really made me sweep and sweep and keep on sweeping everywhere after I read it, yesterday. And this morning, when I read the comments, I thought it would be fun to invite all your readers to my house for a “working bee party”. However, since no one mentioned “cooking” yet, I’ll wait a little bit longer 🙂

Mariele says

07/25/2019 at 3:50 am

Interesting! I despise sweeping and mopping. I adore vacuuming. It’s quick, easy, you can do as much or as little as you want, the sound is the sound of “clean”, the tracks the vacuum leaves in the carpet instantly make the home look loved… I just love vacuuming! I always like to go over everything I can when I’ve got the vacuum out… lampshades, upholstery, sometimes even flat surfaces as a quick way to dust, haha. Because of this, it is frustrating to me that kitchens, bathrooms, and entryways aren’t carpeted. 😉 I will always insist on full carpeting throughout a place (except for the aforementioned spots, of course… I have to get by with washable rugs in there)!

Lee Cockrum says

08/08/2019 at 9:23 am

It’s funny how people are so different!! I hate carpet! We do use rugs, but inexpensive ones, so if they get ruined by our pets, it is not a huge loss.

Jennifer says

07/24/2019 at 11:51 pm

I like doing dishes and laundry. I’m a water person, so I guess dishes follow suit. No dishwasher, so good thing I don’t hate it. Laundry is relaxing and easy, and I adore my son’s little clothes. When we owned a house I LOVED mowing. It was my personal karaoke session! Haha! No mowing living on a sailboat, but I now love scrubbing the decks. Water! Sun! Mental release just like sweeping.

Rebecca M Tabb says

07/24/2019 at 10:03 pm

Andrea why do you like the swifter so much for wood floors instead of a broom? We just moved to a new house with LARGE areas of hardwood and I used a regular angled broom to sweep all the hardwood today and it about killed me. No way I’ll have time to do that regularly so I’m looking for way to make it more efficient.

Can you also talk about what you do for mopping hard wood? I tried my moms Norwex mop today and it’s good but so expensive. Would love a cheaper option and I’m hesitant to use chemical cleaners on our beautiful wood floors.

07/24/2019 at 8:46 pm

Mine is ironing…..I know, I know, nobody irons anymore. I’m showing my age. I find there are very few things in my life where I can start with a jumbled pile and end with a row of crisp and orderly. I know it’s a lot to attribute to ironing, but it seems symbolic for bringing order out of chaos–especially at times in my life that I can’t “make” things orderly

07/24/2019 at 10:07 pm

This is the same as my grandma — she just LOOOOOOOVE to iron! Ironically, I never iron — literally never!

Dave does all he ironing, which I’m thankful for!

Margaret says

07/24/2019 at 6:11 pm

Several favorites, actually. I love hanging out laundry–I’m always a bit disappointed when the weather’s bad and I have to use the dryer. I like folding and putting away, too–a good thing, because part of my job is doing patients’ laundry, so I’m doing it for 16 people every night. Yes, I’m fast:) I like weeding, but hate mowing, and I have to do it before work tonight. Probably my all-time favorite is clearing out and reorganizing; I’m sure that’s why I hang out on blogs like this one! No, not true. My favoritest favorite of all is grooming my dogs. Brushing is very Zen. I can brush for hours and not even be aware that time is passing. I keep a grooming table set up in my dog room, with all of my equipment organized to a fare-thee-well.

07/24/2019 at 10:06 pm

well dog grooming is not on my list since we don’t have a dog, but I do love brushing Nora’s hair — and she seems to really love it when I brush for extended periods of time while she reads or watches a show on Netfliex.

Rabecka says

07/24/2019 at 5:08 pm

I like mowing quite a bit but my favorite task is watering everything. We have an irrigation system but it doesn’t get quite everything and I have alot of pots around the yard. It takes me over an hour but I really love having the time to admire all of my plants and see who’s blooming! Inside, my favorite is the laundry. Love the sound of the washer/dryer running.

07/24/2019 at 10:05 pm

I LOVE hand-watering plants and pots… but I don’t do it nearly as much as I’d like because I always have other things that need my time.

Gloria says

07/24/2019 at 4:51 pm

I love to vacuum. 7 days a week. It’s therapeutic and makes me want to continue cleaning. I love to clean.

wow — good for you! I try to vacuum 2 times each week, but my kids don’t like the noise so it’s tricky finding a time to vacuum (especially in the summer when they are all home!)

07/24/2019 at 3:33 pm

Love this post. I love mopping or swiffering and weeding. I live in the desert so our landscaping has a lot of rock beds where weeds sneak through. I tell the kids in the spring that they must pull 5 weeds before we go inside.

07/24/2019 at 10:02 pm

I honestly don’t mind weeding either — it’s so satisfying when you know you got all the roots!

07/24/2019 at 2:16 pm

Mine is laundry – everything about it is so relaxing for me. I was actually sad when my daughter turned 14 and I decided it was past time to teach her how to do her laundry!

haha — well your daughters future room mates and/or future spouse will thank you for teaching her how to do the laundry!

Meghan says

07/24/2019 at 8:53 am

I enjoy sweeping, the toilet brush aspect of toilet cleaning, the shining the glass cook top, and cleaning our big sliding door. The chore I love the most is weeding my flower beds. Most evenings I go alone and pull the few weeds, grasses that have popped up. It’s very peaceful and I can enjoy the beauty of the flowers. Also, this is kind of morbid, but I’ve battled Japanese beetles for years with sprays and powders with limited success. I recently read the best thing to do is hand pick them off and put them in a cup of soapy water. It’s been really effective in keeping damage to a minimum. It’s pretty satisfying too! Lol

07/24/2019 at 10:01 pm

I’ve never had the patience for the Japanese beetle trick (although I’ve heard it works, so glad to know it works for you too!)

Ashley says

07/24/2019 at 8:40 am

I love the end result of sweeping! Clean floors are my happy place. I don’t love the act of sweeping though. Give me a basket of laundry to fold though, and I’m pretty happy! (Just don’t make me put it away…. 😉 )

07/24/2019 at 10:00 pm

yes, I LOVE clean floors!

07/24/2019 at 8:20 am

MOWING THE LAWN!

07/24/2019 at 8:41 am

I actually enjoy this too!

Kristi says

07/24/2019 at 2:27 pm

This is my favorite too! It’s my thinking time.

Dave really enjoys this too. I told him that once all the kids are in school, I might have to take it over! haha!

Charlene Uchtman says

07/24/2019 at 7:13 am

I think sweeping is an active persons equivalent to rocking in a rocker maybe. I like it too. I also like any chore that smells clean when I am done.

07/24/2019 at 9:59 pm

haha — you’re probably right!

07/24/2019 at 7:07 am

I love vacuuming. I think I’d like sweeping more but I feel like itd less effective. But vacuuming automatically allows makes a room look tidier. It’s my quick go to for a space if it feels unkept

my kids have always hated the noise of the vacuum (especially as babies) and since we have so many hard floors, I’ve just gotten into the habit of sweeping whenever I can versus vacuuming. That said, I do love me some nice vacuum lines! 🙂

07/24/2019 at 7:05 am

We do this too and super helpful and quick. Just quite messy mid process. 🙂

07/24/2019 at 7:06 am

This was meant to comment on the leaf blower comment

07/24/2019 at 9:58 pm

yes, we’ve done the leaf blower method too and it IS fairly dusty — but everything looks nice in the end!

Calliope says

07/24/2019 at 7:03 am

My most favorite household chore is laundry from start to finish! Even ironing that in summer I do once a week. As for sweeping, It happens A LOT here since windows are open almost year round and what made it tons easier was that I got the dustpan with the long handheld stick so I don‘t have to bend anymore!

Annette Silveira says

07/24/2019 at 9:43 am

I need a new broom and I’m thinking I’ll get one with the long-handled dustpan. Why bend over when I don’t have to?

I have nowhere to store the dustpan with the long handle — otherwise I’d also get one of those!

07/24/2019 at 9:57 pm

I realize the sweeping might get old… but it sure does sound lovely to have windows open all year long!

