essay house chores

10 Reasons Why Household Chores Are Important

Whether we like it or not, household chores are a necessary part of everyday life, ensuring that our homes continue to run efficiently, and that our living environments remain organized and clean, thereby promoting good overall health and safety. Involving children in household chores gives them opportunity to become active participant in the house. Kids begin to see themselves as important contributors to the family. Holding children accountable for their chores can increase a sense of themselves as responsible and actually make them more responsible.

Children will feel more capable for having met their obligations and completed their tasks. If you let children off the hook for chores because they have too much schoolwork or need to practice a sport, then you are saying, intentionally or not, that their academic or athletic skills are most important. And if your children fail a test or fail to block the winning shot, then they have failed at what you deem to be most important.

They do not have other pillars of competency upon which to rely. By completing household tasks, they may not always be the star student or athlete, but they will know that they can contribute to the family, begin to take care of themselves, and learn skills that they will need as an adult. Here is a list of household chores for kids:

1. Sense of Responsibility

Kids who do chores learn responsibility and gain important life skills that will serve them well throughout their lives. Kids feel competent when they do their chores. Whether they’re making their bed or they’re sweeping the floor, helping out around the house gives them a sense of accomplishment. Doing daily household chores also helps kids feel like they’re part of the team. Pitching in and helping family members is good for them and it encourages them to be good citizens.

Read here a detail blog: Routine helps kids

2. Beneficial to siblings

It is helpful for siblings of kids who have disabilities to see that everyone in the family participates in keeping the family home running, each with responsibilities that are appropriate for his or her unique skill sets and abilities.

Having responsibilities like chores provides one with a sense of both purpose and accomplishment.

4. Preparation for Employment

Learning how to carry out household chore is an important precursor to employment. Chores can serve as an opportunity to explore what your child excels at and could possibly pursue as a job down the road.

5. Make your life easier

Your kids can actually be of help to you! At first, teaching these chores may require more of your time and energy, but in many cases your child will be able to eventually do his or her chores completely independently, ultimately relieving you of certain responsibilities.

6. Chores may make your child more accountable

If your child realizes the consequences of making a mess, he or she may think twice, knowing that being more tidy in the present will help make chores easier.

7. Develop fine and gross motor skills and planning abilities

Tasks like opening a clothes pin, filling and manipulating a watering can and many more actions are like a workout for the body and brain and provide practical ways to flex those muscles!

8. Teach empathy

Helping others out and making their lives easier is a great way to teach empathy. After your daughter completes a chore, you can praise and thank her, stating, “Wow… great job! Because you helped out, now Mommy has one less job to do. I really appreciate that!”

9. Strengthen bonds with pets

There is a growing body of research about how animals can help individuals with special needs. When your child feeds and cares for his pet, it strengthens their bond and makes your pet more likely to gravitate toward your child.

10. Gain an appreciation and understanding of currency

What better way to teach your child the value of a rupee than by having him earn it. After your child finishes his chores, pay him right away and immediately take him to his favorite toy store where he can buy something he wants.

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Household Chores and Ways to Avoid Them Essay

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It’s another lovely Saturday afternoon, and your lovely couch is beckoning. You feel so tired, and you need to relax your body after a week of hard work. All over sudden, you are lying there feeling the enticing warmth of the couch and getting a well-earned sleep. But wait! Your wife walks in with her authoritative gesture and, like a tyrannical dictator, orders you to help with the household chores. That is the time you have to say good-bye to your beloved couch and hello to the lawnmower.

In order to avoid such calamities, there are a number of useful guidelines, which, if followed, will offer an escape route from the horrific chore monster. Some of these tips have successfully been tried, while others are hypothetical. Nevertheless, they are all constructive (Keller 1; Marx 1).

One of the most famous tactics known globally but never thought to be of great help is camouflage. Camouflage has been used for a very long period of time by the military personnel and is considered the best technique in escaping detection from the enemy radar. This technique can also be used, especially when you do not want to be seen for a certain period of time. This technique is well elaborated in Harry Porter volume 2 and involved wearing a cloak of invisibility (Gyaan 1).

In our case, get yourself a fabric that precisely matches the object you intend to blend into. For instance, putting on clothes or cover yourself with materials that match the couch or bed. If you wish to hide successfully outside, use some materials that match with the lawn. This is basically achieved by covering yourself with these materials and taking a nap beneath them. They will effectively render you invisible to many people except the most suspicious characters. Caution should be taken to make sure that no one steps or sits on you, and if it happens, pray that they are not heavy (Gyaan 1).

Another way of avoiding chores is by using lookalike. It is eminent that every individual has a person who resembles him/her or a “double.” If you want to avoid chores, you should get a lookalike or a person who closely resembles you. These lookalikes are found everywhere, for instance, in church, library, grocery, pet stores, and supermarket, among other places. Once you have identified the right person, make a deal with him/her (Keller 1).

The deal should be that he/she comes into your house and carry out your chores while wearing your clothes. On the other hand, you can take a break from the chores and have a nice time. The deal, in this case, should include payment or any form of reward agreed upon. This look like must be a single person or unmarried. This is because his or her partner may also engage you with other chores diluting the initial purpose (Marx 2).

Another trick of avoiding household chores is the use of a mannequin. This trick can be traced from Conan Doyle’s book “The Adventure of the Empty House.” The mannequins can be bought from the retail stores as long as you are ready to pay the right price. The mannequins can be used in a variety of ways. If your chores involve cleaning cars at home, just dress it in your clothes and keep it in your garage. If your chores involve mowing the lawn, just set the plastic fellow pushing the lawnmower. In this case, you can go out and join your buddies or lazy around. You can put on sunglasses and a hat on the mannequin and leave instructions to one of your neighbors or family member to move it every ten minutes. You will be surprised at how much time you can buy away without being suspected (Marx 2).

An additional trick of avoiding chores is fiddling with the clock. However, this trick is technically more challenging. The trick here is setting the alarm clock in a way that it switches itself on and off without being detected. In this case, you can give an excuse for performing the task at a particular hour, which in reality never really comes, and you are scot-free. I know one friend of mine who pulled off this prank until he was discovered. Presently, their lawn is considered as the most well trimmed in the locality (Gyaan 2).

The most common prank used by many is feigning sickness. Kids learn this trick at a tender age, and without a doubt, almost everybody has used this trick in one way or another. If you do not want to be caught, make sure you vary the sickness every time. The trick won’t work if you insist on one particular illness each and every time there is work. Jot down a number of common illnesses on a piece of paper and pick one randomly each time to make them believe it is real (Keller 2).

Hiding has been used for a long period of time and has proven to be among the most effective methods of avoiding household routine jobs. There are many places to hide, but you simply got to make the wisest choice. Some of the places you can hide include attics, ceilings, closets, out in the garage, in the neighbor’s house, at the backyard, in the wardrobe, among other places that suit you and are safe. The larger the house, of course, the more the hiding places.

There are other tricks of avoiding household chores, including working slowly to avoid additional work, feigning emergency phone calls from the office, faking an old friend who has just arrived in town, and performing poorly, among others (Marx 2).

Other methods of avoiding chores require some form of deception. For instance, if you are asked to perform a particular task, and you don’t feel like doing it, you can deceive your colleague or a member of the family that task was meant for him or her. In this case, you will have plenty of time to do your own things or to enjoy yourself. Another way of avoiding household chores is by pretending to have a lot of work. This trick is common among school-going children. Most of them pretend to have a lot of homework or exams the following day and therefore need more time to finish their work or revise for the exams (Keller 2).

In summary, there are numerous ways of avoiding household chores; some of them are mere tricks, while others entail deception. Some of these tricks are practicable, and others are technically hard to achieve. For instance, the use of camouflage, lookalikes, the fiddling of alarm clocks, and the use of mannequins is very rare. On the other hand, feigning illness, hiding, feigning injury, and excess work is very common since they are very easy to achieve.

Some tricks are easily detectable, while others are difficult to suspect. Therefore, it is upon you to choose the best trick that suites the occasion. Believe me or not, most of these tricks are detectable; if you do away with it today, sooner or later, you will be discovered. But in the meantime, enjoy yourself with the small respite from the monster chores.

Gyaan, Aditya. How to Avoid Doing Chores. 2008. Web.

Keller, Helen. How to Avoid Doing Household. 2009. Web.

Marx, Woody. Tips for Men: How to Get Out Of Doing Home Chores . 2009. Web.

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Home — Essay Samples — Psychology — Personal Development Planning — The Importance of Chores

The Importance of Chores

Categories: Personal Development Planning

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Published: Mar 20, 2024

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Responsibility and accountability, contribution to household and community, development of essential life skills, psychological and emotional well-being.

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Essay on Chores At Home

Students are often asked to write an essay on Chores At Home in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Chores At Home

What are chores.

Chores are tasks we do to keep our homes clean and organized. They are like small jobs for every family member. Chores include tidying up, washing dishes, and taking out the trash. Doing these tasks helps everyone share the work at home.

Benefits of Doing Chores

Types of chores.

