Chores

[DanaC]

Me and Mart didn't really have set chores growing up. There were things we often did. Like washing and drying the dishes after tea, for instance. Particularly if we'd had a sit down meal, rather than eating in front of the tv.

What we had in our house was a kind of all pitch in mentality. Levels of co-operation in this were variable, and there were occasions when nagging had to occur, and a certain amount of whining. Mostly though we did what we were asked to. 'Cause Mum or Dad were asking.

Often at weekend mum wuold have a big clean and tidy. It was kind of fun. She'd get the records playing loud so they filled the whole house and me, her and our kid, would set to. Mum attempting to inject a degree of competance and efficiency, though hampered somewhat by the occasional bits of larking around. It was great.

We were responsible for our own rooms. From quite an early age. Probably around 6 or 7 for me. Not sure for our kid as he was already 6 when I was born. From my perspectve he was always responsible :p But it wasn't mjor deal most of the time. Sometimes I'd let it get into a shit tip, particularly as i got to around 9 or 10, and Mum would have to chivvy me into action. Usually whilst she was tidying the rest of the upstairs.

Unfortunately I had a tendency to just get locked into rearranging the books in my bookcase and about an hour into the supposed tidy up she'd end up coming in and 'helping'.

The job I really liked doing was polishing the wooden furniture in the sitting room. Unlike the main living room (or 'Telly Room' as we affectionately called it) the sitting room was full of old furniture. A wooden cottage suite, with big cushions, and cabinets and little wooden statues. They used to shine up lovely with the polish.


Pocket money was a separate affair. As were the weekly comics we each had. It was sort of tied to generally being helpful and co-operative, and very rarely was it ever removed. Occasionally there'd be times when we could earn ourselves a little extra. But as others have said, money management was treated entirely separately from chores.