Shelley says

07/24/2019 at 6:41 am

So here’s just a quick tip that might not apply to you as much as it may help others. Use a leaf blower to blow out your garage! It was my kids job to clean the garage every Wednesday which they then finished up by sweeping it out. I could hear the leaf blower running one time and I opened the door to ask them what in the world… It was the cleanest garage ever! It had blown dust off the shelving as well as almost everything off the floor! Never gone back❤️

07/24/2019 at 5:05 pm

That’s hilarious!! I love it.

you know — dave does this fairly regularly too. It’s a big mess while he’s blowing, but then it looks fantastic once he’s finished. We also go crazy sometimes and powerwash our garage floors after blowing them! They shine like new!

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• Front Psychol

Gender Inequality in Household Chores and Work-Family Conflict

Javier cerrato.

1 Department of Social Psychology, Faculty of Labour Relations and Social Work, Universidad del País Vasco (UPV/EHU), Bilbao, Spain

2 Department of Developmental, Educational and Social Psychology and Methodology, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón de la Plana, Spain

The fact that the permeability between family and work scopes produces work-family conflict (WFC) is well established. As such, this research aims to check whether the unequal involvement in household chores between men and women is associated with increased WFC in women and men, interpreting the results also from the knowledge that arise from gender studies. A correlational study was carried out by means a questionnaire applied to 515 subjects (63% men) of two independent samples of Spanish men and women without emotional relationship, who lived with their heterosexual partner. As expected, results firstly show unequal involvement in household chores by women and men as it is higher in women that in men, and the perception of partner involvement is lower in women that in men. Secondly, those unequal involvements relate differently to men and women on different ways of work-family interaction. They do not increase WFC in women comparing to men, although there are tangentially significant differences in work conflict (WC) and statistically significant in family conflict (FC). However, perception of partner involvement on household chores increases WFC both in men and in women but not WC nor FC. Nevertheless, increase on marital conflict (MC) by domestic tasks neither affect in a significant way WFC in women nor in men, but increase WC in both women and men and FC only in women. Results also confirm that subject involvement on household chores is not a significant predictor of WFC in women nor in men, and that MC by domestic tasks is a statistically significant predictor in women of WFC and FC, but not in men. Thus, results show that traditional gender roles still affect the way men and women manage the work and family interaction, although the increased WFC due to involvement in housework is not exclusive to women, but also occurs in men. Personal and institutional recommendations are made on the basis of these results to cope with these conflicts.

Introduction

Occupational health psychology promotes labor risk prevention intervening both on the organization and on the person, but also on work-family interface. It seeks the goodness-of-fit among these dimensions in order to reduce psychosocial risks on occupational health and concurrently to improve organizational efficacy. The effect of psychosocial stressors at work does not remain within the working sphere as it extends also to personal life. This permeability between family and work scopes has produced work-family conflict (WFC) to be one of the psychosocial risks receiving more attention during the past years ( Eby et al., 2005 ; Ammons and Kelly, 2015 ; French et al., 2017 ; Lapierre et al., 2017 ; Wayne et al., 2017 ; Carvalho et al., 2018 ). WFC negatively affects both health and general life such as work performance and work satisfaction within the organizational context, but it also increases conflict rates and decreases family satisfaction. From this perspective, and within a context of a more technological and digitalized society, gender equality at work is a matter of paramount importance, which must start with a gender equality at home. The aim of this study is to check whether the unequal involvement in household chores between men and women is associated with increased WFC in women, and explain it in terms integrating the knowledge of gender studies.

Work-Home Conflict and Gender

Individuals may experience conflict between their work and home roles due to limited time, high levels of stress, and competing behavioral expectations ( Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985 ). Although most of the work-home research has focused on how work variables affect home from the point of view of the conflict between the two spheres ( Major and Cleveland, 2005 ), organizational psychology also begins to study how family variables affect job performance and satisfaction.

In the psychosocial scientific literature, there is a wide tradition on the work and home interface studies (i.e., Kopelmanś et al., 1983 ; Edwards and Rothbard, 2000 ; Pitt-Catsouphes et al., 2006 ; Mills, 2015 ; Paulin et al., 2017 ). Two primary perspectives have been offered in this literature based on the incompatibility between individuals’ work and home domains ( Michel and Hargis, 2008 ). One perspective focuses on the mechanisms that generate conflict between both domains. The other perspective focuses on the segmentation mechanisms between the work and the family domains. In this study, we adopt the conflict model in examining the influence of home roles (differential involvement of men and women on household chores), on work roles.

Some research has shown that role pressure in work and home domains generates negative consequences on the other one bidirectionally. So the degree of participation in the home role will create difficulties for participation in work, resulting in the home-work conflict (HWC); conversely, the degree of participation in the work domain can hinder performance on the family role, producing an increase of strain-based, time-based or behavior-based work-home conflict (WHC) ( Huang et al., 2004 ).

Gender roles are essential for understanding the work-home interface. They are shared beliefs that apply to individuals on the basis of their socially identified sex which are the basis of the division of labor in most societies ( Wood and Eagly, 2010 ). In Western societies, the home sphere, and the household chores as part of this sphere, it is assumed to be in charge of women, which could in turn affect more highly the home to work conflict of women than of men. However, to our knowledge, this has not been checked empirically. In this study we will focus on the effect of the relationship between gender and dedication to household chores on WFC among women.

Different meta-analyses ( Byron, 2005 ; Eby et al., 2005 ) have demonstrated the key role played by gender, but how it relates to work-family constructs is still both theoretically and empirically debated ( Shockley et al., 2017 ). Research has found differences in work-home conflict repeatedly, ranging from differences in the experience of WFC to the existence of different work and home backgrounds to women and men. However, most studies in the field of work-home interface do not consider gender as a variable, identifying at most correlates and differential associations for men and women ( Martínez and Paterna, 2009 ). Thus, we posit that work-home interface studies should include gender as key variable due to the influence of gender ideology and gender-role orientation might have on the work-home relationship from a cultural point of view.

From a cultural and discursive perspective ( Gerstel and Sarkisian, 2006 ), gender ideology, defined as beliefs and values maintained about what is right for men and women, determines the patterns by which a particular society judges or evaluates the proper conduct of a man or a woman.

This gender ideology is also reflected in the social discourse, as frequently the couple recreates the dominant social discourse in which is referred the essential characteristics in which men and women differ ignoring the sociopolitical context. This discourse states that the differences between men and women in relation to home and work are the result of personal choice, that there are differences in innate abilities of men and women for household chores and work outside the home, and that these differences guide the choice for certain jobs and even that preference for home toward work is a free choice in the case of women ( Martínez and Paterna, 2009 ; Kuo et al., 2018 ). Linked to this ideology, the traditional gender role model prescribes that work domain and instrumentality are more important for men than for women, whereas the home domain and expressiveness is more important for women. The traditional gender role model has a biosocial and cultural origin, and was described by Parsons and Bales (1955) in their delineation of instrumental (men) and expressive (women) roles. This model arbitrarily assumes that expressiveness and instrumentality are separate dimensions, and that expressiveness is always women gender role whereas instrumentality is that of men. Work and family interactions are embedded in the broader cultural, institutional and economic context in which individuals reside ( Ollier-Malaterre and Foucreault, 2017 ). Of particular relevance to gender differences in WFC are cultural differences in gender egalitarianism, or belief or attitudes about de equality of the sexes within de culture ( House et al., 2004 ; Lucas-Thompson and Goldberg, 2015 ).

As Martínez and Paterna (2009) indicate, gender ideology seems to determine the percentage of tasks considered traditionally feminine by members of the couple, such as washing, ironing, shopping, cooking, or cleaning. It also generates a differential meaning about household chores for men and women. Also, recent studies have shown that there is still a division of house chores by gender, depending on the gender role nuclei: instrumentality inside and outside home for men; expressiveness and instrumentality inside home for women ( Fernández et al., 2016 ). All this rationale, leads us to formulate hypothesis 1:

• simple  H1: There will be a division of household chores between men and women based on traditional gender roles. Women will spend more time than men in traditionally female household chores and men in traditionally male ones.

Both men and women similarly perceive a lack of parity in performing household chores, but perceive greater equality in the care of daughters and sons ( Yago and Martínez, 2009 ). This leads us to propose hypothesis 2:

• simple  H2 : Women will perceive their partners much less involved in household chores and only focus on household chores traditionally considered masculine. Men will perceive their female partners more involved in traditionally female household chores, especially in those traditionally considered feminine.

