Parents should NOT pay children for doing Household chores

Hook: Did parents ever get paid for bringing their children up? If so, then children should be paid back

for doing simple household chores.

Introduction: A child is born into this world and awaits for guidance and help from his parents. And, it is

a parent’s responsibility for proper upbringing and growth of his child. Now, let us look for an answer to

a simple question: Where is the learning ground for a child? A child learns in his premises where he is

born and is raised up. Life skills are necessary for survival and that is true for any living being. For

humans, hunting or surviving a tough weather does not stand to be a life skill in most cases. Doing

household chores are the basics of learning ground for a child and it is difficult to understand how a

child should get paid for doing his own work in his own house. Let’s look at a few more reasons why this

idea should be opposed completely.

Thesis: I firmly disagree with the idea of Parents paying their children to do their household chores.

It is a natural instinct for a baby to get trained for rewards. This does not only stand true for human

babies but this is actually a technique used to train animals. Agreed that this form of training works well

on animals, but dependency on such an environment can prove to be harmful or difficult to maintain in

the long run. When parents maintain a code to pay children for some household work, they would

always expect a payment for any small work, which would be a habit.

As parents complete their responsibility of upbringing their child, a child when capable should also be

responsible for looking after his parents and help them with their chores. Does a father or a mother get
paid from the child in future for his upbringing and for looking after him? No. Then, why should the child

be paid for doing some household chores? More so, when they would benefit him by upbringing his own

life skills!

Now, let us look into the scenario when a grown up child helps his parents with their household chores.

There have been numerous situations where a grown up child is helped by his parents mentally,

financially and in times of their need without any condition what so ever. Money does not ever play a

role in this. In fact, when such a relationship dependent on monetary ends grow up, it becomes a fragile

and non-sustainable relation in the long run. The world has been too deeply tied up with tangible items

and services having their value counted in terms of money. It is good when such transactions take place

outside a family. But, a family grown up with love and care for each other can never play the monetary

card between its members. The most important reason being, the value for love and care cannot be

counted in terms of money.

Overall, if parents are deciding to teach children their life skills by paying them, do remember that they

have to continue paying more even to receive their love and support when they grow old.