What were the routine household chores that you were responsible for in your childhood?
Mine were taking care of the furnace/heating ,lawn care, snow shoveling and washing evening dishes.
By the time I was high school, we had an thermostatically-controled stoker that fed coal into the furnace, so it was no longer necessary to shovel coal directly into the fire. The stoker would have to be filled with coal, carried from the coal bin, which was a room in the basement that held about a ton of coal, delivered when needed by a local trucker. Every couple of days, the ash clinkers would have to be tonged out of the furnace and thrown out in the snow to cool, then collected into the trash.
Lawn care consisted of cutting the grass with a non-powered cylindrical hand mower, with a bag to catch the cuttings, and then in the fall, raking the leaves, all to be burned in he garden in a bonfire. Wonderful memories of the smell of bonfires all over town, and the sound of honking geese migrating overhead.
Snow had to be shoveled off the sidewalks (city ordinance), and the driveway if necessary, before leaving for school in the morning. The word “snow day” was not in the school vocabulary yet – Every day was school day, and lots of them were also snow days…
I’m a tad ashamed to say that I really had few regular chores while I was growing up; honestly I don’t think it served me well.
I can remember doing dishes while I was home alone in the summer, so that would be in mid grade-school. And I had to mow the lawn in the summer when I was big enough to safely push the mower.
That’s about it, really.
I can recall several times when my mom sat us down and said, ok, here are the chores lists that you’ll do etc. etc. By the time she decided to make us do chores, we were old enough to rebel and make it not worth her time to enforce it.
My son, who is almost 5, has several regular chores and duties. Since he’s been able to help, he’s been tasked with age-appropriate chores. He never complains (or, hardly ever) because it’s just a fact of life.
Lawn maintenance (from age 10)
Dinner dishes (from age 9)
Sweeping front porch (from age 7)
Cleaning garage (from age 7)
Cleaning own room (from age 4)
Doing own laundry (from age 9)
Feeding dogs and cats (from age 6)
Dishes, dust & vacuum, mow the lawn, rake the leaves. I’m sure at some point I cleaned the bathrooms and stuff, because I live on my own now and didn’t just wake up knowing how to do those things
Emptying the trash, and taking the cans out to the curb on trash collection days
Sweeping the driveway and front walk (most of the year) and shoveling the snow off them (winter)
Trimming the hedge along the driveway
Mowing the lawn (from about age 10)
None of it was particularly “regular”. It was whatever they decided to have me do whenever they decided to have me do it. During the summer I would be left a list of chores to do before my mother got home from work and it was different every day.
Cooking side dishes during dinner, vacuuming the house, picking up after a designated room (especially my own), washing the dishes, washing the bathroom, washing the kitchen, picking up kindling and woodchips, helping with felled trees/branches to turn into firewood (i.e. trimming small branches and hauling sections after the chainsaw cut them up), everything to do with chopping firewood aside from using the axe (unless we had the gasoline-powered wood splitter or tractor-powered saw going in which case I was allowed to use those), pulling up weeds in the garden, planting vegetables, cleaning out the litterbox, hauling compost out to the compost pile, cleaning out the fridge, washing the windows, washing & vacuuming the car, shoveling snow (but not too often)…
Probably more if I thought about it some more.
Funnily enough, washing my own clothes was something I chose to do. Turns out mother loves hanging up wash so she would’ve kept doing the laundry if I didn’t decide I was doing it myself.
The chores I hated doing most were washing dishes and picking up woodchips. Hot summer day in the sun and a paper bag and I’ve got to stoop constantly for more than an hour picking up tiny sharp little shards of wood. Pissed me off immensely. Felt like work designed specifically to torture me. And I specifically bought a dishwasher for myself when I moved out because eff the dishes.
Mostly yard work and taking care of the pets. We had about two acres to mow. For some reason, I was the one who had to clean up any dog shit that happened, even though the dog was not my choice. Plus cleaning the room I shared with my brother and some light kitchen work, like drying dishes.
My mom was super strict about keeping our bedroom neat, to the point that most of my whippings were for a messy room. So I no longer make a bed, ever, and I throw my clothes wherever I please on the floor. Lightly worn clothes drape over chairs, the dresser and my night stand. I guess I’m proving that you can’t whip a habit out of a child.
Regular chores for all three of us kids were keeping our rooms clean, and doing the dinner dishes every night. Also we were all three responsible for shoveling the driveway when it snowed.
For some reason I also had the weekly chore of mowing and trimming. Not sure how my older brother skated on that one - allergies maybe.