Implication in Household Chores and Work-Family Conflict (WFC)

Time required for household chores and caring for the family is one of the most important factors in the conflict coming from the family sphere, especially in families with children. So, the dual-income couples with children tend to have a greater number of conflicts between the partners and a higher level of stress than their counterparts without children ( Michel and Hargis, 2008 ). From this point of view, the gender roles model assumes that the nature of the role demands differs in men and women, and these roles act as moderators of WFC ( Barnett et al., 1995 ).

The highest level of family to work interference in women comes from the different implication of women and men in household chores, including the care of children. This different implication has been proven by various studies and research ( Bianchi et al., 2000 ; Korabik, 2015 ; Borelli et al., 2017 ) and still persists in society as has been found in different surveys ( Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], 2014 ; Eurobarometer, 2015 ). In concrete, this model keeps very persistent in Spain, where women spend almost double the amount of time on unpaid work as men National Institute of Statistics (INE), 2018 ). This time is spent on activities such as caring for children (38 h a week women versus 23 men) or family members (20 h women versus 14 men) or household chores (20 h women versus 11 men). So although women have begun to strongly form part of the labor force and to spend more time with their children taking care of them, they neither assume a decrease in their salary as much as women do for work interruptions due to family issues nor stay at home to take care of their children ( Gerstel and Sarkisian, 2006 ). Most men still maintain full involvement in their work because their feminine couple assume the responsibility for caring their children. Thus, we can deduce that women will suffer more by the interference of the family at work, because their greater involvement in the family will can subtract them time, strength and dedication to their work; however, men will suffer more by the interference of work in the family. In fact, a high implication in the family sphere has been shown linked to a higher family-to-work interference only in women ( Hammer et al., 1997 ).

Moreover, men do not feel an obligation when they are involved in the home as women do, as they perceive it more as a hobby or a free choice. Also, those house chores that keep the home every day (shopping, cooking, washing dishes, washing clothes, and cleaning the house) are considered feminine, while those considered male or neutral tasks (paying bills, taking care of the car or home maintenance) do not involve daily devotion. Some cultural interpretation argue that women are more involved in house chores and do not want to fully share because of the belief that this is central to their gender identity and a source of power in the family, whereas husbands, whose gender identity has traditionally been marked by paid work, would not object to do less household chores than their wives ( Martínez and Paterna, 2009 ).

Besides, a crossover effect must be included: to the greater involvement of women in the family and household chores must be added the greatest involvement of men in the workplace ( Bakker et al., 2008 ), which supposes an increased family burden for women. As husbands are not available for household chores, wives suffer overload by household chores and emotional demands related to children caregiving, which will increase still more women stress and family to work interference ( Frone, 2003 ).

In short, the lesser involvement of men in household chores and greater transfer of stress from work to family causes increased domestic workload on women and marital conflict (MC), thus increasing the tension transfer from family environment to worksite in women. All this rationale, leads us to formulate hypothesis 3:

• simple  H3: The greater involvement of women in household chores and the perception of the lesser involvement of their men partners is linked to an increased family to work conflict (FWC) in women.

Marital Conflict and Household Chores

This greater involvement of women in household chorus and increased family to work conflict may lead to an increase of MC. In this line, Pittman et al. (1996) provide evidence for this idea by showing that the contribution of women to household chores is higher on the days when their husbands express higher levels of work stress; in these cases, women must subtract energy and time from work due to their husbands’ increased work stress. However, men do not adjust their contribution to household chores when their wives bring their work stress home. Research on family processes shows that stressed couples show a high level of negative interactions and conflicts. Thus, increased stress associated with WFC and its correlative frustration, leads individuals to initiate or exacerbate their sequence of negative interaction with the partner ( Westman and Etzion, 2005 ; Huffman et al., 2017 ). This negative interaction may be understood as product both of social undermining which consist in behaviors that involve rejection, criticism and negative attitude toward the couple ( Vinokur and Van Ryn, 1993 ) and hostile marital interactions ( Matthews et al., 1996 ), which aims to express hostility toward the partner or MCs.

Focusing on the conflict between the partners and their relationship with household chores, it has shown how increasing distress and frustration generated by the WFC tends to impair the interaction with the partner ( Westman and Etzion, 2005 ). This can result in increased tension between the partners due to the transfer of stress from work to family by men and their lesser involvement in household chores, which would generate an increase in MC and, therefore, an increase of conflict in the family especially in women due to unequal distribution of household chores. This leads us to propose hypothesis 4:

• simple  H4: The conflict between the partners due to unequal distribution of household chores generates an increase of more family to work conflict (FWC) in women than in men because of their greater involvement at home.

Materials and Methods

Participants and procedure.

A correlational study was carried out by means of a questionnaire applied by professional surveyors during 2014. They selected a segmented sample of men and women working in public and private organizations from different productive sectors (teaching, services, and manufacturing sectors). The final sample consisted of 515 subjects, mostly (63%) were men, with an average age of 40 years old; all of them were married or living with a heterosexual partner, and they had children. Samples of men and women were independent from each other, without emotional/marital relationship between them. Regarding the organizational setting, 21% were working in public organizations and 79% in private ones.

• simple • Work-Family Conflict (WFC), Family Conflict (FC), and Work Conflict (WC) based on time and strain were measured through the Spanish version ( Martínez-Pérez and Osca, 2001 ) of the Kopelmanś et al. (1983) scale. This scale applies the role conflict concept of Kahn et al. (1964) to study work and family scopes first separately and then together, based on the idea that WC and FC might act as antecedents of WFC. Each of these subscales consists of eight items on a Likert scale ranging from 1 (total disagree) to 5 (total agree). An example of a WFC subscale item is My work timetable is often incompatible with my family life ; an example of an item from the FC subscale is My family dislikes doing some activities I would like to do; and an example of an item from the WF subscale is At work I can’t be myself, or be the way I really am.
• simple • Subject involvement with household chores scale. This is a 10-item self-constructed scale that measures subjects’ self-perception about different tasks related to household chores, family management, and child care and education. Subjects respond to each item using a dichotomous yes/no format. The final scale score is the total number of family tasks they do. Examples of these items are Do you take the children to school every day? and Do you clean your house in your everyday life? This scale only includes the most common household chores of a standard Spanish couple with children of school age, not including others that may be less frequent in this culture (i.e., cutting the grass).
• simple • Partner involvement in household chores perception scale . This self-constructed scale is similar to the one above, but in this case it measures the subjects’ perception of their partners’ involvement in all the household chores. Subjects respond to each item using a dichotomous yes/no format about their perception of their partner’s involvement in different family tasks. The final scale score is the total number of tasks they perceive that their partners dedicate to family tasks. An example of these items is Does your partner take the children to school in everyday life?
• simple • Marital conflict about household chores was measured with the single question How many times do you and your partner argue about who must do the household chore s and when ? Subjects respond to this item on a Likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (every day).

We also measured socio-demographic (sex and age) and socio-familiar (family status, number of children) variables for the sample description.

Data Analyses

First, we performed skewness and kurtosis analyses to check normality among variables. Second, we calculated internal consistencies (Cronbach’s α), descriptive analyses and correlations between conflict scales and subject/partner perceived involvement on household chores scales. Third, we computed Analyses of Variance (ANOVAs) in order to test whether there was any statistically significant difference between-group regarding gender for subject’s involvement in household chores scale, and subject’s perception of partner’s involvement in household scale, and Kruskal–Wallis non-parametrical tests for item to item analysis due to its dichotomous level of response (Hypothesis 1 and 2). After that, we computed new ANOVAs and Regression Analyses to check gender, household chores, partner’s implication and conflict on WFC, WC, and FC (Hypothesis 3 and 4). All data analyses were carried out using SPSS 21.0.

Table ​ Table1 1 shows skewness and kurtosis statistics. As expected, all scales show values equal or below 0.5 and −0.5 in both or at least at one of them. So we assume a normal distribution of the scores of these scales. However, item by item of subject’s and partner’s involvement in household chores scales do not follow that normal distribution, due to its dichotomical nature.

Skewness and Kurtosis analysis of variables distribution.

