Now, here's my take on kids and chores.
I've heard people say that they don't pay their kids for chores because they want their children to understand that chores are part of being in a family, and something we all just have to do. This is true. After all no one pays me to do the laundry. That being said, I pay my kids for some chores, and this is why.
A year and a half ago, our family had the good fortune to move into a much larger home. House prices were not quite on the rebound, and we were able to afford a house twice the size for much less than twice the price.
I was ecstatic to be moving into a bigger place. I had spent 9 years, most of them with three babies, in 1500 square feet, and while that's a completely adequate amount of space for a family of five, sharing it with the business office, and picturing my boys sharing their 8x10 room and small closet as teenagers made me feel like more might be better.
On moving day, I was relieved to be gaining twice the space, and blessedly twice the toilets.... Until...I thought about who was going to clean those toilets. Now, Josh is awesome, and participates in many household duties in order to share the housework load, but in the 17+ years we've been married, I can count the times he's cleaned a toilet on one hand.
Suddenly, this bigger house thing seemed like it was going to suck. I had just doubled my housework load. I was lamenting about this newly realized fact to my sage like father-in-law when he said, "Ang, your kids are old enough to help out." Brilliant, light bulb, inspiring stuff!
My kids already helped out around the house from very young ages. Up until that moment they were already proficient at dishes, sorting and putting away laundry, keeping their rooms clean, and caring for our multiple pets. And, I had been looking for a way for them to earn money so that I could teach some money management strategies, and here was my opportunity.
Now, every week, all three kids scrub a bathroom assigned to them, leaving me only one. They dust and vacuum, and it's tremendous help.
I pay them $3, each for it. That's right, I get three bathrooms cleaned, my house dusted, and the upstairs vacuumed for a grand total of $9 each week.
Wondering how I came up with what seems like such an arbitrary salary? It's not that I just love the number 3, although, obviously, that one's lucky for me. It's that I wanted to teach my children to give to charity, save, and spend, and while I started thinking of how to divide nominal amounts of money by percentages, it dawned on me, that it would be much simpler for me and them if I just gave them a dollar for each.
Every week after they clean, I give them each $3, which they take to their rooms, and put in mason jars, labeled charity, spend and save. The charity money goes to a charity or charities of their choice, the spend money, normally, is spent every week at the local dollar store (always their choice, innumerable lessons about value there), and the save money goes into their college savings accounts.
People have asked me about the quality of their work, and I have to say that, while not up to the standards of The Organic Housecleaners (shameless best friend plug), it's pretty great. To borrow a phrase from my favorite parenting book, I definitely had to "take time for training", but it all works out pretty well.
The best part is, that with this system my kids are learning invaluable skills about money, keeping the space that they live in clean, and that dirty jobs have to get done, and sometimes you're the one to do them.
They know that they're underpaid, but they don't seem to mind. They find value in a job well done, and they appreciate having money they earned, and making their own decisions on how to spend. They've even told me that they appreciate knowing how to clean.
I took them with me to clean out our rental after our renters left, and after looking at the toilet, Luke said, "I could have cleaned that better.", and isn't that just priceless.
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