There are many kinds of chores. Some are daily, like making your bed or clearing the table. Others happen once a week, like cleaning the floors or doing laundry. Every chore is important to keep the home running smoothly.

Chores and Fun

Chores might not always be fun, but they can be. Families can make chores enjoyable by doing them together or turning them into a game. This way, children can learn and have fun at the same time.

250 Words Essay on Chores At Home

Chores are tasks we do to keep our homes clean and organized. Think of them like helping hands that make our living spaces comfortable and nice. Everyone, from kids to adults, can do chores. They include cleaning, tidying up, and taking care of things around the house.

There are many different chores. Some are done inside, like dusting or vacuuming. Others are outside, like gardening or sweeping the porch. Daily chores are things like making the bed or washing dishes. Weekly chores might be cleaning the bathroom or mopping the floor.

Learning Responsibility

Doing chores teaches us to be responsible. When we have a task, it’s our job to complete it. This helps us learn to take care of our things and manage our time. It also prepares us for life when we’re older because being responsible is a big part of being an adult.

Working Together

Chores can be more fun when we do them with others. Working together with family can make the time pass quickly and the work feel easier. It’s also a great way to spend time with each other and talk about our day.

Rewards of Chores

After chores are done, our home looks nice, which makes us feel good. Sometimes, we might even get a reward like allowance money or extra playtime. But the biggest reward is the proud feeling we get from doing a good job and helping out at home.

500 Words Essay on Chores At Home

Why chores matter.

You might wonder why you have to do chores when you could be playing or watching your favorite show. Chores are important because they teach you how to take care of your own space and be responsible. When you do chores, you learn skills that you will use when you grow up, like cooking and cleaning. These tasks also show you how to work as a team with your family. Everyone living in the house uses the space, so it’s fair that everyone helps to look after it.

Chores can be different in every home, but some common ones are:

Chores for Different Ages

When you help out with chores, you gain a lot. You learn to manage your time and to do things on your own. Also, when you finish a chore, you can feel proud that you’ve done something useful. It can be fun too! Sometimes, when the whole family is working together, you can talk, laugh, and make the work feel like a game.

Chores and Allowance

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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Happy studying!

Family Work

The daily work of families—the ordinary hands-on labor of sustaining life—has the power to bind us together.

By Kathleen Slaugh Bahr and Cheri A. Loveless in the Spring 2000 Issue

Illustrations by Rich Lillash

I grew up in a little town in Northern Utah, the oldest daughter in a family of 13 children. We lived on a small two-and-a-half-acre farm with a large garden, fruit trees, and a milk cow. We children loved helping our dad plant the garden, following behind him like little quail as he cut the furrow with his hoe and we dropped in the seeds. Weeding was less exciting, but it had to be done. I was never very good at milking the cow. Fortunately, my brothers shared that task.

In the autumn, we all helped with the harvest. I especially loved picking and bottling the fruit. It required the hands of all 13 of us plus Mom and Dad. We children swarmed through the trees picking the fruit. My dad would fire up an old camp stove where we heated the water to scald the fruit. My mother supervised putting the fruit in jars, adding the sugar, putting on the lids. My youngest sister remembers feeling very important because she had hands small enough to turn the peach halves if they fell into the jars upside downand they usually did. When the harvest was complete, I loved looking at the freezer full of vegetables and all the jars of fruit. They looked like jewels to me.

Caring for our large family kept all of us busy most of the time. Mother was the overseer of the inside work, and Dad the outside, but I also remember seeing my father sweep floors, wash dishes, and cook meals when his help was needed. As children we often worked together, but not all at the same task. While we worked we talked, sang, quarreled, made good memories, and learned what it meant to be family members, good sons or daughters and fathers or mothers, good Americans, good Christians.

As a young child, I didn’t know there was anything unusual about this life. My father and mother read us stories about their parents and grandparents, and it was clear that both my father and mother had worked hard as children. Working hard was what families did, what they always had done. Their work was “family work,” the everyday, ordinary, hands-on labor of sustaining life that cannot be ignored—feeding one another, clothing one another, cleaning and beautifying ourselves and our surroundings. It included caring for the sick and tending to the tasks of daily life for those who could not do it for themselves. It was through this shared work that we showed our love and respect for each other—and work was also the way we learned to love and respect each other.

“Many social and political forces continue the devaluation of family work.”

When I went to graduate school, I learned that not everyone considered this pattern of family life ideal. At the university, much of what I read and heard belittled family work. Feminist historians reminded us students that men had long been liberated from farm and family work; now women were also to be liberated. One professor taught that assigning the tasks of nurturing children primarily to women was the root of women’s oppression. I was told that women must be liberated from these onerous family tasks so that they might be free to work for money.

Today many social and political forces continue the devaluation of family work, encouraging the belief that family work is the province of the exploited and the powerless. Chief among these forces is the idea that because money is power, one’s salary is the true indication of one’s worth. Another is that the important work of the world is visible and takes place in the public sphere—in offices, factories, and government buildings. According to this ideology, if one wants to make a difference in the world, one must do it through participation in the world of paid work.

Some have tried to convince us of the importance of family work by calling attention to its economic value, declaring, as in one recent study, that a stay-at-home mom’s work is worth more than half a million dollars. 1 But I believe assigning economic value to household work does not translate into an increase in its status or power. In fact, devaluing family work to its mere market equivalent may even have the opposite effect. People who see the value of family work only in terms of the economic value of processes that yield measurable products—washed dishes, baked bread, swept floors, clothed children—miss what some call the “invisible household production” that occurs at the same time, but which is, in fact, more important to family-building and character development than the economic products. Here lies the real power of family work—its potential to transform lives, to forge strong families, to build strong communities. It is the power to quietly, effectively urge hearts and minds toward a oneness known only in Zion.

Illustration of a family picking apples together.

Back to Eden

Family work actually began with Adam and Eve. As best we can discern, they lived a life of relative ease in the Garden of Eden. They “dressed” and “kept” it ( Moses 3:15 ), but it isn’t clear what that entailed since the plants were already flourishing. There were no weeds, and Adam and Eve had no children to prod or cajole into watering or harvesting, if such tasks needed to be done

When they exercised their agency and partook of the fruit, Adam and Eve left their peaceful, labor-free existence and began one of hard work. They were each given a specific area of responsibility, yet they helped each other in their labors. Adam brought forth the fruit of the earth, and Eve worked along with him ( Moses 5:1 ). Eve bore children, and Adam joined her in teaching them ( Moses 5:12 ). They were not given a choice about these two lifetime labors; these were commandments ( Moses 4:22–25 ).

Traditionally, many have considered this need to labor as a curse, but a close reading of the account suggests otherwise. God did not curse Adam; He cursed the ground to bring forth thorns and thistles ( Moses 4:24 ), which in turn forced Adam to labor. And Adam was told, “Cursed shall be the ground for thy sake ” ( vs. 23 , emphasis added). In other words, the hard work of eating one’s bread “by the sweat of thy face” ( vs. 25 ) was meant to be a blessing.

According to the New Testament, the work of bearing and rearing children was also intended as a blessing. Writes the Apostle Paul: “[Eve] shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety” ( 1 Tim. 2:15 , emphasis added). Significantly, Joseph Smith corrected the verse to read, “ They shall be saved in childbearing” ( JST, 1 Tim. 2:15 , emphasis added), indicating that more than the sparing of Eve’s physical life was at issue here. Both Adam and Eve would be privileged to return to their Heavenly Father through the labor of bringing forth and nurturing their offspring.

According to scripture, then, the Lord blessed Adam and Eve (and their descendants) with two kinds of labor that would, by the nature of the work itself, help guarantee their salvation. Both of these labors—tilling the earth for food and laboring to rear children—are family work, work that sustains and nurtures members of a family from one day to the next. But there is more to consider. These labors literally could not be performed in Eden. These are the labors that ensure physical survival; thus, they became necessary only when mankind left a life-sustaining garden and entered a sphere where life was quickly overcome by death unless it was upheld by steady, continual, hard work. Undoubtedly the Lord knew that other activities associated with mortality—like study and learning or developing one’s talents—would also be important. But His initial emphasis, in the form of a commandment, was on that which had the power to bring His children back into His presence, and that was family work.

Since Eden many variations and distortions of the Lord’s original design for earthly labor have emerged. Still, the general pattern has remained dominant among many peoples of the earth, including families who lived in the United States at the turn of the last century. Mothers and fathers, teenagers and young children cared for their land, their animals, and for each other with their own hands. Their work was difficult, and it filled almost every day of their lives. But they recognized their family work as essential, and it was not without its compensations. It was social and was often carried out at a relaxed pace and in a playful spirit.

“The wrenching apart of work and home-life is one of the great themes in social history.”

Yet, long before the close of the 19th century this picture of families working together was changing. People realized that early death was often related to the harshness of their daily routine. Also, many young people longed for formal schooling or to pursue scientific careers or vocations in the arts, life courses that were sometimes prevented by the necessity of hard work. Industrialization promised to free people from the burden of domestic labor. Many families abandoned farm life and crowded into tenement housing in the cities to take jobs in factories. But factory work was irregular. Most families lived in poverty and squalor, and disease was common.