Table ​ Table2 2 shows the descriptive analyses and Cronbach’s alpha of the variables for both samples. The alpha values meet the criterion of 0.70 ( Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994 ), except in the case of the perception of partner’s involvement in household chores, which was above 0.60. As expected, the pattern of correlations shows that WFC, work conflict and FC are positively and significantly related in both samples. However, WFC is more related to conflict at work in women and to conflict in the family in men.

Cronbach’s alpha, means ( M ), standard deviation ( SD ), and intercorrelations by gender ( N = 515).

Marital conflict is only highly and positively related to WFC, work conflict and FC in women, but not in men. This could indicate that women assimilate the conflict with the partner into conflicts in the family, i.e., women integrate the couple into the family concept, while men consider them to be different.

Subject’s involvement in household chores correlates significant and negatively with WFC in both men and women, but only with work conflict in men. Then, for both men and women, the higher their involvement is in household chores, the lower their WFC; moreover, the higher the work conflict is, the lower the men’s involvement in household chores.

Finally, the correlation between the subject’s and the perception of the partner’s involvement in household chores is only highly, significantly and negatively related in women. However, the perception of the partner’s involvement in household chores is only highly, significantly and positively related to WFC in men. Thus, women decrease their involvement in household chores when their male partners increase their involvement; on the other hand, in the case of men, the greater the involvement of the partner (women) in the household chores, the higher the WFC is.

ANOVA results confirm these differences and inequality about men’s and women’s involvement in household chores. Women’s involvement in household chores is more than twice that of men (4.0 and 1.7, respectively; F = 82.60; p ≤ 001). Consistently, women perceive lower involvement of their partner (men) in household chores than men do (1.8 and 2.8, respectively; F = 22.70; p ≤ 001).

Kruskal–Wallis tests also confirm that women are significantly more involved than men in seven of eleven household chores (see Table ​ Table3 3 ). These seven tasks are traditionally considered feminine: home shopping, house cleaning, free-time family management, taking children from home to school and from school to home, children’s care, helping children with homework, and playing with them. Men only score higher than women on one task traditionally considered masculine: house repairs. There are no differences in family management. These results confirm Hypothesis 1.

Kruskal–Wallis test of subject involvement on household chores and perception of partner involvement on household chores by gender (item to item) ( N = 515).

Symmetrically, Kruskal–Wallis tests also show that these results are confirmed by the perception that men and women have of their partner’s involvement in household chores: men consider that their partners (women) are mainly involved in traditionally feminine household chores: home shopping, house cleaning, free-time family management, taking children from home to school and school to home, taking care of the children, and helping children with homework, whereas women consider that their partners (men) are involved in typically masculine household chores: house repairs and family management. There are no differences in the perception of playing with the children. On the whole, these results confirm Hypothesis 2.

To test the hypothesis 3 (the effect of the greater involvement of women in household chores and perception of lesser involvement of male partners in the increase in the WFC among women compared to men), and hypothesis 4 (the effect of MC in the increased level of WFC in women relative to men), we performed three separate ANOVAs ( Table ​ Table4 4 ), complemented by multiple regression analysis ( Table ​ Table5 5 ).

Analysis of variance of work-family conflict, work conflict and family conflict by subject involvement on household chores and subject perception of partner involvement on household chores and marital conflict by gender ( N = 515).

Regression analyses predicting work conflict, family conflict and work-family conflict (dependent variables) in women and men by involvement on household chores, subject perception of partner involvement on household chores and level of marital conflict (independent variables).

ANOVAs results confirm partially hypothesis 3 since greater involvement of women in household chores do not generate a statistically significant increase in WFC comparing to men. There are gender differences in the extent to which this differential involvement in domestic tasks affects FC and (in a tangentially significant way) WC that point to a gender effect. On one hand, in the case of women, when their involvement in household chores is high, their FC and WC levels are similar; however, when their involvement is low, FC decreases and WC increases. On the other hand, in the case of men, the WC is always greater than the FC regardless of their degree of involvement in household chores. That is, in the case of women when there is a lower involvement in household chores the FC is also lower, but increases the WC.

There are no gender differences regarding the WFC according to the perception of their partners: it increases significantly in both men and women when the involvement in household chores of the partner is high or low, being always higher among women than among men regardless of the involvement of the partner with household chores is high or low, which completely rejects hypothesis 3.

It is noteworthy that the effect of the perception of involvement of the partner in household chores by gender does not affect WC or FC in a gender-specific way, but it affects the WFC globally statistically significantly, although these differences were not gender effects manifest. This indicates that the WFC is affected by the involvement of the partner in household chores, but not for the involvement of the subject in them, which segmentally would affect the FC and WC.

Regarding hypothesis 4, the increase of conflict by domestic tasks among the partners does not affect the WFC in a statistically significant way in women nor in men, but it does on WC and FC: when MC is high WC increase both in women and men, but FC increase only in women.

As a confirmation of this results, regarding the relationship between the subject’s and partner’s involvement in household chores and the different conflicts, regression analyses (see Table ​ Table5 5 ) show, first, that subject involvement on household chores does not predict WFC in women nor men, but only WC in men in a negative way. Moreover, the perception of the partner’s involvement in household chores and MC is a predictor of women’s WC and men’s WFC. Again these results do not confirm hypothesis 3.

Nevertheless, regarding hypothesis 4, as a difference of the ANOVA results, the increase of conflict by domestic tasks among the partners predict the WFC, WC, and FC in a statistically significant way in women but not in men. So results show that MC in women predicts WFC. This result fully support hypothesis 4. In addition to this, the MC is the only variable of those studied that affects the FC in the case of women, whereas involvement in housework does in the case of men, supporting also hypothesis 4.

In the case of men, the perception of the partner’s (women) involvement in household chores is a predictor of WFC. Results also show that men’s involvement in household chores is a negative statistically significant predictor FC as their beta coefficient is negative. That is, it seems that when the involvement of men in housework increases, the conflict in the family decreases; but when the perception of involvement of their female partners is high, it increases in them the WFC. However, MC does not predict this FC in men, so the FC does not increase by the conflict with the partner for housework but by their low involvement in them.

Home-work interaction has been the focus of a wide range of scientific literature during the past decades. It is generally accepted that both the family and the work scope affect each other in a different way. However, it was not studied in which degree the own and the partner’s involvement in family issues affect different kind of work-home conflict from a gender point of view. Thus, the aim of this study was to check whether the unequal involvement in household chores between men and women is associated with increased WFC in women, and explain it in terms integrating the knowledge of gender studies.

First, results confirm inequality because it indicates that the involvement of women in household chores is, on average, more than double the involvement of their male partners. In addition, men are more involved in traditionally masculine household chores (i.e., home repairs and family management), and women are more involved in traditionally feminine chores (i.e., childcare or shopping). Symmetrically, the subject’s perception of the partner implication confirms this difference: women perception of their men partner involvement in household chores much less than men perception of their woman partner involvement. Therefore, hypotheses 1 and 2 of our study are confirmed.

Secondly, we checked if those unequal involvements relate differently to men and women on different ways of WF interaction. We found that the greater involvement of women in household chores does not affect the level of WFC differentially in men and women, so hypothesis 3 is not met. This gender inequality in the distribution of household chores and child care does not imply a higher level of WFC in women compared to men. Rather the opposite happens: when more involved are both men and women in household chores, lower is the WFC. Although the hypothesis 3 is not corroborated, it should be noted that when the involvement of women in household chores is high, their level of FC increases; when men’s involvement increases, their level of WC increases, which in some way supports hypothesis 3. That is, the high involvement in household chores has negative consequences in the family sphere for women and in the workplace for men, possibly because of the greater respective importance that women give to family and men to work, as it poses the traditional gender role model.

In addition to this, results show that when the involvement of women in household chores is high, their levels of WC and FC are similar, i.e., it equally affects both areas. When this involvement is low, FC is lower than the WC. However, among men, WC is always greater than the WC regardless of their involvement in household chores. Furthermore, when the conflict with the partner for household chores is high, women report a higher FC but not a higher WC, whereas in man this conflict does not affect neither the FC nor the WC.

However, in the case of women, MC affects conflict related WC and FC and WFC, so hypothesis 4 is fully corroborated. This is very interesting because although hypothesis 3 is not met, however, the conflict with the partner due to this inequality in the distribution of housework seems to generate this WFC. That is, it would not be the greatest involvement in household chores itself that might cause and increase WFC in women, but the conflict with their partner which might produce it.

