Enslaving our children by forcing them to do household chores is highly likely to impair their happiness rather than promote it, and it does nothing to inspire them to work hard at things that matter to them.
Rather than shutting the door for fear of coercing, rather than waiting for the kids to ask for help, sometimes it’s better to find new good ways of helping and offer them with generous enthusiasm.
The great thing about cleaning as you go along instead of at certain times or on certain days, is that the standards are set by your feelings which are informed by your theories. Because it occurs naturally and automatically you don’t worry in between tidyings. Your mind becomes freed-up to worry about things that are more important to you.
Brilliant ideas for those who find housework a burden.
Taking children seriously involves not just solving obvious problems when they arise, but thinking about and experimenting with different ideas about how to make life even more delightful.
Being ‘nice’ with the ulterior motive of in effect forcing the children to do what you want them to do, such as help with the housework, is very common. Coercion does not always appear overtly nasty.
Sometimes there can be coercive pressure on our children to help us do cleaning and tidying, for example by making our children responsible for our wellbeing.
How do real-life parents gracefully navigate housework and chores in a home that seems endlessly messy or disorganised?
What makes housework so grim is not the time it takes—it takes little time and can be done while conversing, listening to stuff, etc.—but all the other stuff—the resentment, the coercion, the battling, the idea that if you didn’t make the mess, you shouldn’t clean it up. Stop thinking in terms of trying to get others to do what you want them to do, and you will find that housework is not a problem.
Beginning to think about taking children seriously brings up many hitherto hidden problems. We are all in the same boat. No one has ‘arrived’.
Solving the problem of finding cloning and tidying a miserable burden.
Housework is not intrinsically interesting, but because it is so repetitive and mindless, it allows us to focus on more interesting things, and that is pleasurable and valuable.
David Deutsch explains why he says that he could not be very productive without also being untidy.