Reformers of the day sought to alleviate these miseries. In the spirit of the times, many of them envisioned a utopian world without social problems, where scientific inventions would free humans from physical labor, and modern medicine would eliminate disease and suffering. Their reforms eventually transformed work patterns throughout our culture, which in turn changed the roles of men, women, and children within the family unit.

By the turn of the century, many fathers began to earn a living away from the farm and the household. Thus, they no longer worked side by side with their children. Where a son once forged ties with his father as he was taught how to run the farm or the family business, now he could follow his father’s example only by distancing himself from the daily work of the household, eventually leaving home to do his work. Historian John Demos notes:

The wrenching apart of work and home-life is one of the great themes in social history. And for fathers, in particular, the consequences can hardly be overestimated. Certain key elements of pre-modern fatherhood dwindled and disappeared (e.g., father as pedagogue, father as moral overseer, father as companion). . . .

Of course, fathers had always been involved in the provision of goods and services to their families; but before the nineteenth century such activity was embedded in a larger matrix of domestic sharing. . . . Now, for the first time, the central activity of fatherhood was cited outside one’s immediate household. Now, being fully a father meant being separated from one’s children for a considerable part of every working day. 2

By the 1950s fathers were gone such long hours they became guests in their own homes. The natural connection between fathers and their children was supposed to be preserved and strengthened by playing together. However, play, like work, also changed over the course of the century, becoming more structured, more costly, and less interactive.

Initially, the changing role of women in the family was more subtle because the kind of work they did remained the same. Yet how their tasks were carried out changed drastically over the 20th century, influenced by the modernization of America’s factories and businesses. “Housewives” were encouraged to organize, sterilize, and modernize. Experts urged them to purchase machines to do their physical labor and told them that market-produced goods and services were superior because they freed women to do the supposedly more important work of the mind.

Women were told that applying methods of factory and business management to their homes would ease their burdens and raise the status of household work by “professionalizing” it. Surprisingly, these innovations did neither. Machines tended to replace tasks once performed by husbands and children, while mothers continued to carry out the same basic duties. Houses and wardrobes expanded, standards for cleanliness increased, and new appliances encouraged more elaborate meal preparation. More time was spent shopping and driving children to activities. With husbands at work and older children in school, care of the house and young children now fell almost exclusively to mothers, actually lengthening their work day. 3 Moreover, much of a mother’s work began to be done in isolation. Work that was once enjoyable because it was social became lonely, boring, and monotonous.

Even the purpose of family work was given a facelift. Once performed to nurture and care for one another, it was reduced to “housework” and was done to create “atmosphere.” Since work in the home had “use value” instead of “exchange value,” it remained outside the market economy and its worth became invisible. Being a mother now meant spending long hours at a type of work that society said mattered little and should be “managed” to take no time at all.

Prior to modernization, children shared much of the hard work, laboring alongside their fathers and mothers in the house and on the farm or in a family business. This work was considered good for them—part of their education for adulthood. Children were expected to learn all things necessary for a good life by precept and example, and it was assumed that the lives of the adults surrounding them would be worthy of imitation.

With industrialization, children joined their families in factory work, but gradually employers split up families, often rejecting mothers and fathers in favor of the cheap labor provided by children. Many children began working long hours to help put bread on the family table. Their work was hard, often dangerous, and children lost fingers, limbs, and lives. The child labor movement was thus organized to protect the “thousands of boys and girls once employed in sweat shops and factories” from “the grasping greed of business.” 4 However, the actual changes were much more complex and the consequences more far-reaching. 5 Child labor laws, designed to end the abuses, also ended child labor.

At the same time that expectations for children to work were diminishing, new fashions in child rearing dictated that children needed to have their own money and be trained to spend it wisely. Eventually, the relationship of children and work inside the family completely reversed itself: children went from economic asset to pampered consumer.

“In almost every facet of our prosperous, contemporary lifestyle, we strive for the ease associated with Eden. . . . Back to Eden is not onward to Zion.”

Thus, for each family member the contribution to the family became increasingly abstract and ever distant from the labor of Adam and Eve, until the work given as a blessing to the first couple had all but disappeared. Today a man feels “free” if he can avoid any kind of physical labor—actual work in the fields is left to migrant workers and illegal aliens. Meanwhile, a woman is considered “free” if she chooses a career over mothering at home, freer still if she elects not to bear children at all.

In almost every facet of our prosperous, contemporary lifestyle, we strive for the ease associated with Eden. The more abstract and mental our work, the more distanced from physical labor, the higher the status it is accorded. Better off still is the individual who wins the lottery or inherits wealth and does not have to work at all. Our homes are designed to reduce the time we must spend in family work. An enviable vacation is one where all such work is done for us—where we are fed without preparing our meals, dressed without ironing our shirts, cleaned up after wherever we go, whatever we do.

Even the way we go about building relationships denies the saving power inherent in working side by side at something that requires us to cooperate in spite of differences. Rather, we “bond” with our children by getting the housework out of the way so the family can participate in structured “play.” We improve our marriages by getting away from the house and kids, from responsibility altogether, to communicate uninterrupted as if work, love, and living were not inseparably connected. We are so thoroughly convinced that the relationship itself, abstract and apart from life, is what matters that, a relationship free from lasting obligations—to marriage, children, or family labor—is fast becoming the ideal. At every turn, we are encouraged to seek an Eden-like bliss where we enjoy life’s bounties without working for them and where we don’t have to have children, at least not interrupting whatever we’re doing. 6

However, back to Eden is not onward to Zion. Adam and Eve entered mortality to do what they could not do in the Garden: to gain salvation by bringing forth, sustaining, and nourishing life. As they worked together in this stewardship, with an eye single to the glory of God, a deep and caring relationship would grow out of their shared daily experience. Today, the need for salvation has not changed; the opportunity to do family work has not changed; the love that blossoms as spouses labor together has not changed. Perhaps, then, we are still obligated to do the work of Adam and Eve.

Illustration of father and son washing a window.

For Our Sakes

The story of Adam and Eve raises an important question. How does ordinary, family-centered work like feeding, clothing, and nurturing a family—work that often seems endless and mundane—actually bless our lives? The answer is so obvious in common experience that it has become obscure: Family work links people. On a daily basis, the tasks we do to stay alive provide us with endless opportunities to recognize and fill the needs of others. Family work is a call to enact love, and it is a call that is universal. Throughout history, in every culture, whether in poverty or prosperity, there has been the ever-present need to shelter, clothe, feed, and care for each other.

Ironically, it is the very things commonly disliked about family work that offer the greatest possibilities for nurturing close relationships and forging family ties. Some people dislike family work because, they say, it is mindless. Yet chores that can be done with a minimum of concentration leave our minds free to focus on one another as we work together. We can talk, sing, or tell stories as we work. Working side by side tends to dissolve feelings of hierarchy, making it easier for children to discuss topics of concern with their parents. Unlike play, which usually requires mental concentration as well as physical involvement, family work invites intimate conversation between parent and child.

We also tend to think of household work as menial, and much of it is. Yet, because it is menial, even the smallest child can make a meaningful contribution. Children can learn to fold laundry, wash windows, or sort silverware with sufficient skill to feel valued as part of the family. Since daily tasks range from the simple to the complex, participants at every level can feel competent yet challenged, including the parents with their overall responsibility for coordinating tasks, people, and projects into a cooperative, working whole.

Another characteristic of ordinary family work that gives it such power is repetition. Almost as quickly as it is done, it must be redone. Dust gathers on furniture, dirt accumulates on floors, beds get messed up, children get hungry and dirty, meals are eaten, clothes become soiled. As any homemaker can tell you, the work is never done. When compared with the qualities of work that are prized in the public sphere, this aspect of family work seems to be just another reason to devalue it. However, each rendering of a task is a new invitation for all to enter the family circle. The most ordinary chores can become daily rituals of family love and belonging. Family identity is built moment by moment amidst the talking and teasing, the singing and storytelling, and even the quarreling and anguish that may attend such work sessions.

Some people also insist that family work is demeaning because it involves cleaning up after others in the most personal manner. Yet, in so doing, we observe their vulnerability and weaknesses in a way that forces us to admit that life is only possible day-to-day by the grace of God. We are also reminded of our own dependence on others who have done, and will do, such work for us. We are reminded that when we are fed, we could be hungry; when we are clean, we could be dirty; and when we are healthy and strong, we could be feeble and dependent. Family work is thus humbling work, helping us to acknowledge our unavoidable interdependence; encouraging (even requiring) us to sacrifice “self” for the good of the whole.

God gave us family work as a link to one another, as a link to Him, as a stepping stone toward salvation that is always available and that has the power to transform us spiritually as we transform others physically. This daily work of feeding and clothing and sheltering each other is perhaps the only opportunity all humanity has in common. Whatever the world takes from us, it cannot take away the daily maintenance needed for survival. Whether we find ourselves in wealth, poverty, or struggling as most of us do in day-to-day mediocrity, we need to be fed, to be clothed, to be sheltered, to be clean. And so does our neighbor.