These results may be related to the absence of perception of injustice in the relationships regarding to inequality in the distribution of domestic and family responsibilities between men and women, so that in many cases women neither do perceive injustice in their relationships nor are dissatisfied. Following the review of Yago and Martínez (2009) , it has repeatedly shown that the perception of an unequal distribution of housework between men and women does not necessarily lead to a perception of unfairness. This perception of justice on the division of domestic work and the ideology of traditional gender that supports it explain why gender inequalities remain in the family sphere mediating the relationship between the perception of injustice and perceived quality the relationship. In fact, when women are more socially and emotionally independent from their partners, they are more likely to consider unfair the inequality in the distribution of household chores.

The perception of injustice is a mediating factor between an unequal distribution of domestic work and the perceived quality of the relationship; the relationship may be perceived as satisfactory although the sharing of responsibilities is not equal, if it is not perceived unfair ( Yago and Martínez, 2009 ). However, these results were mediated by gender ideology so this inequal distribution do not generate distress in the more traditional women whereas it does in women with an equal gender ideology.

In this line a study of Ogolsky et al. (2014) shows that the discrepancies at a cognitive level between men and women with regard to equality in household chores affects the quality of the relationship in the sphere of the couple in greater way to women than in men. However, when this inequality is manifested in a behavioral level, it does not seem to affect the quality of the relationship in women. That is, the real inequality does not affect the quality of the relationship in women, but it does at the cognitive level.

The involvement of the couple in household chores is related to an increased WFC, although it does not affect the WC or the FC separately by gender, but affects the WFC globally: it increases similarly in men and women when the couple’s involvement is high. This indicates that the WFC is affected by the involvement of the partner in household chores, but not for the involvement of the subject in them, which would affect to a segmented FC and WC. These results do not prove the hypothesis 3, but can indicate that the model of traditional gender roles does not serve to satisfactorily explain the influence of the division of household tasks and the effect of gender inequality in the WFC, as both in the case of men and women more involved in household chores generate that their female and male partners feel an increased WFC.

Men’s and women’s perceptions of their partners’ involvement in household chores contribute significantly to the perception of WFC; their own involvement also contributes significantly to FC, but negatively, which means that the more involved their partner is in the household chores, the greater their WFC.

Although our study seems to show that gender is an important variable in the involvement in household chores, and that gender inequality and the model of traditional gender roles is still valid in our western society, it also seems to suggest that increased WFC due to a high involvement in household chores is not exclusive to men but also occurs in women. This could be an indicator of a change in the model of traditional gender roles that began in the 80s, where new generations equate the importance of work and family spheres in the cases of both men and women.

In fact, results of some recent research ( Shockley et al., 2017 ) indicate that men and women appear to be more similar than different in their WFC experiences; gender differences in WFC appear to generally be small, regardless of which specific subgroups are examined, and when there is meaningful variation in the magnitude of gender differences in WFC the key factors that determine this variation is currently not well understood.

From this point of view, several alternative models other than the conflict perspective might explain these results. This tis the case of models such as the synergy between work and family, positive balance, work-family facilitation, or work-family enrichment ( Beutell and Wittig-Berman, 2008 ; Lapierre et al., 2017 ), which would better understand the effect of gender on the individual’s relationship between work and family.

The use of this new model integrative approach is justified by the social changes that characterize the values of the new generations, Gen Xers (born between 80 and 2000 population). They seem to consider that both work and family are equally important in their life, and try to find the most appropriate way to reconcile both aspects ( Beutell and Wittig-Berman, 2008 ), giving less importance to presentism at work and being supporters of flexibility. This understanding of the work is based, in addition to the facilities provided the digital revolution and technologies for work, making workers less dependent of a particular physical space and a fixed schedule to perform their work, together with the values of personal autonomy and responsibility that are shared by this new generation. This facilitates that people can now have more time to devote to other areas of their life within the scope of non-work such as family or leisure, with a progressively greater importance in their social identity.

From this point of view, research on work and family interaction has evolved from the study of isolated variables within the conflict and segmentation models toward more complex models that try to understand from the boundary theory, and the models of facilitation and synergy, how transitions are made from one scope to the other, and how they integrate with each other. They do not consider them as separate domains but as something unitary and unbreakable within the life of people. In the same way, an approach that takes into account the gender ideology is progressively being imposed, since it is inseparable from the relationship between work and the family from a cultural point of view.

Study Limitations

This study focuses on the effect of different kinds of conflict related to the home and work settings. However, due the lack of clear differences in results regarding WFC in men and women when partners’ implication in household chorus is high, it would be necessary to include facilitation and synergy models that would make it easier to understand the work-family relationship in all its facets, including the role played by gender and gender inequality. Research on the positive reciprocal effects of work and family is fundamental to understanding the complexity of the work-family interaction.

In addition, this study has other methodological limitations. First, we studied the effect of gender and involvement in household chores on the work-family relationship using independent samples of men and women, without collecting data from their partners. However, we analyzed the perceptions of these people (men and women) about their own involvement and their partner’s involvement, and this perception was shown to be significant. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to include the whole couple as a unit in future studies to increase the reliability of the proposed model.

Second, this study is based only on quantitative analyses. It would be interesting to support these results with qualitative studies (through interviews or focus groups) that would help us to interpret the analyses of the results framed in both the traditional gender roles and cross-effect theories, but also in people’s interpretations, increasing the model’s validity. They would also allow us to understand the gender role in the direction of the cross-effects of work stress from men to women, or from women to men, as our results only partially support this cross-effect, contrary to previous results ( Bakker et al., 2008 ). In any case, the quantitative methodology used in this study allowed us to detect, in a relatively simple way, the existence of changes in the relationship between gender and the traditional division of roles as a first step.

Also, the household chores used are those that might be generalized to mostly couples with children at school age. However, we have not considered specific situations (i.e., living in their house, living in a large or in a small town, grandparents support in caring children, age of the children) that might have help us to better describe the sample and interpret our results. Future studies could include this kind of sociodemographic variables.

In addition, may be other methodological limitations that may have conditioned the results. One of them is the imbalance in the percentage of men (63%) regarding women (37%). However, this limitation is assumable given the correlational nature of the study and the breadth of the sample. Finally, the reliably of the involvement of the partner in household chores is not too high (Cronbach’s alpha 0.62) which could raise doubts about its effect as an independent variable in the WFC in men and WC among women. Nevertheless, it met widely accepted criteria to assume its reliably (over 0.60).

Practical Implications

These results raise a number of practical implications for equality between men and women in terms of gender issues in the effective management of organizations in order to establish social integration and equality policies in both family and work settings ( Wharton, 2015 ). The management of work and working time within organizations must take into account the social changes occurring in gender roles, and start to consider that both men and women gradually tend to give the same importance to their work and family environments ( Kuo et al., 2018 ), with the accompanying increase in WFC and stress in both partners. Thus, although in many cases traditional gender roles are still valid (the family sphere continues to be more important for women than for men), it is necessary to consider the vision and specific attitudes that both workers have about their involvement in work and family, and establish organizational policies that help to reconcile both spheres in both genders ( Lucas-Thompson and Goldberg, 2015 ).

Moreover, public and social institutions specializing in family matters should incorporate these progressive changes in traditional gender roles into their strategies, in order to facilitate the homogenization of women’s and men’s roles within the family and workplace. For instance, they can design family counseling and couple training campaigns that help them to discover how to best coordinate their dedication to the family in a way that will reduce stress and conflict, and how to minimize WFC, even translating it into work-family synergy.

But also organizations might participate in this social change. They might contribute for instance through the inclusion of family friendly politics to support the search for home-work balance of their workers, men and women ( Sprung et al., 2015 ; Lin et al., 2017 ; Matias et al., 2017 ). It would mean a way to improve the quality of working life of their workers and, at the same time, a return of investment (ROI) both for the organization ( Dowd et al., 2017 ) and for our, hopefully, every time more equitable society.

Ethics Statement

All participants provided written informed consents before to complete the survey, in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and researchers guaranteed the anonymity of data. This study was approved by the institutional review board of the Faculty of Labour Relations and Social Work of the University of Basque Country.

