On Household Chores

[danieldwilliam]

My son, the Captain, recently turned 11.

I think he's ready to do some chores around the house. He's a reasonably sensible and trustworthy eleven year old.

My own experience of turning eleven and picking up some jobs around the house is, I think, not an ideal guide to how this should be done. My mum was a single parent to 4 kids, I'm the eldest. Things were fraught and a not necessarly well thought through.

So what are some reasonable jobs around the house for an eleven year old?

Comments

[cmcmck]

Vacuuming.

Dusting

Ironing (although that's a learned skill- but one it wouldn't hurt to learn- a lot of guys never seem to.

The old, old one of keeping own room tidy!

Does he like cooking/kitchen stuff?

[danieldwilliam]

He does like cooking and so on. He's baked cookies and similar on his own a few times without close supervision. His current job in the house is to clear the table after dinner.

I did have a bless moment with him last week. He hadn't realised that the toaster has a timer on it and was trying to work out how long the toast would take and was a bit anxious about it. I couldn't work out why he was so resistant to making himself a bit of toast until I found out he thought he'd forget about the toast and set fire to the kitchen.

Perhaps helping me when I'm cooking would kill several birds with one stone.

Ironing is an interesting suggestion. I used to be reasonably proficient with an iron but I've not touched one for about two years. There is barely any ironing in the house. I have spent the last ten years removing anything that needs ironing from my wardrobe. All my "business" shirts are superbly non-iron, and I work for a tech firm so I don't have to wear a suit and tie. I'm pretty careful about not buying clothes that need to be ironed.

MLW irons the bed linen from time to time. She seems to really like freshly ironed sheets.

I suspect it is possible for someone growing up in the 21st century to not have to iron and still be able to meet reasonable standards of crispness.

[mountainkiss]

Oh freshly ironed sheets are amazing and if I ever have lots of money then I will have them every week.

[danieldwilliam]

I should try an experiment to see if I find freshly ironed sheets significantly more pleasant than freshly washed sheets.

Not sure how to actually do that in real life.