When Christ instituted one of the most sacred of ordinances, one still performed today among the apostles, what symbolism did He choose? Of all the things He could have done as He prepared His apostles for His imminent death and instructed them on how to become one, He chose the washing of feet—a task ordinarily done in His time by the most humble of servants. When Peter objected, thinking that this was not the kind of work someone of Christ’s earthly, much less eternal stature would be expected to do, Christ made clear the importance of participating: “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me” ( John 13:8 ).

So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you?

Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.

For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. ( John 13:12–15 )

And so for our sakes this work seems mindless, menial, repetitive, and demeaning. This daily toiling is in honor of life itself. After all, isn’t this temporal work of tending to the necessary and routine currents of daily life, whether for our families or for our neighbors, the work we really came to Earth to do? By this humble service—this washing of one another’s feet—we sacrifice our pride and invite God to wash our own souls from sin. Indeed, such work embodies within it the condescension of the Savior himself. It is nothing less than doing unto Christ, by serving the least of our brethren, what He has already done for us.

Illustration of mother and daughter mopping the floor together.

Family Work in Modern Times

If family work is indeed what I say it is—a natural invitation to become Christlike devalued by a world that has shattered family relationships in its quest for gain and ease—what can be done? Families working harmoniously together at a relaxed pace is a wonderful ideal, but what about the realities of our day? Men do work away from home, and many feel out-of-step when it comes to family work. Children do go to school, and between homework and other activities do not welcome opportunities to work around the house. Whether mothers are employed outside the home or not, they often live in exhaustion, doing most of the family work without willing help.

Yet we cannot go back to a pre-industrial society where hard family work was unavoidable, nor would it be desirable or appropriate to do so.

Life for most people may have changed over the century, but opportunities to instill values, develop character, and work side by side remain. We have all seen how times of crises call forth such effort—war, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods—all disasters no one welcomes, but they provide opportunities for us to learn to care for one another. In truth, opportunities are no less available in our ordinary daily lives.

The length of this article does not allow for the discussion we really need to have at this point, and there will never be “five easy steps” to accomplish these ends. Rather, the eternal principles that govern family work will be uncovered by each of us according to our personal time line of discovery. The following, however, are several ideas that may be helpful.

Tilling the Soil.

Although tilling the soil for our sustenance is unrealistic for most Americans today, modern prophets have stressed the need to labor with the earth, if only in a small way. Former LDS Church President Spencer W. Kimball was particularly insistent on the need to grow gardens–not just as a food supply, but because of the “lessons of life” inherent in the process as well as the family bonds that could be strengthened:

I hope that we understand that, while having a garden, for instance, is often useful in reducing food costs and making available delicious fresh fruits and vegetables, it does much more than this. Who can gauge the value of that special chat between daughter and Dad as they weed or water the garden? How do we evaluate the good that comes from the obvious lessons of planting, cultivating, and the eternal law of the harvest? And how do we measure the family togetherness and cooperating that must accompany successful canning? Yes, we are laying up resources in store, but perhaps the greater good is contained in the lessons of life we learn as we live providently and extend to our children their pioneer heritage. (Emphasis in original.) 7

Exemplifying the Attitudes We Want Our Children to Have.

Until we feel about family work the way we want our children to feel about it, we will teach them nothing. If we dislike this work, they will know it. If we do not really consider it our work, they will know it. If we wish to hurry and get it out of the way or if we wish we were doing it alone so it could better meet our standards, they will know it. Most of us have grown up with a strong conviction that we are fortunate to live at a time when machines and prosperity and efficient organizational skills have relieved us of much of the hands-on work of sustaining daily life. If we wish to change our family habits on this matter, we must first change our own minds and hearts.

Refusing Technology That Interferes With Togetherness.

As we labor together in our families, we will begin to cherish certain work experiences, even difficult ones, for reasons we can’t explain. When technology comes along that streamlines that work, we need not rush out and buy it just because it promises to make our labor more efficient. Saving time and effort is not always the goal. When we choose to heat convenience foods in the microwave or to process vegetables in a noisy machine, we choose not to talk, laugh, and play as we peel and chop. Deciding which modern conveniences to live with is a personal matter. Some families love washing dishes together by hand; others would never give up the dishwasher. Before we accept a scientific “improvement,” we should ask ourselves what we are giving up for what we will gain.

Insisting Gently That Children Help.

A frequent temptation in our busy lives today is to do the necessary family work by ourselves. A mother, tired from a long day of work in the office, may find it easier to do the work herself than to add the extra job of getting a family member to help. A related temptation is to make each child responsible only for his own mess, to put away his own toys, to clean his own room, to do his own laundry, and then to consider this enough family work to require of a child. When we structure work this way, we may shortchange ourselves by minimizing the potential for growing together that comes from doing the work for and with each other.

Canadian scholars Joan Grusec and Lorenzo Cohen, along with Australian Jacqueline Goodnow, compared children who did “self-care tasks” such as cleaning up their own rooms or doing their own laundry, with children who participated in “family-care tasks” such as setting the table or cleaning up a space that is shared with others. They found that it is the work one does “for others” that leads to the development of concern for others, while “work that focuses on what is one’s ‘own,’” does not. Other studies have also reported a positive link between household work and observed actions of helpfulness toward others. In one international study, African children who did “predominantly family-care tasks [such as] fetching wood or water, looking after siblings, running errands for parents” showed a high degree of helpfulness while “children in the Northeast United States, whose primary task in the household was to clean their own room, were the least helpful of all the children in the six cultures that were studied.” 8

Avoiding a Business Mentality at Home.

Even with the best of intentions, most of us revert to “workplace” skills while doing family work. We overorganize and believe that children, like employees, won’t work unless they are “motivated,” supervised, and perhaps even paid. This line of thought will get us into trouble. Some managing, of course, is necessary and helpful—but not the kind that oversees from a distance. Rather, family work should be directed with the wisdom of a mentor who knows intimately both the task and the student, who appreciates both the limits and the possibilities of any given moment. A common error is to try to make the work “fun” with a game or contest, yet to chastise children when they become naturally playful (“off task,” to our thinking). Fond family memories often center around spontaneous fun while working, like pretending to be maids, drawing pictures in spilled flour, and wrapping up in towels to scrub the floor. Another error is to reward children monetarily for their efforts. According to financial writer Grace Weinstein, “Unless you want your children to think of you as an employer and of themselves not as family members but as employees, you should think long and hard about introducing money as a motivational force. Money distorts family feeling and weakens the members’ mutual support.” 9

Working Side by side With Our Children.

Assigning family work to our children while we expect to be free to do other activities only reinforces the attitudes of the world. LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley said: “Children need to work with their parents, to wash dishes with them, to mop floors with them, to mow lawns, to prune trees and shrubbery, to paint and fix up, to clean up, and to do a hundred other things in which they will learn that labor is the price of cleanliness, progress, and prosperity.” 10

Most of the important lessons that flow from family work are derived from the cooperative nature of the work. Christ said, “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise” ( John 5:19 ). Perhaps this concept is more literal than we have assumed.

Several years ago one of my students, a young mother of two daughters, wrote of the challenges she experienced learning to feel a strong bond with her firstborn. Because this daughter was born prematurely, she was taken from her mother and kept in isolation at the hospital for the first several weeks of her life. Even after the baby came home, she looked so fragile that the mother was afraid to hold her. She felt many of the inadequacies typical of new mothers, plus additional ones that came from her own rough childhood experiences. As time passed, she felt that she loved her daughter, but suffered feelings of deficiency, often to the point of tears, and wondered, “Why don’t I have that ‘natural bond’ with my first child that I do with my second?”

Then she learned about the idea of working together as a means to build bonds. She purposely included her daughter in her work around the house, and gradually, she recalls, “our relationship . . . deepened in a way that I had despaired of ever realizing.” She describes the moment she realized the change that had taken place:

One morning before the girls were to leave [to visit family in another state], Mandy and I were sitting and folding towels together, chattering away. As I looked at her, a sudden rush of maternal love flooded over me–it was no longer something that I had to work at. She looked up at me and must have read my heart in my expression. We fell laughing and crying into each other’s arms. She looked up at me and said, “Mom, what would you do without me?” I couldn’t even answer her, because the thought was too painful to entertain. 11

In a world that lauds the signing of peace treaties and the building of skyscrapers as the truly great work, how can we make such a big thing out of folding laundry? Gary Saul Morson, a professor of Russian literature at Northwestern University, argues convincingly that “the important events are not the great ones, but the infinitely numerous and apparently inconsequential ordinary ones, which, taken together, are far more effective and significant.” 12

To Bring Again Zion

Family work is a gift from the Lord to every mortal, a gift that transcends time, place, and circumstance. On a daily basis it calls us, sometimes forces us, to face our mortality, to ask for the grace of God, to admit that we need our neighbor and that our neighbor needs us. It provides us with a daily opportunity to recognize the needs of those around us and put them before our own. This invitation to serve one another in oneness of heart and mind can become a simple tool that, over time, will bring the peace that attends Zion.

