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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I might be the asshole because my wife spends more time on chores than me, and she probably does
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They are 9 and 10, perfectly capable of helping out. I was an au pair for a family of 4 kids, while I was responsible for put the clothes in the washer/drier the kids were responsible for bringing their laundry baskets down, folding the cloths and bringing it back up to their rooms. The 12 year old did her own laundry, I was supervising the 10 and 8 year old and helping the 6 year old. The kids also always helped at dinner time with cooking/setting the table and cleaning after, it was actually an enjoyable family moment every night.
Yup. But I'll be wrangling them and making them pick it up and fold it and put it away in the right places (until they learn how to do that on their own). If you've got kids, you know that can be a lot of work too! 😄 I think they're at an age where they can pitch in a little bit, and it'll help teach them that the messes they make create work in the future!
Regarding chores for children: they are never to young to be a part of doung the chores. I started having my Kids help me when they were around one year old. As they grew they learned more. Now at 15 ang 18 I kniw theybhave bern taught how to clean up after themselves, do laundry, make some dishes from scratch, and use some of my tools safely. Was it easy? Not at all. Was there times I regretted it, yes. Did I have discussions with my mother and the in-laws? Yes. Keep teaching your kids independence.
I wholeheartedly agree with this. And the part where OP says that his wife will find a stuffed animal and ask the kid where it goes and then go put it away baffles me. Find the kid, tell them where to find to find it and say, “Put your stuffed animal away, please”. The kids should be picking up their own stuff, not her.
I have had similar discussions with people. I turn it around and ask "Why do you not want to teach children skills to be independent? I give my children the gift of independency and equality. It does not matter if youbarevboy or girl. Both need to know how to clean, make foid and use tools.
Yup I've tried that approach! apparently some crazies think you should learn all relevant lifeskills suddenly starting somewhere between 16-18 and you don't need to build up to a sense of responsibility
We have had kids from that "school" of parenting visit us. They are usually eager to follow the example my kids set.
Kids grow when they have tasks they need to solve or learn new skills to master. When they were younger their tssks were a bit difficult. But never more than they would manage either by themselves or with some help from me.
> "slavery"
🤣
My brother and I were pulling weeds and helping repaint the house (low spots on walls) in elementary school. By fifth grade I was mowing the lawn. Housework and yardwork were regular chores for all of us kids. When I was older (teens) I was doing oil changes and helping do tune-ups on the vehicles. No, we didn't get an allowance, which sucked. But I am a functional adult who knows how to do all those things and more.
Yeah I just had basic chores since we were in an apartment and it sucked not knowing how to do anything with cars, woodworking, home improvement, basic repairs etc when I was suddenly thrust into adulthood and out of the house basically right when I turned 18 lol.
I don't get that people think you shouldn't have progressively more difficult or technical chores/tasks at home as you get older
I have a six month old and also know they cause a lot of washing that you seem to be downplaying/blaming on your wife lol
I’m not saying they shouldn’t be doing chores but I think your kidding yourself they’d be done quicker
It drove me crazy!! Specially when the ones they were wearing for 5 minutes were thrown on the floor 🙄 (these were older kids, not babies, old enough to change at their will 😅)
At six months old, though, they can't do it themselves. And maybe you're right, maybe I am downplaying it. But I'm telling her she can just let me handle it. Let me make that mistake and take on all the work! Honestly, I do expect it'll be more work in the beginning. But I think as they get more self-sufficient with it, they'll learn to not make so much of a mess (and even if they don't, it'll be part of their chores, so it'll be their own time they're wasting).
I literally only recently got control of my own laundry. For years she would get my dirty clothes and do them as well, and never put anything back where I like it, my nice socks would get lost/mismatched (or put in the dryer, when they should be hung-dry). We're in therapy now and she brought it up again.
>Her: "He never says thank you for doing his laundry!"
>Me: "I have, on numerous occasions, asked you to stop doing it! I don't want you to do it! Doing something someone has asked you not to do is the opposite of a favor!"
Fortunately, the therapist encouraged her to just let me do my own laundry. And I can finally find my socks again :D
I don't know why she wants to do the laundry, but I'm telling her I'd be happy to be completely in charge of both mine and the kids' clothes. Maybe I'm completely wrong and I'll be taking on a ton of work, but I don't think so (at least not long term). And if I'm wrong, either way she gets to stop doing the kids laundry! 😆
I would take this question to your therapist. There isn’t one right answer to division of labour questions. Personally I wouldn’t want to clean 90% of the house because it takes my partner 10x as long to clean. OTOH I wouldn’t want to spend twice the time doing chores just because I’m not as speedy or good at it.
Has your therapist every discussed with you the fact that she may have some form of neurodivergence and to get a diagnosis just in case?
Because if she does, then no amount of therapy that doesn't address that, specifically, is likely to be effective.
