Move over attachment parenting; there’s a new trend—Hoover attachment parenting.
Janetta R. Bagley remembers her Saturday mornings as a kid in suburban New Jersey, filled with chores like sweeping, vacuuming, and cleaning the garage.
Now, she’s a single mother trying to get her 5-year-old son involved in household duties.
The challenge? His father doesn’t help out at all.
“He believes that he’ll learn eventually and doesn’t need a strict schedule,” Bagley shared, noting their separate living arrangements. “On Saturdays, he says he’s done enough school and pushes back. It’s challenging.”
Beyond that, Bagley is also dealing with the typical resistance from kids who aren’t excited about cleaning.
“My son often finds his Nintendo much more appealing, but I’m steady about what he needs to do,” she explained.
Welcome to the modern “chore wars.” It’s a familiar story for Upper East Side parent Sharon Feilaisen and others like her. She runs a mom club, organizing events in various upscale locations, and firmly believes in involving her 2-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son in chores.
Unfortunately, they sometimes pretend they don’t hear her when she asks for help with cleaning or other tasks.
“Sometimes, they act as if they didn’t catch that,” Feilaisen said. Still, she pushes through.
“Breaking tasks down into fun activities can help,” she suggests, mentioning that charts or sticker rewards can motivate kids to pitch in. “I don’t enforce chores; hopefully, encouraging them now will set the stage for them to do these things on their own later.”
Ironically, Feilaisen didn’t have chores as a child, but she does have a supportive husband, unlike Bagley.
Deciding whether to have kids do chores is crucial today, it seems.
Famed children’s musician Raffi contributes to the discourse with his sing-along picture book, *Mommy Loves You*, which promotes cleaning together and asking, “How can I help?”
A viral TikTok posted by child development expert Sophie Gee showed her 10-month-old daughter experimenting with simple household tasks.
Single mother Parisa Javaheri, raising daughters ages 5 and 6, believes chore assignments should evolve with her children’s ages. “We’re planning to increase their responsibilities over time,” said Javaheri, who currently has a live-in nanny. “Ultimately, they’ll learn to do things like load the dishwasher and wash their own clothes.”
Instilling independence is clearly a good thing; children involved in housework tend to be happier and more successful in school, according to research.
“Real-world skills are incredibly vital,” said Dr. Donna Matthews, a developmental psychologist. “Kids who grow up without doing chores often find themselves unprepared during their teenage years.”
Kate Auletta, a mother of two boys, takes a different approach by emphasizing contributions rather than traditional chores. “We avoid using that term,” Auletta noted, underscoring that her husband and she present a united front regarding household responsibilities.
“We discuss family participation, which can include tasks like rinsing dishes and cleaning up after themselves,” she explained.
Still, Auletta’s kids occasionally procrastinate. “They sometimes roll their eyes and say, ‘I’ll get to it shortly,'” she confessed. “I just keep reminding them.”
Matthews pointed out that kids pushing back is a normal developmental stage, and how parents handle it matters.
“Reactions from kids might mirror parents’ subconscious attitudes toward housework,” she remarked. “If you’re reluctant or uncertain about asking them to help, they’ll likely resist further.”
In cases of parenting disagreement, Matthews suggested compromise, where kids complete a set number of chores, which could be less than what one parent desires but more than the other wants.
One tactic Matthews advises against is paying children for chores. She noted, “When you start compensating kids for tasks around the house, it fosters a transactional attitude rather than a sense of shared responsibility.”
The goal should be to nurture a collective spirit of homekeeping.
