Chores

We are often asked about chores- how we divide up, who does what, how much to do. I think Scripture is very clear about work. Scripture is filled with applications of hard work, but I think the best is the Proverbs 31 lady. She is very resourceful and a hard worker and her household is well taken care of. Over the years the work load in our home has changed dramatically (five children, two dogs, five cats, a turtle, a fish, 19+/- chickens, a horse and a very loud rooster.)
When the big girls were younger it seemed like I was walking through every chore with them. It would have been much faster to just do it myself, but they would have missed out on the blessing of helping. Before too long though I started seeing huge results. At 3 years old, Sarah could use a step ladder and unload most of the dishwasher and as you can imagine they can all run the household now.
We've had times when they divided everything down to who unloaded the silverware, top rack and bottom rack of the dishwasher or who folded the socks. These days they seem to have fallen into a rut and everyone has their own job. For instance, Rachel does all of the dishes (when she isn't gallivanting in other countries,) Hannah does all of the laundry, Sarah does all of the pets (except the chickens,) Mary takes care of the chickens and Lydia handles the trash. There are other jobs sprinkled in here and there to try to even things up, but that's the main jobs. We know friends who divided their family chores into four main groups and rotated them on a monthly schedule among their four children. The benefit of that is everyone gets an opportunity to learn all of the jobs, the disadvantage is it may be impossible for a small child to keep up with the big ones.
There are many ideas on what jobs everyone should be doing such as, boys do boy jobs, girls do girls jobs, everyone has to learn every job. I probably fall somewhere in the middle of that, mainly because I really don't want Ray washing my lingerie. And his idea of washing dishes might be like Mr. Edwards on "Little House on the Prairie"- let the dog lick them clean. If your boys don't have enough work inside to do, they still need to learn the value of work. Create jobs for them - they can always wash the house, pull weeds or hammer nail heads that might be popping out of place. I can't imagine a home where there isn't enough work for girls to do and I have five to share the duties.
The point is create enough jobs for your children to work hard and physically. We built a chicken house in our back yard for several reasons. Initially it was for good eggs, but the more we go along, the more I see the benefits of the job for Mary. Mary is our late sleeper who really likes to play and talk. It usually takes her longer to do most jobs because she has to make them into a game, then tell us all about a lot of things. Now she has to get up every morning to gather eggs and check on the chickens. It is shaping up to be good habit for her that she actually sees the results. It's a job all her own that she can be proud of (but not too proud of course:)
Some of the benefits of teaching your children to work are obvious. The less obvious reasons may be the most important of all. Spiritually, hard working children can learn to serve others with joy without being self serving. Learning to work together, putting others first and meeting other's needs before your own are lessons that can take us all in to the future with our families.