Author Contributions

JC has been the director of review of the scientific literature, theoretical justification, methodology design, data collection, statistical analyses, and results description. EC has coordinated the improvement of the whole design and redaction paper, including conclusions and research limitations.

Chores flashcards

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Doing chores

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Game of chores

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I like going out

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Gender Equity Starts in the Home

• David G. Smith
• W. Brad Johnson

The shift to remote work is highlighting domestic inequity in many households.

Many men teleworking from home for the first time are getting a front row seat to the daily demands of running a home and caring for kids, as well as a crash course in learning to “balance” work and family. Although many men have experienced traditional role reversals for short stints, most have never worked from home for an extended period while leaning in as primary caregiver for children. Most of this work has fallen on women.

The presence of more men sharing more fully in domestic duties for an extended period of time has the potential to create a sea change in gendered norms — at home and at work. Men teleworking during the pandemic are more likely to appreciate women’s work-family experiences, understand the value of flexible work arrangements, appreciate the benefits of relationships with work colleagues, and role model more equitable work-family gender roles for their children.

In these difficult times, we’ve made a number of our coronavirus articles free for all readers. To get all of HBR’s content delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Daily Alert newsletter.

Jack Koban, a geologist and engineering project manager, is working from home during the pandemic shutdown while his wife, Ashley Saucier, works long hours as a pediatric emergency medicine physician. In our recent call with Jack, he reflected, “I don’t remember the last time I’ve cooked three meals a day and done the dishes for three straight weeks. It’s been nice being home, having more family time, and being more involved with the kids. We’ve definitely achieved a new work-life balance.”

• David G. Smith is an associate professor in the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. He is the coauthor, with W. Brad Johnson, of Good Guys: How Men Can Be Better Allies for Women in the Workplace and Athena Rising: How and Why Men Should Mentor Women .
• W. Brad Johnson is a professor of psychology in the Department of Leadership, Ethics, and Law at the United States Naval Academy and a faculty associate in the Graduate School of Education at Johns Hopkins University. He is the coauthor of Good Guys: How Men Can Be Better Allies for Women in the Workplace , Athena Rising: How and Why Men Should Mentor Women , The Elements of Mentoring , and other books on mentorship.

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2024 Mental Health Essay Contest Awardee: Silver

Learn to Live and Accept Your Journey

Paige, texas.

“I think so but I’m not for sure,” was a phrase I said on repeat for weeks in third grade. Little did I know that this phrase was actually a sign of my anxiety at a very early age. This phrase and other little nervous ticks I did when I was in elementary and middle school were picked up by my parents and teachers, but they never thought much of my ticks since I was still maturing. Fast forward to a couple of years ago, ninth grade, when I realized that I was a severely anxious person. These little ticks finally started to make sense as I started exploring my anxious tendencies further.

Ninth grade was full of several stressors for me: school, athletics, and friends. As we all know, the first year of high school is a big transition year for anyone and can be hard at times. This year was especially hard for me as I worked to battle my inner critic. I could never escape this little voice in my head; it was constantly judging me. I became hyper obsessed with my grades, which lead me into stress cycles that I could not escape. Each day I felt like I had fallen into a deep water well that I could not escape. This well appeared every time I took a test, quiz, or did an assignment worth a grade. I was mentally drowning, and I had no idea how to help myself. On top of academic stress, I felt constant pressure to succeed on the golf course while fitting in with my teammates.

Anyone that knew me always came up to me and asked me about how well golf was going, and I just couldn't take it anymore. Any time I made a bad shot I felt that I had let down my team, my parents, and other people who supported me. This weight on my shoulders kept growing and growing as we approached the state tournament. Luckily, I played well throughout the season and at these important tournaments, but it never came easily to me. Golf started to seem like a chore to me instead of a fun activity. On top of that my teammates talked behind my back, bullied me, and made a mean group chat that belittled me. This news came crashing down on me during the last week of school, finals’ week. I could not deal with this stress on top of everything else; I felt like a failure and a horrible person. Once I took the last final, I was so happy to get out of the school. Ninth grade had truly been a terrible year.

Between ninth and tenth grade my parents helped me seek out professional help as they could see that I was drowning in my anxiety. That summer was the best summer ever in hindsight because I got the help I so desperately needed. I started going to therapy sessions with my new therapist Kate, who seemed to understand me on levels I didn't even understand. These weekly sessions saved me. At first, I did not make much progress, but I kept getting better and better. Sophomore year was still emotionally hard, and I still worried a lot about grades, but I had learned ways to cope with it. Finally, after a full year of therapy sessions, I started to make serious progress.

This year, junior year, has not been as much of a struggle. I have been able to see the bigger picture of life, which helps me not stress as much after every little grade. I have been having the best year; I finally feel happy again. The weight has been lifted off of me and I have been able to escape the well.

High school has been a mental and emotional rollercoaster, but I am thankful for every single moment. Everything that has happened has made me mentally stronger. Without help from my peers, Kate, and my parents I have no idea where I’d be today. Therapy single handedly saved me and my mental health. For anyone struggling, I recommend reaching out because you never know how much you are struggling until you get the help you deserve.

NIH recognizes these talented essay winners for their thoughtfulness and creativity in addressing youth mental health. These essays are written in the students' own words, are unedited, and do not necessarily represent the views of NIH, HHS, or the federal government.

Page published May 31, 2024

May 2024: NIH Announces Winners of High School Mental Health Essay Contest

Dec. 2023: High School Students Invited to Reflect on Mental Health Stigma in National Essay Contest

National Institute of Mental Health

National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

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30-plus tips on helping your June garden produce to the max

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As spring finally transitions to summer, “June Gloom” typically brings us some gray skies, especially along the coast. That means spring flowers last a bit longer while we wait for summer veggies to ripen.

Vegetable gardens

Celebrate National Garden Week (June 2 to 8) by rescuing an unused weedy lot or corner in your community, planting a pollinator garden with children, or helping an elderly neighbor with their container plantings. Find more ways to celebrate gardening in your community at bit.ly/GardenWeek2024 .

• If your tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, etc., are not yet producing, don’t worry. As temperatures increase, so will flowering and fruiting.
• If you still have room, start another round of tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, eggplants, basil and so on. Plant now — from seed or seedling — for harvest in fall.
• Resist overplanting. Crowded plants grow into a jungle that reduces production and makes plants vulnerable to insects and disease.
• Pinch flowers and buds off seedlings from before planting until they’ve been in the ground for a minimum of two weeks.
• Good air circulation prevents powdery mildew (white powder on leaves). Selectively remove branches to improve air flow. Also, rinse leaves with water early in the day to wash away mildew spores. Make sure leaves are dry by late afternoon.
• Remove the lowest tomato leaves and branches to prevent soil fungi from splashing onto leaves and infecting the plant.
• Don’t listen to advice to prune tomato plants. All leaves make the energy that powers the plant to make flowers and fruits. If you remove leaves, the plant makes less energy and fewer fruits. Leave the leaves.

Fertilize vegetables:

• Feed vegetable plants with organic vegetable fertilizer. Mix fertilizer into the soil before you plant and add fertilizer to the planting hole (mix it in well).
• Through the season, pull the mulch back; sprinkle fertilizer over the soil, water, then replace the mulch. Follow label directions for how much and how often.
• OR add liquid fertilizer to your irrigation water — this process is called “fertigation” — half strength every time you water.
• ALSO use liquid fertilizer as a quick fix foliar spray for plants showing signs of nutrient deficiency.
• If you see skeletonized tomato leaves and tiny balls of green, look for tomato hornworms. The caterpillars are green, white and black striped. Don’t be shy; pull off the worms and put them where hungry birds and lizards can find them.
• Skeletonized sunflower and squash leaves are the work of tiny birds called lesser goldfinches. Those birds also eat aphids, so welcome them to the garden.
• Avoid tomato and squash blossom end rot by keeping soil damp (not wet) at all times. In some regions, blossom end rot is a calcium deficiency, but in our climate and soils, it results from uneven watering.
• Trellis cucumbers to keep the vines off the ground. It makes the fruits easier to find, too.
• Plant cilantro in the shade of cucumber trellises. They’ll produce more leaves, for longer, in a bit of shade.