I learned firsthand of the power of this ordinary work not only to bind families but to link people of different cultures when I accompanied a group of university students on a service and study experience in Mexico. The infant mortality rate in many of the villages was high, and we had been invited by community leaders to teach classes in basic nutrition and sanitation. Experts who had worked in developing countries told us that the one month we had to do this was not enough time to establish rapport and win the trust of the people, let alone do any teaching. But we did not have the luxury of more time.

In the first village, we arrived at the central plaza where we were to meet the leaders and families of the village. On our part, tension was high. The faces of the village men and women who slowly gathered were somber and expressionless. They are suspicious of us, I thought. A formal introduction ceremony had been planned. The village school children danced and sang songs, and our students sang. The expressions on the faces of the village adults didn’t change.

“Helping one another nurture children, care for the land, prepare food, and clean homes can bind lives together.”

Unexpectedly, I was invited to speak to the group and explain why we were there. What could I say? That we were “big brother” here to try to change the ways they had farmed and fed their families for hundreds of years? I quickly said a silent prayer, desirous of dispelling the feeling of hierarchy, anxious to create a sense of being on equal footing. I searched for the right words, trying to downplay the official reasons for our visit, and began, “We are students; we want to share some things we have learned. . . .” Then I surprised even myself by saying, “But what we are really here for is, we would like to learn to make tortillas.” The people laughed. After the formalities were over, several wonderful village couples came to us and said, “You can come to our house to make tortillas.” The next morning, we sent small groups of students to each of their homes, and we all learned to make tortillas. An almost instant rapport was established. Later, when we began classes, they were surprisingly well attended, with mothers sitting on the benches and fathers standing at the back of the hall listening and caring for little children.

Because our classes were taking time from the necessary work of fertilizing and weeding their crops, we asked one of the local leaders if we could go to the fields with them on the days when we did not teach and help them hoe and spread the fertilizer. His first response was, “No. You couldn’t do that. You are teachers; we are farmers.” I assured him that several of us had grown up on farms, that we could tell weeds from corn and beans, and in any case, we would be pleased if they would teach us. So we went to the fields. As we worked together, in some amazing way we became one. Artificial hierarchies dissolved as we made tortillas together, weeded together, ate lunch together, and together took little excursions to enjoy the beauty of the valley. When the month was over, our farewells were sad and sweet—we were sorry to leave such dear friends, but happy for the privilege of knowing them.

Over the next several years I saw this process repeated again and again in various settings. I am still in awe of the power of shared participation in the simple, everyday work of sustaining life. Helping one another nurture children, care for the land, prepare food, and clean homes can bind lives together. This is the power of family work, and it is this power, available in every home, no matter how troubled, that can end the turmoil of the family, begin to change the world, and bring again Zion.

Study by Edelman Financial Services, May 5, 1999, (see https://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content5/mothers.worth.html ).
John Demos, “The Changing Faces of Fatherhood,” Past, Present, Personal: The Family and the Life Course in American History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 51–52.
See R. S. Cowan, More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave (New York: Basic Books, 1983).
William A. McKeever, “The New Child Labor Movement,” Journal of Home Economics , vol. 5 (April 1913), pp. 137–139.
See Viviana A. Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child (New York: Basic Books, 1985).
See Germaine Greer, Sex and Destiny (New York: Harper & Row, 1984), and J. Van de Kaa, “Europe’s Second Demographic Transition,” Population Bulletin , vol. 42, no. 1 (March 1987), pp. 1–57.
Spencer W. Kimball, “Welfare Services, The Gospel in Action,” Ensign , November 1977, p. 78.
Joan E. Grusec, Jacqueline J. Goodnow, and Lorenzo Cohen, “Household Work and the Development of Concern for Others,” Developmental Psychology , vol. 32, no. 6 (1996), pp. 999–1007.
Grace W. Weinstein, “Money Games Parents Play,” Redbook , August 1985, p. 107, taken from her book Children and Money: A Parents’ Guide (New York: New American Library, 1985).
Gordon B. Hinckley, “Four Simple Things to Help Our Families and Our Nations,” Ensign , September 1996, p. 7.
Michelle Cottingham, unpublished paper.
Gary Saul Morson, “Prosaics: An Approach to the Humanities,” American Scholar , vol. 57 (Autumn 1988), p. 519.

A mother bends down as she helps her daughter pump up a bicycle tire.

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I Created a System to Make Sure My Husband and I Divide Household Duties Fairly. Here’s How It Works

A woman cleans a cup in the kitchen sink at home

I was just pulling up to the departures gate at LAX, where I was catching an early morning flight to my one-day business meeting up in Seattle, when I got the following text from my husband, Seth: Some guy left his jacket and beer bottle on our lawn.

Weird. Gross. And, more importantly, what am I supposed to do about it from the road?

When I returned home 16 hours later and long after the sun had gone down, I’d forgotten about the text until I pulled into my driveway, and there they were sitting in the dark — some guy’s jacket and beer bottle on our lawn. Seriously? I began to seethe. As I unlocked the front door, I quickly tried to work out why.

I was reminded of the many girlfriends who had described “the text” and its spiritual cousin, “the email forward,” as trigger issues in their marriages — a correspondence comes through to both you and your partner from your child’s school, coach, music teacher, doctor’s office or the DMV, and your partner forwards it to you. The implication: I don’t have time to handle this — it’s on you.

That night, standing in the doorway to our bedroom, I understood that my husband expected me to put down my carry-on, grab a trash bag and a pair of rubber gloves, walk outside, pick up the jacket and beer bottle, throw them into the bag, walk the whole thing to the bin in the alley and return home. When I did just that, I made note of how long it took me to do this: 12 minutes. Of my time. That I’ll never get back. I briefly considered these 12 minutes multiplied by thousands of “this is on you” instances required to get through each of my days and began to understand acutely why so many women are running against the clock from the moment we wake up.

What might not be so clear, because it wasn’t to me that night, is: Why was this on me?

Why domestic work falls to women

The answer came to me 12 minutes later when I returned to our bedroom after cleaning up the mess in the front yard, still wearing rubber gloves: Seth was not valuing my time equally to his.

In my day job, I’m a Harvard-trained lawyer and mediator who works with families. But at my own home, I realized, I wasn’t cutting a very good deal for myself. Like so many women — whether they work outside the home or not — I was picking up more than my fair share of the slack in the running of our household . In heterosexual partnerships, women still do the bulk of childcare and domestic work — the National Survey of Families and Households showed that as recently as 2010, married mothers like myself and many of my friends did about 1.9 times the housework of married fathers .

It turned out that my husband (a good guy and progressive in many aspects of our life together — really!) took on less housework after our kids came along , just as a 2015 study in the Journal of Marriage and Family showed is common. I determined to find out why even men like him assume that domestic responsibilities should be so unevenly stacked. In my interviews and conversations on this topic over the last several years with more than 500 people — women and men in straight and same-sex relationships and from all U.S. Census categories in terms of ethnicity and socioeconomic status — overwhelmingly expressed a related idea that contributes to the same outcome: the notion that men’s time is finite and women’s time is infinite. And while women’s time is known to be treated as less valuable in the workplace (see the ongoing battle to achieve equal pay), according to my research, this mental discrepancy where men’s time is guarded as a finite resource (like diamonds) and women’s time is abundant (like sand) can feel even more stark at home and after kids.

So what’s the solution? In an attempt to make visible all the invisible and often unacknowledged work it takes to run a family, I created a document I proudly called the “Sh-t I Do List” that included every single thing I did day-to-day with a quantifiable time component. Tallying every brain-zapping, time-sucking detail of my domestic responsibilities was no small feat, but when I was finished — with the help of women all over the country who wrote in with their own list items — I’d enumerated and categorized 100 household tasks with 20 subtasks that totaled over 1,000 items of invisible work (from laundry to pet care to meal prep to birthday presents) that kept our happy home running smoothly.

When I sent my master list to Seth one triumphant afternoon, expecting a pat on the back (or at least a little recognition for a job well done), he’d texted me back a single emoji: 🙈.

Not even the courtesy of the full trio. Regardless, I got the message — he didn’t want to see, hear or speak of it.

My husband is a smart, caring guy. So why was it so hard for him to understand and appreciate how much extra work I was doing to benefit our family and the home — and the eventual burnout effect it was likely to have on me? Then it hit me: lists alone don’t work; but systems do.

How I fostered more fairness at home

For more than a decade, I’ve consulted with hundreds of families in my professional life by providing my expertise in organizational-management strategy. What if I applied these strategies in my own house by creating a new system in which every task that benefits our home is not only named and counted but also explicitly defined and specifically assigned?

I began to fantasize about what my life and the lives of all of my friends would look like if — in partnership with our spouses — we brought systematic function to what was currently a sh-t show of family dysfunction. I couldn’t think of a couple out there who wouldn’t benefit from a practical plan of action to optimize productivity and efficiency, as well as a new consciousness and language for thinking and talking about domestic life.