From my earliest memory - helping tidy the house
From age 6 or so - lunch dishes on weekends and vacations
From 8 or so - dusting, cleaning own room, scooping the litter box, feeding the pets
From 10 or so - mopping, running errands to the grocery store or bank, helping with laundry, vacuuming and skimming my aunt’s pool before swimming, cleaning the bathroom
From 10 onward we lived in an apartment with no yard so I learned almost no lawn care/garden chores, which I hate and avoid to this day
Never had to mow the lawn or vacuum because my mom was convinced the lawnmower was too dangerous and the vacuum cleaner too heavy.
I alternated with my sister for all chores so it wasn’t the heavy burden it might appear.
Setting/clearing the dinner table
Dishes
Helping make dinner
Feeding/cleaning up after the dogs
Folding/putting away laundry
When I was 15 my mom started working full time out of the house and at that point pretty much any household chore was divided up between my sister and me.
Most of it. My parents divorced when I was in 5th grade so my mom had to work multiple jobs to pay the mortgage and keep things solvent. My sister (7th grade at the time) and I had pretty much all of the household duties to contend with.
I’m not trying to make it sound like we were Victorian era waifs or anything. But anything from vacuuming to dusting to mowing/shoveling to cleaning the tub to doing laundry and so on fell into our sphere of obligations.
Pet Care - feeding/watering, walking, toenail clipping, bathing, brushing, and cleaning the yard.
Dusting and vacuuming my bedroom, making the bed, tidying up daily.
Set and clear the table. Mom did the dishes.
Raking and bagging leaves.
Additional one-offs as assigned.
My parents were pretty cool about the whole thing, though. I could postpone or reschedule chores around school activities or social activities. And if my chores took more than an hour per day, the parents would pitch in and help me.
The only chore that was solely my responsibility was cleaning my room and bringing my laundry to be washed, then putting it away. My parents usually handed out chores on the spot, as they needed to be done, instead of giving us regular assignments. They were usually cleaning related - dusting, vacuuming, unloading the dishwasher, etc.
My first time cutting the lawn went so badly that it was also the last time. By the time I was old enough to try again, I’d developed an allergy to grass.
Kinda grew up on a ranch. I did the average stuff like trash, dishes, and leaves. We also had acres to mow, fences to build/mend, and hay for stacking. Every once in a while we would have to cut down or prune a tree, and those were the worst.
Kinda fortunate we didn’t get much snow, I’m thankful for the downtime in the winter. Though I would have traded it all just to have summers not feel like 5 months in a sauna.
My sister and I shared the chores. We each, of course, had to keep our rooms neat and our beds made.
Me: Lawn care in season; taking out the garbage; unloading the dishwasher; setting the table for dinner; clear the dinner table; my own ironing (shirts mostly); help my father as needed with DIY projects, of which there were many.
Sister: rinse dishes and load dishwasher; cleaning house; her own ironing; probably other things that I can’t remember.
I’m grateful to my mother for teaching me to do ironing, although I still hate it and avoid it when possible. I’m also grateful for having gotten in the habit of clearing away after meals and generally tidying up the kitchen - it has made my domestic life much easier as an adult. And I probably should have shared in the housecleaning at least in the winter when there was no yard work, this is something for which I have no affinity at all.
I did a little of all the household and landscaping chores. Outside, that was mostly mowing and raking as necessary. Inside, that was cleaning dishes, tidying up, dusting, cleaning the bathroom, etc. Some of the common areas like the living room would get cleaned on days when everyone in the family worked together, but mostly I was expected to get it done on my own. I washed my own clothes and made my own lunches. By 12, I was cooking one meal each week.
Essentially, by the time I moved out on my own for college, the only new experience for me was doing my own grocery shopping. All the other daily maintenance tasks were things I’d been doing for years.
We lived in the suburbs, so there weren’t any animal or farm related kinds of chores.
Being a child is pretty much a full time job as it is, can’t imagine chores added to that. I did make the mistake of offering services, such as lawn mowing and other things including well lets not go there as many would give that eek smiley on that one.
My mother didn’t lay a table or clear/do dishes for almost two decades, I swear. We (her children) did that. Every day. We were also responsible for keeping our own rooms clean and laundry sorted- mom did laundry but it was our responsibility to get it to her in a timely fashion.
Also, being a farm/rural kid: Mucking goat stalls, milking and feeding goats, tending to chickens and other poultry, stacking and/or bringing in firewood, weeding the garden.