Fruit trees

• Protect fig fruits from the new fig fly. As soon as the tiny fruits form, cover them with drawstring mesh bags. Those bags protect the fruits from rats and green beetles, too.
• Fertilize stone fruit, apple, pear and persimmon trees with organic fertilizer, following label directions. Water regularly and deeply during the fruiting and growing season.
• Fertilize citrus and avocado with granular, organic citrus and avocado food. Water citrus deeply, every few weeks. Water avocado deeply once or twice a week.
• Pomegranates, figs, tropical guava and pineapple guava don’t need fertilizer but are best watered every two or three weeks, depending on the heat.
• Too many ripe fruits? Halve them, remove seeds or pits, then freeze for winter cooking. Remember to label the containers.
• Share your extra harvest with those in need. Contact organizations that pick and donate fruit to food banks and other feeding programs. Find lists of gleaners for your county online. If you have time, volunteer to help — it’s fun!
• Clean up fallen fruits and practice good garden hygiene to avoid attracting hungry birds, green fig beetles, squirrels, rats, etc. Harvest fruits as they ripen, before they rot.

Ornamental plants

• Drought tolerant shrubs need little care this time of year. Groom to remove dead flowers and spent leaves. Keep them mulched and water deeply only once every few weeks.
• Container plants need more attention in summer. Fertilize nonsucculent potted plants with an all-purpose organic fertilizer (liquid indoors, liquid or granular outdoors), following label directions.
• Potting soil dries out much faster than dirt. When it’s time to water, do so slowly to saturate the entire pot, soil and all. Wait until the water drains out and then do it again. Sit lighter-weight pots in a basin of water and let the water wick to the top.
• Repot and refresh potting soil for longtime potted plants. Top off with new a sprinkle of worm castings and some organic, granular all-purpose fertilizer. Top the potting soil with small pebbles for a finished look and to keep away fungus gnats.
• Move sun-shy potted plants like Fuchsia and orchid cactus ( Epiphyllum ) under the shade of a leafy tree or an east-facing eave.

Manage wildlife

Remember: Wildlife has a place in every garden. Plants are not perfect. They aren’t supposed to be.

Support birds and bees through the warm weather.

• Fill a shallow dish or birdbath with water.
• Add a solar-powered floating birdbath pump that sprays water to keep it recirculating. Moving water keeps mosquitoes from breeding.
• Add small pebbles, glass marbles, etc. for birds and bees to perch on as they drink.
• Check regularly so the water stays clean, and the pump doesn’t clog.

Insects and other tiny garden critters can be unnerving but are seldom a problem. A few pests in the garden make sure natural predators stick around. Your goal is to support the cycle to keep your garden in balance.

• Caterpillars and worms nibble on leaves but seldom kill plants. While a few aren’t an issue, if they are truly decimating your plants, pluck them off and leave them in an open area where hungry birds and lizards can find them. Birds and lizards are nature’s pest control!
• Control snails, slugs and roly-polies (aka pill bugs) with Sluggo Plus, an iron phosphate product that is not toxic to birds, mammals (including us), caterpillars, butterflies, etc.

Manage water

Thanks to winter’s generous rainfall, we don’t start summer in drought, but chances are, we’ll finish in drought, so stay vigilant when it comes to water management.

• Inspect your irrigation system zone by zone. Turn on each zone (each irrigation zone is controlled by a single irrigation valve). Check all drip lines and sprinklers. As you walk the zones, watch for leaks, broken heads, overspray, etc.
• Don’t overwater. Winter’s extra rain doesn’t mean your plants need — or even want — more water.
• Collect cold bath and shower water in a bucket. Use the water for potted plants, thirstier tropical fruits, and vegetables.
• Mulch, mulch, mulch — but only if you have a drip irrigation system.
• Spray irrigation is not compatible with mulch. Too much water is wasted saturating the mulch before it can saturate the soil where the roots are. This is another reason to switch out spray irrigation for inline drip irrigation, not for individual emitter irrigation.
• As the summer temperatures rise, deep-water big trees once a month. Even drought tolerant trees need a long drink to survive.

Trash the grass

Grass is the thirstiest plant in our gardens and the one least often “used.” Summer’s long, warm days are the best for removing or reducing your lawn. Plan now.

• Wondering where to start? I’ll share best practices for lawn removal in my upcoming webinar, “Bye Bye Grass: How to Remove your Lawn,” at 7 p.m. June 20. Sign up at bit.ly/UTByeBye.
• Check your local water agency for latest lawn removal rebates.
• Solarizing is an easy and very effective way to kill your lawn. I’ll also talk about solarizing in my June 20 Bye Bye Grass webinar. ( bit.ly/UTByeBye)

What to plant in place of lawn?

• A colorful, flowery, drought resilient garden like those in my latest book, “Hot Color, Dry Garden” ( waterwisegardener.com/shop ) .
• A meadow of flowy, clustered field sedge ( Carex praegracilis) looks like grass but isn’t. Takes sun or shade, mowing or not, little water and feels great on bare feet.
• Kurapia, the trade name for Lippia nodiflora, which grows into a flat green surface with tiny white flowers. Warning: This plant spreads! Surround it entirely with concrete to keep it under control. Neither wood, plastic, nor metal edgings contain Kurapia.

What NOT to plant in place of lawn?

• Artificial turf (aka synthetic grass). Plastic “grass” heats up to the extreme in summer, needs regular washing, fills landfills as waste, releases microplastics into the environment, and destroys the soil along with all the critters living in the soil. Living plants are always a better choice than artificial turf.

Houseplants

Now that nighttime temperatures are above 50 degrees, move houseplants outside for summer. Place them in a sheltered spot with lots of indirect light, like a bright patio or covered balcony:

• Sansevieria
• Spider plant

After moving them outside:

• Wash down leaves to remove dust and grime.
• Keep plants well watered and feed them with each watering.
• Natural predators often feast on scale, mealy bugs, and aphids once plants move outside. If not, rub the pests off with your fingers, a soft toothbrush or blast them off with a sharp spray of water, from a hose or from your kitchen faucet.
• Remove brown, dead leaves.
• Let the potting soil dry down so fungus gnats fly away.
• Repot plants that have outgrown their containers. Your plants spend their lives in potting mix. It’s worth the money to use a high-quality mix.
• Make cuttings now and let them root over summer.

Want great gardening information delivered straight to your inbox? Sign up for my GardenWise Garden Guide at bit.ly/GardenWiseGuide .

Sterman is a garden designer, journalist and the host of “A Growing Passion” on public television. She runs Nan Sterman’s Garden School at waterwisegardener.com .

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I was a millionaire by the age of 30. As preteens, my kids learned how to use debit cards, and I taught them how to save money.

• David Ciccarelli founded a voice-over company that received millions in investment.
• He's also a dad of four, and his children range in age from 12 to 20. 
• He says he takes a salary approach to allowance and teaches his kids to give generously. 

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with David Ciccarelli, CEO of Lake . It has been edited for length and clarity.

When I was in my early 20s, I set up a recording studio. My now-wife, Stephanie, a singer, came in to record audition tapes. Soon after, local businesses began reaching out to me to record commercials, and they needed voice actors. I recognized a business opportunity .

I called Stephanie and explained I had a few recording gigs. If she would be the voice talent for the gigs while I did the recording, we'd split the proceeds. I didn't realize it at the time, but the business proposal ended up leading to a marriage proposal down the line.

That was nearly 22 years ago. Over the next 18 years, Stephanie and I built our gig work into voices.com , which raised $25 million in private equity. I left that company in 2023 to found Lake, which facilitates waterfront rentals. While we were building our businesses , we were also building our family: our kids are now 20, 19, 16, and 12.

I was a millionaire by the time I was 30, which was about 15 years ago. I grew up comfortably middle class with a financial planner for a dad, so I already had a lot of financial knowledge. I've always aimed to pass that on to my kids while also fostering their generosity and independence.

Allowance is not a given

I hate the idea of allowance being given rather than earned, but I also dislike the transactional nature of doing chores strictly to get money. I want my kids to learn to contribute to the family's well-being. In return for doing so, I'm happy to support them.