The result is a system I termed Fair Play, a figurative game played with your partner, where each partner holds certain “cards” that correspond to domestic tasks. Here are my four easy-to-follow rules that set you up to play.

Rule #1: All time is created equal.

Both partners need to reframe how you value time, and then commit to the goal of rebalancing the hours that domestic work requires between the two of you. The reality is that many straight couples, the mental load will continue to fall on the female partner as the list-maker/planner/household manager until both recognize that time is a limited commodity. You both only have 24 hours in a day. Only when you both believe that your time is equally valuable will the division of labor shift toward parity in your relationship.

Rule #2: Reclaim your right to be interesting .

When your time and your mind become fully focused on the tasks required to run a household, it’s easy to feel like your personal passions aren’t priorities. Both partners deserve to reclaim or discover the interests that make you each uniquely you , beyond your roles as wonderful parents and partners. And Fair Play requires you both to demand time and mental space to explore this right — and to honor that right for each other.

Rule #3: Start where you are now.

You cannot get to where you want to go without first understanding: Who am I? Who am I really in a relationship with? And what is my specific intention for engaging my partner in renegotiating the household workload? Ask yourself: Am I seeking more acknowledgment of everything I do for us? More efficiency so I can have more time for myself? Less resentment and a greater sense of fairness? When you have a clear sense of what you want, you’re more likely to get it. Start the conversation by laying it all out to your partner.

Rule #4: Establish your values and standards .

Take stock of your domestic ecosystem and choose what you want to do in service of the home based on what’s most valuable to you and your partner. Just because you’re in the habit of doing a task doesn’t mean it’s a task that absolutely needs to be done. Maybe you value cooking a homemade breakfast for your child each morning — or maybe, when you and your partner consider what’s most important to you, you decide you’d rather have a few minutes in bed to check in before you start the day, and fruit and yogurt to-go are perfectly fine. After you and your partner determine what “cards” — tasks that must be done because they hold value to your family — are in play, you must mutually agree on a reasonable standard for how those tasks are handled. It’s not enough for your spouse to say he’ll be in charge of the “baseball” card — he has to pack the sports bag with all the necessary gear and snacks, arrange for pick-up and drop-off from practice, make sure all the games are on the family calendar and then show up on the right field at the right time. The more you invest in unpacking the details, the more you will be rewarded.

It didn’t happen overnight, but starting with Rule #1, attitudes started to shift within our home. After the drunk guy’s jacket incident, my husband began to notice and appreciate that we both have the same number of minutes in a day. (The “All Time Is Created Equal” sign that I posted on the bathroom mirror did help to hammer home the point.) It hasn’t always been easy; a shift in thinking takes deliberate effort. Whenever Seth and I would revert to our old, familiar dialogue like, “I don’t have time… so, can you?” or “I don’t have time either, but I guess this is on me,” I’d attempt to reframe the conversation with words that honor and respect how we each choose to spend our finite time. I finally understood that how I’d spent those particular 12 minutes picking up the drunk guy’s jacket and beer bottle was really irrelevant. I wasn’t interested in keeping a minute-by-minute scorecard with my husband; I simply wanted both of us to begin to value our time equally — and to act accordingly.

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Sharing chores a key to good marriage, say majority of married adults

Sharing household chores is an important part of marriage for a majority of married adults. But among those who have children, there are notable differences in perceptions of who actually does more of the work around the house.

More than half of married U.S. adults (56%) – both with and without children – say sharing household chores is “very important” to a successful marriage, according to the most recent report from Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Study. That ranks behind having shared interests (64%) and a satisfying sexual relationship (61%), but ahead of having children (43%) and having adequate income (42%).

Among married adults, men are slightly more likely than women to say sharing household chores is very important to a successful marriage (63% vs. 58%). And those ages 18 to 29 (67%) and ages 30 to 49 (63%) are more likely to say sharing chores is very important, compared with 57% of those ages 50 to 64 and 56% of those 65 and older.

According to a separate Pew Research Center survey of American parents conducted in 2015, half of married or cohabiting couples living with at least one child under age 18 say their household chores are split about equally. But 41% say the mother does more, while 8% say the father does more. The workload is seen as somewhat more equitable in households where both parents work full time: 59% of adults in this type of household say chores are divided about equally, while 31% say the mother does more and 9% say the father does more.

To be sure, even among couples where both partners work full time, the number of hours worked may differ significantly, and this could in turn influence how household chores are distributed. Previous research indicates that, among full-time working parents, fathers work more hours, on average, than mothers do.

And indeed, personal earnings, which are linked to hours worked outside the home, are associated with how U.S. parents perceive the way their household chores are split. Those who earn about the same as their partner are more likely to say the division of household labor is about equal (65%) than those who earn less (52%) or more (51%). Among those parents who earn less than their partner, 41% say they personally take on more chores than their partner, while just 6% say their partner does more around the house. And among those who earn more than their partner, 29% say their partner does the larger share of chores, compared with 20% who say they personally do more.

Perceptions about how chores are delegated differ significantly by gender. Fathers are more likely than mothers to say the chores are split about evenly between both partners in their household (56% vs. 46%). Fully half of mothers (50%) say they take up more responsibilities around the house than their partner, compared with just 12% of fathers who say they do more around the house. About one-third of fathers (32%) say their spouse or partner takes on more of the responsibility for chores in their household, compared with just 4% of mothers who say the father does more.

Family & Relationships
Gender Roles
Household Structure & Family Roles
Marriage & Divorce

A.W. Geiger is a former associate digital producer and writer for Pew Research Center .

A growing share of U.S. husbands and wives are roughly the same age

What do americans think about fewer people choosing to have children, the experiences of u.s. adults who don’t have children, what’s new with you what americans talk about with family and friends, same-sex marriage around the world, most popular.

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Household chores in the family

‘This way up’: What goes on in the city of Izhevsk, famous for Kalashnikovs

Symbol of Izhevsk - The Peoples' Friendship monument

“Here everyone knows each other. This is Izhevsk! They make Kalashnikov machine guns here. The whole world uses them. What else do we have? The Buranovskiye Babushki [a pop group with eight grannies] also produce here.”

The mustachioed taxi driver bursts into laughter after mentioning the grandmothers. His fingers tap the steering wheel to the rhythm of Udmurtian rap. The Buranovskiye Babushki are the republic’s brand. In 2012 they participated in Eurovision with their song “Party for Everybody” and came second. Buranovo village is located 36 km from Izhevsk. The grandmothers are indeed “self-produced”: They have three groups. But the Kalashnikov still reigns supreme in these parts in terms of status. Little here alludes to the presence of the Udmurt people though - just the bilingual road signs.

“Do you know that Steve Jobs is an honorary Udmurt,” the taxi driver asks me.

Yes I know. Other honorary Udmurts are Kazimir Malevich, Emir Kusturica, Albert Einstein, and John Lennon. People say that somewhere in the city you can find extensions of their graves (with the exception of Kusturica) in the form of iron leaves on the ground. The honor was awarded for having a “special influence on Udmurtia,” but it’s actually just a result of Izhevsk artists fooling around. It was the same when the city’s residents erected a small copy of St. Petersburg’s Alexander Column, cast a small Tsar Cannon, and placed a portrait of the Romanovs by a cemetery entrance - although not a single Romanov is buried there.

The car stops and the taxi driver winks conspiratorially.

“Don’t pay any attention to it, everything here is…a bit surreal,” says Nikita. He’s lived in Izhevsk all his life and is shooting a documentary film about the republic.

"Everything here is…a bit surreal”

The local Indians

The Russian Drama Theater stands in Izhevsk’s historical center. It’s a three-story building with columns like those outside the entrance to Moscow’s central metro stations. The adjacent building houses another drama theater, showing only Udmurt productions. It’s smaller and without columns.

“We don’t understand the difference between ourselves and the Udmurts. It’s obvious but it’s not clear where the border lies,” explains Nikita.

In the past the Udmurts were called Botyaks because 40 km from Izhevsk lies the city of Votkinsk and the Votka River. Here the people are considered something like local Indians. American artist Nanibah Chacon from New Mexico came to Izhevsk and spent two weeks painting a mural. It was a profile of a woman wearing a traditional Udmurt shawl (indistinguishable from a Russian one). The artist was amazed by the relation between the distant cultures: Elderly women from the Navajo tribe wear the same shawls.

Mural by Nanibah Chacon in Izhevsk

Obviously there is no Udmurt Reservation here. But there are elements that allude to it.

During the Soviet Union Russians worked at factories as the qualified labor force, while Udmurts did the “dirty work” or were employed in villages. The local people were considered savages. During Joseph Stalin’s reign the word “ votyak ” became a pejorative term. Many were ashamed of their origins. But today, Nikita says, attitudes are changing. People are treated as equals.

From the window of his 13th floor studio apartment the “progressive” district of Izhevsk looks like it can fit in your palm: Pipes, concrete, Factory smoke, a colorless sky.

“Progressive” district of Izhevsk looks like it can fit in your palm: Pipes, concrete, Factory smoke, a colorless sky.

