Your chilkdhood household chores

Lawn, cleaning my room and the living room, fixing stuff that needed (light bulbs when I was little, doors and more by the time I was a teen), bringing in groceries, snow removal, garbage gathering and putting out ---- lots of stuff. Those were “duties” but we all jumped in as things needed attention.

Depends on when in my childhood.

From earliest memory, tidying my own bedroom was my job - putting away my toys and clothes when I was small, making the bed when I was big enough, sweeping or vacuuming the floor.

As I got older, anything from pet care to livestock care to lawn care to gardening (planting, weeding, harvesting, putting up the produce -canning or freezing,) to laundry to cooking meals to grocery shopping. By the time I was old enough to drive, I was expected to chauffeur my little sister in addition to my own coming and going. We were two sisters and an older brother - there was no division of labor along gender lines, though: all of us did yard work, all of us washed dishes, etc. After I was in college, my mom was a foster parent - one of her more memorable kids told her that cleaning bathrooms was “women’s work.” Rob showered outside with a water hose and pottied in the cotton field until he conceded that perhaps he, too, might consent to clean up after himself in the bathroom.

The usual stuff: mowing the lawn; raking leaves; collecting timber from the eucalypts (we used it in the BBQ); taking the rubbish bins in and out; cleaning the pool; putting the washing on the clothes line; washing the dishes etc.

In 1948 my father broke his heel (they take a long time to mend) and I got the job of feeding coal into the furnace, collecting the ashes into the ash bins and schlepping them to the curb to be collected. I was 11. A year later he had a heart attack and that became my job again. A year after that, we finally changed to oil heat. Nirvana.

Clearing snow in winter and mowing the lawn in summer. Even with a reel mower that was easy.

I must have done some dishes, but I don’t remember. I did some of the cooking, but I enjoyed that and didn’t consider it a chore. I still do some cooking and still enjoy it.

Emptying the dishwasher (half the dishwasher, really, because I’d share it with my sister), occasionally feeding the pets, and on Saturdays I’d clean the one-and-a-half bathrooms.

I’ve always found scrubbing toilets incredibly fun. Pour the Comet in, take the brush and scrib-scrib-scrib, then close the lid, flush, and . . . perfectly clean!

ETA: Oh, and if doing your own laundry counts, then that, too. I always cooked/baked quite a bit, but that was never a chore. And cleaning my bedroom. Around, maybe . . . once a year?

We lived in a country town and when I was 6 or 7 in the very early 70’s mum bought a Milk Bar. Like a corner store that also did food.

So my gig on weekends and after school was working there.

Started off serving lollies behind the counter from about 7, stacking shelves, carting in drinks from the storeroom to the coolroom, by the time I was 10 I was weekend cook in charge of the fish and chips, burgers and milshakes.

My two sisters and I just lived with my mom when we were teenagers so she used to write either 9 or 12 weekly chores on an index card, one for each chore. She’d place them upside down on the table and we each had to pick 3 (or 4) and that was what we were responsible for for
that week…cooking , laundry, cat litter, buying groceries etc. I thought it was a pretty equitable way to do things and some weeks you got the chores you didn’t mind and some weeks you got the cat litter!

We didn’t have many chores at all, since our jobs were to be good students. We had to bring our laundry up and down from the laundry room, and make our beds with the clean sheets.

My own laundry and sheets. Then split with my sister:

Vacuuming the whole house.
Washing all the floors.
Dusting the whole house.
Ironing all clothes.
Watering and caring for the garden.
Cleaning the bathrooms.
Cleaning the windows.

From middle school I was responsible for my own lunch and sometimes dinner depending on the family schedule. From driving age I was responsible for the neighborhood carpool to and from school. I also did the family shopping about half the time. I liked to cook and bake but it wasn’t considered my responsibility. Sometimes fed or bathed the pets.

Cleaning my own room, doing the dishes now and then, clean and polish the windows and mirrors, clean out the bird-cage while we had birds, after I started working in the summers as a toilet-cleaner I usually took care of the bathroom too.

Feed and water the livestock every morning.
Muck out the stable once a week.
Collect eggs daily for Grandma.
Hoe weeds in the large truck garden.
Help do the following as needed: repair fences, make cess pools, help with all phases of building grandparents house.
Clean the room my brother and I shared. I was a constant slacker in this area.
Shine my shoes on Saturday for tomorrow’s church. I hated this!

Dishes, lawn, snow shoveling, feeding and walking the dog, setting the table, mowing the lawn, and raking the leaves as a pre-teen. After that most of the home maintenance, repairs, painting, and car care. My parents were too important to dirty their hands with that sort of thing. Actually my father tried to do those things, and did instill a sense of self-sufficiency in me, but he wasn’t very good at it.

Apart from keeping our room tidy (HAH!!) my mom gave related chores to my sister and me.

  • drying dishes - I was responsible for everything in the wall cabinets, she did everything that went in the base cabinets (I’m taller, ya see)

  • she dusted the living room, I dusted the dining room

  • I scrubbed the bathtub, she did the sink (Mom did the toilet)

  • our brother cleared the table, took out the trash, and mowed the yard.

  • we’d all help folding laundry. I was taught to iron at an early age, so I helped with that. Sometimes I’d help hang the laundry out on the line, too.

One standing rule was if Mom asked us to cook something, she’d clean up. If we asked to cook or bake something, we’d clean up. And we could earn extra money by doing extra chores - like washing the car or polishing Dad’s shoes or (in my case only) pressing Dad’s suits. He taught me how to use a pressing cloth when I was still in middle school. :smiley:

Another standing rule - if any of us ever whined that we were bored, we’d be handed a dust rag or a rake or something similar. We learned to keep ourselves amused.