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I think of it as more of a salary approach to allowance than paying kids for specific chores. I pay for the things they need, like clothes when they outgrew the previous size, but they pay for wants, like trendy new sneakers. I distribute money monthly — they get a dollar a week for each year of their age — as long as the kids are doing things around the house as needed. There have been times when the household to-dos aren't done, so I hold back their allowance.

I reward problem-solving

Sometimes, the kids need or want extra money. They have to earn it, which they do most often by completing extra chores around the house that pay out immediately. For example, one of my daughters once noted our doors were squeaking, so she asked if I would pay her to fix them. I was happy to hand over the WD-40 — as well as the money, once the job was done. We agree on the amount before the job starts, often $10 or $20, depending on the amount of work.

I want to teach my kids that they won't get something just because they ask. Instead, I reward them for their ingenuity in spotting a problem, brainstorming a solution, and proposing a service. That's a lot more reflective of how life really works.

I taught the three uses of money

One of my most frequent dad-isms is about the three uses of money : giving, saving, and spending. I try to emphasize them in that order. The kids have always been taught to do all three. I don't give them specific percentages to aim for because I want to emphasize the principle and help them learn the lesson rather than just have them check a box on a to-do list for allocating a specific amount toward a specific bucket.

Once, in New York City, my then-11-year-old daughter found a $20 bill in the park. She was excited but flustered: she didn't know how she could split one bill into the three uses. I taught her how to get change, and she later handed $10 to a homeless person. I was so proud that she had internalized our family values about giving.

I relate money to the real world

Money can be very abstract, so I've always tried to tie it into my kids' daily actions. We opened bank accounts when the kids were 5, and got them debit cards when they were preteens. If I took my daughter shoe shopping, I would have her use her own card. Swiping the card, putting in the PIN, and later seeing the transaction on the banking app reinforced the idea that money was actually changing hands.

I did the same with investing. I encouraged them to look around their daily lives and notice what products they were using or what entertainment they enjoyed. I explained that businesses were behind all of that, and I taught them that, as shareholders, they could own a small piece of those companies. My kids have invested their allowance and money from their jobs outside the home in various companies, from Tesla when they were interested in electric vehicles to Disney+ because of their affinity for Disney films. Investing in what they know and use makes it more tangible.

I made room for individuality

One of my daughters realized she wasn't too interested in researching the companies she might invest in. So, I showed her an alternate path: index funds , which allow you to hold a small piece of many companies. That more hands-off approach was a better fit for her and will serve her better throughout her life than pushing an active investing approach that she's not interested in.

I teach them not to waste

Another of my favorite sayings is "waste not, want not." It helps fight consumerism and also encourages generosity. We have a one-in, one-out rule. If you get a new toy or item of clothing, you need to donate one. We also are frugal about our meal planning, often intentionally cooking extra so we can save time and money by eating leftovers for lunch.

As a parent, I believe in talking about your financial values with your kids. If you don't, society will fill the silence, often with things you don't believe in. Two of my kids have moved out and are on their own financially (although Stephanie and I are paying for college tuition , room, and board). I'm glad they have a solid financial footing and an understanding of earning what they have.

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A Soldier’s Final Journey Home

Sgt. Kennedy Sanders was killed in a drone attack on a U.S. outpost in Jordan. A collection of photos offers a glimpse into her life.

Photographs and Text by Kenny Holston

Kenny Holston, a Times photojournalist and former Air Force photographer, reported from Waycross, Ga., Dover Air Force Base and Washington.

“This is what they sent us,” Oneida Sanders said, kneeling beside a heavy wooden chest in her living room. “These are Kennedy’s things.”

Sgt. Kennedy Sanders’s belongings were shipped home to her parents after she was killed: Dog tags, identification cards, Polaroids of her family. Gold jewelry and a quarter that appeared to be stained with blood.

The items offered a glimpse into the person, soldier and daughter that Kennedy was and who she had hoped to become.

Kennedy was serving on a U.S. military outpost in Jordan in January when an Iran-backed militia launched a drone attack on the base. Less than 24 hours later, two uniformed service members showed up on the doorstep of Oneida and Shawn Sanders in the small town of Waycross, Ga.

Ms. Sanders wasn’t home that morning, but her husband, Shawn, was. He told her to return home right away and then began calling family members and friends, asking them to come to the house.

When Ms. Sanders arrived, one of the soldiers read a statement informing them that their 24-year-old daughter had been killed in action.

“As soon as I got into the house and saw the two officers standing in the living room, I collapsed,” Ms. Sanders said.

The last time Ms. Sanders heard her daughter’s voice was the day before she was killed. They had talked about the type of Girl Scout cookies Kennedy wanted her mother to send and her decision to re-enlist in the Army.

Kennedy’s unit, a team of engineering specialists trained to deploy on short notice and build infrastructure like roads and airstrips, had arrived in Jordan shortly after the war between Israel and Hamas began in October. The soldiers were supporting Operation Inherent Resolve, a mission to combat the Islamic State, which has claimed the lives of 113 U.S. service members since it began in August 2014, according to the latest Defense Department casualty report .

Sgt. William Jerome Rivers and Sgt. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett were also killed in the drone strike in Jordan.

Kennedy’s parents have grappled with the pain of outliving their child ever since. “It’s heavy," Ms. Sanders said, pausing briefly, her voice notably changed when she spoke again. “It’s heavy.”

Family had always been important to Kennedy. Even as an adult she preferred being home. From a young age, she looked after her twin brother, Kendall. She was protective of her younger brother, Christian.

She was known in Waycross for her athletic ability, leadership, work ethic and style. She was polite but didn’t have time for small talk. But when people got to know her they usually found she was an extrovert, the life of the party, Ms. Sanders said.

During a dignified transfer in February at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Kennedy’s flag-draped transfer case was the last of the three carried off a military cargo plane. President Biden stood, hand over heart, on the cold, wet tarmac to pay his respects as the commander in chief.

Mr. and Ms. Sanders said that Mr. Biden met with them privately at Dover and expressed a genuine understanding of their tremendous pain as he, too, had lost a child.

Mr. Biden posthumously promoted Kennedy from specialist to sergeant and awarded her a purple heart, one of the military’s most distinguished decorations.

After the dignified transfer at Dover, Kennedy’s remains were returned to Waycross.

Kennedy’s parents did not see their daughter’s body until just before the public viewing on Feb. 16. The family still has not received the official autopsy report from the Defense Department, leaving them to speculate about the precise cause of her death.

“You know, if you think about an explosion victim, your mind goes all types of directions,” Ms. Sanders said. “I didn’t know what was coming back to us in that box.” Seeing her daughter’s body in one piece “was a relief for me,” she said.

People from Waycross and the surrounding area filed into the viewing for Kennedy. For hours, friends and neighbors approached Ms. Sanders in tears to hug her, pray with her and offer their condolences.

“I don’t feel strong,” she said, referring to the day of the viewing. “I feel like, at any moment, I can have a breakdown, at any second, but it is a very deliberate and conscious effort just to get up every day and shower, brush my teeth, do basic things.”

The next day hundreds of people attended Kennedy’s funeral service at the local middle school. Ms. Sanders was overwhelmed with emotion as she and her family slowly made their way down the aisle to see Kennedy one final time.

As the service ended, pallbearers placed Kennedy’s flag-draped casket in the back of a horse-drawn carriage to be taken to Oakland Cemetery.

At graveside, service members folded the flag, and an officer knelt to hand it to Mr. Sanders, himself a former Marine.

Kennedy and her family — her father, cousins and uncles — dedicated their lives to the U.S. Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force.

The family has found that it is not alone, as the city of Waycross has come together to preserve Kennedy’s memory.

The street she grew up on is now named after her, a sprawling mural has been painted on the side of a business downtown, and scholarships in Kennedy’s name have been created. Her name was recently engraved on the Waycross Veterans Memorial.

Months after her death, a task as simple as opening the mail can bring the harsh reality of Kennedy’s absence rushing back, as it did in April when Ms. Sanders received a letter from the county election office informing her that her daughter would be removed from the list of registered voters.

“Whenever you deal with this, you are in disbelief and shock for a long time,” said Ms. Sanders. “But every now and then, you know, something happens that makes you realize that it’s really real, and she is really gone.”

Kenny Holston is a Times photographer based in Washington, primarily covering Congress, the military and the White House. More about Kenny Holston