Even little kids have a wage gap

[redstar826]

Girls do more housework than boys -- and they make less in allowance for what they doGender as an organizing principle for how we value labor appears to have depressingly early, yet unsurprising, roots. Boys, on average, spend two fewer hours doing household chores per week than girls do (they play two hours more). And if they live in households

Comments

[redstar826]

It was pretty wide-spread in the middle class community I grew up in. In my own household, my brother and I had chores we were required to do. But, we would get paid for extra stuff that went beyond our usual weekly routine. My parents just gave us a set allowance each week even if we weren't doing many chores that week. But, I knew many kids who would only get spending money depending on what chores they did.

[gambitia]

I don't feel it was that common in my own community. My parents only paid me to do special chores; for example, picking up all the fallen branches in the yard after a bad storm (nickel a branch!), or painting the house, or cleaning the gutters. When we were older, my mom would sometimes pay us to do stuff if she knew we were saving for something special or hurting for money. Like, I was in college and got slammed by car repairs that wiped out my savings, so my mom paid me to "clean the house really well" before Christmas (I felt really awful about having to take money from my parents, but having the excuse helped).

I've always been kind of uneasy with the idea of paying kids for chores. A lot of people I knew were absolutely awful to their parents on the chore front.

[anolinde]

My parents would laugh at the idea.

[romp]

mine too! you're a part of the family so you help out...but my wife does use it for extra jobs for our preteen to get him eager to work

[twowaymirrrors]

Mine too.

[a_leprechaun]

Never got money specifically for chores; helping out around the house was just expected. I did get a small allowance, though.

[martyfan]

When my parents started giving us an allowance, it was under the understanding that we'd "earn" it by doing chores. We didn't get paid equally, exactly, as their payment system was to take the age of the child and stick a dollar sign in front of it (if you were 12, you got $12. Once you turned 13, you got a dollar raise).

[kuiskata]

That's how my parents did it, too, although I think it was grade rather than age. 6$ in grade six, 7$ in grade seven...

[elialshadowpine]

My parents did it, primarily because they thought it would be more effective for us to learn to manage money by having our own, rather than asking them for stuff. Not that they didn't buy us gifts or anything, but if we wanted something sooner than birthday or Christmas, we learned to save. And I did notice that my friends -- we were all middle class -- did not have the concepts of what things were worth.

Not saying that you have to have an allowance to be aware of what money is worth, but the friends I had, their parents basically shielded them entirely from being aware of money. They didn't want them to worry about it. It's resulted in some of them growing up and having major financial issues because they had to learn everything as adults.

[astridmyrna]

My parents did it, primarily because they thought it would be more effective for us to learn to manage money by having our own, rather than asking them for stuff. Not that they didn't buy us gifts or anything, but if we wanted something sooner than birthday or Christmas, we learned to save. And I did notice that my friends -- we were all middle class -- did not have the concepts of what things were worth.

Yeah, this is why my parents had us earn money through chores too, and it makes sense to me. I certainly learned how to stash so much cash that my parents would come to me if they needed $5 and didn't want to go to the ATM. XD

[lozbabie]

W had a chart and we had to do chores on it. If we didn't,we lost part of our allowance.

[mutive]

It depends. It's pretty common to give kids some spending money, in large part to give them a bit of independence and *hopefully* teach them how to make responsible decisions regarding money.

Some parents dole out an allowance. Some give it for doing household chores. (I think mine tried a bit of both, haphazardly. Eventually they threw up their hands and told me that if I wanted spending money, to go off and find a way to make money around the neighborhood, which I think in theory was an attempt to teach me entrepreneurial-ism.)

[kitchen_poet]

I think for out-of-the-ordinary chores or chores for other people, almost universal--I can't imagine a neighbor asking a teen to wash their car or mow their lawn without offering some money. Getting allowance for everyday chores seemed split about 75-25% in favor of allowance among my friends growing up in the early '90s.

My parents actually didn't pay me allowance, per say, because they always reminded me that they didn't get paid to do chores, so neither would I. However, I still had chores that were my responsibility, and I was given pocket spending money, they just technically weren't tied to each other. I did have the option to earn money for a specific chore if it was something extra like cleaning out the garage, or something "big" like that.

My parents also didn't pay me for good grades in school, which is something that seems to be becoming more and more common in the middle-class U.S.

[skellington1]

Hit and miss. The only chore I was ever paid for was mowing the lawn, and it was the same for my brother. Everything else was just "Things we have to do." We didn't get an allowance, either. On the other hand, we never had to buy our own stuff -- I knew some kids who got an allowance but had to buy their own clothes. I never did (we didn't get much, either, but we were broke when I was little).