Explosive subject

A blinding light reflects from a large water stain. This is the Izhevsk Pond. It was excavated by hand where the Yagul Udmurt village once stood during the Russian Empire in 1760, in order to build the city’s first enterprise – an iron factory. The old building with the shabby stucco still stands on the shore as a silent reproach to the authorities, who have no money for its reconstruction.

Old iron factory's building

In the winter practically no one walks around the pond. There are no mothers with carriages, no tourists. It is two o’clock in the afternoon and only two men and I are here. They are both pensioners who moved to Izhevsk more than 20 years ago. They were struggling to feed themselves and it was “just fantastic here.” The hungry times were the 90s: After the collapse of the USSR many factories closed down. The men find it difficult talking about it - they still resent the Soviet government...and the current administration.

The hungry times were the 90s. The men find it difficult talking about it.

Izhevsk wasn’t even hit that hard. It was saved by a large concentration of factories, some of which are still going. Those that were shut down have been turned into commercial centers - the same gray hangers simply house something else.

Until the middle of the 80s there was no direct road connecting the city to neighboring regions. Because of the state defense industries, one could only enter with the special pass. The place was not secret enough to bear a code number instead of a name but tourists were still not allowed, unlike today. Travelers are attracted to the city’s ethnic character and its industries (tours of the plants are available). However, the locals are indifferent to the fact the city produces the most popular weapon in the world.

“No one here really knows what this city actually produces. I’ve never really given it much thought… But actually, yes, this place has a lot,” says Kolya, a 27-year-old shop assistant.

Izhevsk city

A drowned Udmurt

Starting in the 2000s Izhevsk residents were told that soon the city would have a million residents. But this has not happened. Currently, there are just over 646,000 people here. The shop assistant does not hide his disappointment. “It’s stale and dull,” this is what he thinks of Izhevsk. Next year he’s moving to St. Petersburg. You can hear the same type of talk among the students standing by the entrance of the women’s dormitory.

In part this mood can be explained by the typical imbalance between the provinces and the capital in Russia. It is thought that all the best things are in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Many people feel Izhevsk fails to deliver as a city in terms of things to do, but Nikita thinks the place has an interesting internal cultural life.

Currently, there are just over 646,000 people in Izhevsk.

Between the middle of the 80s and the beginning of the 2000s there was a myth surrounding the city: “Izhevsk is the Russian capital of electronic music.” It had a few record labels, such as Kama Records (no longer around), about 50 groups, performances by DJs from England, the U.S., Germany, and Iceland. Despite the disappearance of the label, there are still many creative people here.

“Everyone sits in their bedroom. Actually, this is very Russian: A musician who composes in the bedroom. Then he uploads it all into the Internet”.

You can understand the people who want to leave the city. But some say they are happy here.

On Nikita’s wall hangs a poster of his documentary film, The Drowned Man . It shows upside down silhouettes of the factories and the pipes “drowned” in Izhevsk Pond. Catching my worried look, he notes: “In the minds of Udmurts a drowned person is not a dead person. It is a person who went to live in a parallel world and does not interact with the world of the people who remained on the ground. This is a metaphor for Izhevsk life. We even had a collection of music called ‘News of the Underwater Izhevsk.’ This is the underground we have. There isn’t one nice club around. Yet we have really exciting cultural life.”

You can understand the people who want to leave the city. But some say they are happy here. It’s just that Izhevsk can come across as a bland city. For example, you can be walking down a street and see nothing but high-rise apartment boxes, one after the other.

People say the city resembles a microchip

Suddenly I see a sign on one of the buildings written in large letters: “This side up.” What does it mean?

“This is what they wrote on TV boxes or on various cargos. The installation appeared on the building in the beginning of the century.”

It means that people are very fragile, that they are not merchandise, says Nikita. I can imagine thousands of fragile people assembling machine guns and the country’s nuclear shield. And then they return to their concrete boxes and muse over who had a bigger influence on them: Native Udmurt and avant-garde artist Kazimir Malevich or distant Udmurt John Lennon.

Nightlife in Izhevsk

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The Udmurtia Republic, Russia

The capital city of Udmurt republic: Izhevsk .

The Udmurtia Republic - Overview

The Republic of Udmurtia or the Udmurt Republic is a federal subject of Russia, part of the Volga Federal District. Izhevsk is the capital city of the region.

The population of the Udmurtia Republic is about 1,484,500 (2022), the area - 42,061 sq. km.

Udmurt republic flag

Udmurt republic coat of arms.

Udmurt republic anthem

Udmurt republic map, russia, udmurt republic latest news and posts from our blog:.

3 June, 2011 / The explosion of ammunition depots in Udmurtia .

History of Udmurtia

According to archaeological sites, the first people began to settle on the territory of present Udmurtia in the Mesolithic Age (7-10 thousand years ago). In the subsequent archaeological epochs, in the western Urals, the processes of differentiation of the ancient Finno-Ugric population took place. Later, about one thousand years ago, the Udmurt ethnos formed.

In the 10th century, significant impact on the ancient Udmurts was their inclusion in the Volga Bulgaria state. Since the 13th century, the southern Udmurts were under the influence of the Golden Horde, and then - the Kazan Khanate. The largest handicraft, cult and administrative center of the northern Udmurts, who remained independent during the Middle Ages, was Idnakar.

In the 12th-13th centuries, the first Russian settlements appeared on the Vyatka River. By the 15th century, the northern Udmurts were included in the Grand Duchy of Moscow. In 1552, after Moscow conquered the Kazan Khanate, the northern and southern Udmurts found themselves within the borders of one state.

More Historical Facts…

In the 17th-18th centuries, the development of this territory began, the first enterprises were built, metallurgy and production of weapons were the most developed industries. Since 1731, the mass conversion of the Udmurts to Christianity began.

Until the middle of the 18th century, the population of Udmurtia was engaged mainly in agriculture and crafts. In the late 1750s and early 1760s, the largest industrial enterprises - Izhevsk and Votkinsk plants were built. In 1774-1775, the Udmurts took part in the peasant war led by Emelian Pugachev.

In the second half of the 19th century, there was a rapid development of industrial production, new factories, schools, gymnasiums were opened. In 1889, in the south of the territory of present Udmurtia, the first railways were built. The railways played an important role in the economic development of the region. In the 18th - early 20th centuries, the Udmurt lands were part of the Vyatka province.

On November 4, 1920, Votskaya Autonomous Oblast was formed. In 1921, Izhevsk became the capital city of the region. On January 1, 1932, it was renamed into Udmurt Autonomous Oblast. On December 28, 1934, it became the Udmurt Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. During the Second World War, dozens of industrial enterprises from Kiev, Kharkov, Baku, Odessa, Podolsk and other cities were evacuated to Udmurtia.

On November 4, 1990, the Supreme Soviet of the Udmurt ASSR proclaimed the sovereignty of the republic, the region received a new name - the Udmurt Republic or simply Udmurtia. The collapse of the USSR caused a deep crisis in the economy of Udmurtia, which especially struck the engineering industry focused on military production.

Today, the status of the national republic and the defense orientation of the region’s industry largely determine the socio-economic and cultural identity of the Republic of Udmurtia.

Beautiful nature of Udmurtia

Hilly landscape of Udmurtia

Author: Iliya Chirkov

Udmurtia scenery

Author: Victor Sergeev

Winter in Udmurtia

Author: Aivar Ruukel

Udmurtia - Features

Udmurtia is located in the east of the East European Plain, on the territory adjacent to the western slope of the Urals. The length of the territory from north to south is about 297 km, from west to east - 200 km.

The climate is moderately continental with cold snowy winters and warm summers. The average temperature in July is about plus 18 degrees Celsius, in January - minus 14 degrees Celsius.

The Udmurts are the indigenous population of the region. It is one of the ancient East-Finnish peoples of the northwestern forest area of the Urals. The total number of the Udmurts in the world is about 750 thousand people. About 65% of them live in the Udmurt Republic. The state languages of the republic are Russian and Udmurt.

The national composition of Udmurtia according to the 2010 census: Russians (62.2%), Udmurts (28%), Tatars (6.7%). The largest cities and towns of Udmurtia are Izhevsk (645,200), Votkinsk (96,100), Sarapul (93,400), Glazov (91,200), Mozhga (48,200).

The main mineral resource of Udmurtia is oil. The explored industrial oil reserves are about 300 million tons, with an annual production of 10 million tons. Today, all major deposits have been developed for decades and are in the stage of falling production. The republic also produces coal and peat.

Udmurtia also has industrial reserves of limestone, dolomite, building sand, crushed stone, clay for production of bricks, building stone, sand-gravel mixture. About 46% of the territory is covered with forests, half of which are coniferous.

The largest rivers of Udmurtia - the Kama and the Vyatka - have origins in the north of the republic. From the south-east and south, Udmurtia is washed by the Votkinsk and Nizhnekamsk reservoirs, formed on the Kama River as a result of the construction of dams of hydroelectric power stations.

Udmurtia - Economy

The Udmurt Republic is a region with developed industry and diversified agricultural production. It has the highest concentration of defense enterprises in Russia. The main industries are machine building, metalworking, ferrous metallurgy, and woodworking.

Cars and vans, paper machines, motorcycles, equipment for oil fields, hunting and sporting guns, chemical equipment are produced in the region. Izhmash (formerly Izhevsk Arms Factory) is Russia’s largest producer of small arms, created by the decree of Emperor Alexander I in 1807. Logging is conducted in the northern and western parts of the republic.

Agricultural lands occupy about 50% of the territory of the republic. Rye, wheat, buckwheat, barley, oats, millet, peas, corn, sunflower, flax, rape, potatoes, vegetables, forage crops are grown.

The only airport of the republic is located in Izhevsk. Several federal highways pass through the territory of Udmurtia: M7 (access to Izhevsk and Perm), P320, P321, P322. The leading role in interregional relations of the Udmurt Republic is played by rail transport carrying out the bulk of interregional transport of goods and passengers.

Pictures of the Udmurt Republic

Village in the Udmurt Republic

Author: Nadezda Shklyaeva

Pond in Udmurtia

Author: Andreev Sergey

Field road in Udmurtia

Author: Joonas Tuuling

Tourism in Udmurtia

Tourist complex of Udmurtia includes about 2.5 thousand objects. Many of them are related to the life and work of such world-famous people as Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov, Galina Alekseevna Kulakova, Nadezhda Andreevna Durova.

There are more than 150 accommodation places for tourists, 32 museums, over 2 thousand historical and cultural monuments, natural parks, reserves and monuments, sports complexes. Rural tourism is also developing. The reception of tourists in rural areas is organized by about 150 private households.

The main souvenirs of Udmurtia are handicrafts: woven bags, tapestries, felt products, folk toys, carved wooden souvenirs, boxes, birch bark, trinkets made from Ural gems.

The main sights of Udmurtia:

Museum-Exhibition Complex named after Kalashnikov in the central square of Izhevsk,
Architectural and Ethnographic Museum-Reserve “Ludorvai” located not far from Izhevsk, examples of old Russian and Udmurt buildings,
House-Estate of Tchaikovsky in Votkinsk,
Sarapul - a town where you can feel the atmosphere of pre-revolutionary Russia; the pearl of Sarapul is the villa of the merchant Bashenin;
Source of the Kama River in the village of Kuliga in Debessky district,
Old Believers villages in the north of the Udmurt Republic and the Siberian tract museum (Igrinsky district), a place where you can feel like a convict of the Russian Empire times,
Cedar Grove in Zayakino - a nature monument of regional importance,
Zuevy Springs - the southernmost point of Udmurtia where the Kama spreads almost to the horizon, pilgrims from all over Russia come here to visit the Holy and Gremyachiy springs with healing water,
Mount Baigurez - a hill on the bank of the Cheptsa River, one of the most beautiful places in Udmurtia with a magnificent view of the surroundings,
Baba Yaga Residence in the village of Kotlovka in Grahovsky district, on the bank of the Yaga River. Baba Yaga is a character (a forest witch) of Russian folk tales,
Holy Assumption Convent in the village of Perevoznoye in Votkinskiy district.

There are several sanatoriums and curing resorts in Udmurtia, the largest of them are “Varzi-Yatchi”, “Metallurg” (located in Izhevsk) and “Uva”. In 2000s, new recreation centers came into being - the mountain skiing centers of “Chekeril” and “Nechkino”.

Natural parks of the Udmurt Republic:

National Park “Nechkinsky” on the coast of the Kama River,
Natural Park “Sharkan” (Sharkansky district),
Natural Park “Ust-Belsk” (Karakulinsky district),
State Natural Reserve “Kokmansky”,
State Natural Botanical Reserve “Andreevsky Pine Forest”.

Udmurt republic of Russia photos

Author: Nadezhda Danilova

Country life in Udmurtia

Author: Urasinov Yury

Paved road in Udmurtia

Author: Andrey Omelchenko

Churches in the Republic of Udmurtia

Wooden church in the Udmurt Republic

Church in Udmurtia

Cathedral in the Udmurt Republic

Author: Rudolf Kaldin

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Republic of Udmurtia

Izhevsk is the capital of the Republic of Udmurtia and located almost midway between Kazan and Perm . The city began its history as the location of an ironworks founded in 1760 and today remains an industrial city. The most famous item to be produced here is the Kalashnikov AK-47 automatic rifle and its creator, Mikhail Kalashnikov, spent most of his life in the city.

Top recommendations in Izhevsk

Udmurt Culture

Learn about the culture and traditions of the Udmurt people, as well as about the history and nature of Izhevsk and Udmurtia at the Kuzebai Gerd National Museum and the Museum of Applied Art. In additional, just outside the city is Ludorvai Archeological and Ethnographical Museum Reserve.

Industrial Heritage

See examples of the weapons and motorbikes produced by the Izhmash Factory at the Museum of the History of Izhmash and find out more about the Kalashnikov and its creator at the Kalashnikov Museum-Exhibition Centre.

Go and see the spectacular St Michael’s Cathedral – the most famous landmark in the city. The city has two other cathedrals which are also worth seeing: St Aleksandr Nevsky’s Eparchial Cathedral and the Trinity Cathedral.

Out of the City

Take the opportunity to see more of the republic. Two nearby options which can be easily visited from Izhevsk by bus are Votkinsk and Sarapul. Votkinsk is the birthplace of composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Sarapul is a quaint city on the River Kama with many historical buildings.

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Off the Grid, Extremely Online

In corners of the internet — and in wooded, undeveloped parts of the country — young men are documenting their efforts to to live off the land.

Nate Petroski, who has long hair and a long red beard, sits in a lawn chair holding a phone.

By Jack Crosbie

Nate Petroski’s address doesn’t help visitors find his house. Locating it, instead, requires specific GPS coordinates to a spot deep in West Virginia’s Appalachian Mountains, and precise instructions on how to get there. Many of the surrounding roads are impassable without an ATV to traverse several creeks and muddy inclines.

It’s much easier to visit him online.

Mr. Petroski, 39, is a prominent video creator in the modern-day homesteading movement, determined to live a life of semi-self-sufficiency “off grid,” or disconnected from the power, water, gas and telecommunications lines that connect most residential addresses in the United States. But rather than embracing the reclusive life often associated with off-grid homesteaders in rural areas, Mr. Petroski is extremely prolific online, broadcasting his daily life to millions of followers on social media.

His property, known as NarroWay Homestead, is one of the most sophisticated and most-watched operations in a burgeoning niche of online creators who document their off-grid or sustainable living projects across the country, often promoting a way of life that seems diametrically opposed to the mediums they use to share it.

“Almost everything I own is a hybrid of ancient knowledge and modern technology,” Mr. Petroski said. His water, he explained, comes from rainwater that runs off his roof into a self-filtering pipe and tank system — and is then pumped throughout his buildings with solar-powered electric pumps.

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ENGLISH SPM GUIDED ESSAY
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IELTS essay Benefits of doing and sharing housework
In my opinion, doing and sharing housework has enormous benefits. I agree with doing housework has many advantages. Our house will be cleaner, orderly if we clean the floor every day. We will feel more comfortable after a busy day when we come back to a clean house. According to psychologists, most people usually doing housework tend to rarely ...
IELTS essay Household chores in the family
Most people receive enormous benefit when sharing the household chores, they could be considered a good example for their children. Besides, doing domestic chores together is likely to be a great way to help families closer and create a cozy atmosphere. Nowadays, as women and. men. have to. work full time, so. household duties should be.
MY HOUSEHOLD CHORES
MY HOUSEHOLD CHORES. There are certain things in life which you have to do whether you like it or not. One of such things is household chores, doing which is a necessity. It is what someone in the family has to do every day in spite of his or her wish and desire. You can hardly find a person who doesn't like comfort, delicious food, clean and ...
'This way up': What goes on in the city of Izhevsk, famous for
Those that were shut down have been turned into commercial centers - the same gray hangers simply house something else. Until the middle of the 80s there was no direct road connecting the city to ...
The Udmurtia Republic, Russia travel guide
Udmurtia - Features. Udmurtia is located in the east of the East European Plain, on the territory adjacent to the western slope of the Urals. The length of the territory from north to south is about 297 km, from west to east - 200 km. The climate is moderately continental with cold snowy winters and warm summers.
Завьяловское сельское поселение
32,9 км на восток от Ижевска. 97,1 км на северо-запад от Нефтекамска. Завьяловское сельское поселение, Завьяловский район, Удмуртия, Россия - интерактивная спутниковая карта Завьяловского сельского поселения.
Izhevsk
Izhevsk is the capital of the Republic of Udmurtia and located almost midway between Kazan and Perm. The city began its history as the location of an ironworks founded in 1760 and today remains an industrial city. The most famous item to be produced here is the Kalashnikov AK-47 automatic rifle and its creator, Mikhail Kalashnikov, spent most ...
Off the Grid, Extremely Online
But his days are spent on the myriad chores a modern homesteader faces: tinkering with solar power arrays, feeding animals, checking the rainwater collection system and, of course, populating his ...