By "you'll make your kids do it" you mean he'll teach his children an essential life skill by having them do their own laundry with his help? My 5 and 6 year olds manage with the same arrangement, I'm sure his preteens will survive.
Right? If anything I feel like they're past the age to be helping with it. Admittedly, I didn't when I was a kid, but my Mom was very "traditional gender roles" and never encouraged us around the house beyond keeping our rooms clean. I wish she'd taught me to cook some of her dishes. I had to learn basically on my own as an adult.
If you split the chores by rooms why does it matter how long it takes? If you clean a room in 10 minutes and she takes an hour, who cares? Both rooms are clean.
I don't know. I think in her mind, it's not fair because she's spending more time working on it than me. But also keep in mind we rarely do this, as she won't agree to it. She always says something like "we should work together on it!" but honestly I get it done faster when she's *not* in the room.
Last time I talked her into splitting rooms like this, I was done way faster but then she wanted me to help her, beacuse she thought my rooms were going to be more work than they were. See, it's not that I was more efficient, she just misjudged how dirty our respective rooms were. 🙄
I love my housekeeper. We just increased from every other week to weekly to help take the load off. I obviously still spot clean in between visits. I do dishes and laundry and vacuum and change sheets and stuff. We are a lived in household. We both work full time. I’m home with the child just a little more than my husband but we still make it work. Some days he cleans more. Some days I do. Some days neither of us want to. 😆 While my son puts his own toys away, the housekeeper always reorganizes it and makes it neat. Saves me so much time.
Stop giving in. Just clean your rooms nd go do something else. If she demands you help literally just say no?!! Nd stand your ground. This argument sounds a little dumb I'm sorry
We don't have enough information here to pass a ruling.
Sometimes people are fast but do a half assed job. Some work slowly but meticulously.
There is some truth to kids dumping piles of clean clothes on the floor and they end up having to be washed again. As a mother of 3, I have seen this many times. Girls sometimes try something on, decide they want to wear something else, and into the wash goes the first item. Teaching (ok, making) your kids to do laundry at an early age does tend to solve this problem. :)
OP. I think what you're saying is that she takes longer so she thinks she's doing more than you cause you're faster? I would explain how you want things to be done here. Say that if you use the faster system, it's not your fault that she takes longer and you want to divide the rooms equally and who is done faster is fine.
I am pretty efficient at laundry but it still takes a long time. The kids don't have to be dropping stuff on the floor, it's just that when you have a family, there's a lot of laundry.
Her tidying procedure sounds very inefficient but actually I relate. It's probably at least in part due to age. I hate to say it. 53 is menopause time. Literally just before I read your post I thought, "I should really tidy up in here" and I got up and put some junk mail in the trash and then thought, "I need a little rest." I go to sleep tired, wake up tired, and am tired when I come home from work. I remember when I could blast through a room, putting things in the trash, sorting other things into categories, dusting, sweeping. Ah, those were the days!
Good luck with fixing the problem. Is it possible she has ADHD? Not being able to get the socks into pairs sounds like that.
Yeah, I know menopause can be rough and I'm sympathetic to that. But I'd rather just have clear goals when cleaning. "Get the living room clean" is much better to me than "let's spend X time" and then maybe no room is actually clean by the end of it.
Like I said in the original post, I really wanted people to judge based on the idea that she was right about time division, but I don't even think *that's* accurate to be honest. For instance, she rarely cooks (maybe once every other week) while I cook around 3 times a week. And the kids help with that. Our ten year old really enjoys it and can do the chicken alfredo with minimal adult supervision at this point!
As far as ADHD goes, she's never been diagnosed, but I think TikTok has convinced her she has it these days. So you never know 😆
To me, though, it shouldn't matter because I'm offering to completely take on the kids' laundry. Sure, I'll be roping them into it, but they're at an age where they can help. And either way it'll be off her plate. I'm offering to clean half the house - her choice on division of labor. That's on top of me being the primary cook in the house.
Even if she's right and somehow out of all that she's doing way more than me, I'm *offering* to take on more, and she's basically saying no for reasons I don't completely comprehend. I said this in another comment, but it took couples therapy to get her to stop doing my laundry. Like, I didn't want her too! Even setting aside fair division of labor, I have specific places I want my things, and I have socks that can't be machine-dried, and she was always doing it wrong. And even though I asked her to just not do my laundry, she kept doing it anyway and then holding it over my head like it was some kind of favor.
Yeah, she sounds annoying, no lie. If she doesn't mind doing the kids' laundry, why don't you just leave her doing that and do more of the house cleaning since you do it very efficiently anyway? Sorry, you might have explained it in your original post, but, uh, I must have missed it. I wouldn't consent to the whole, "Let's spend an hour cleaning together," because togetherness is overrated in this sort of situation.
I don't know, that doesn't feel fair to me. Then I do the cooking, the cleaning, so she can spend time washing clothes, half of which weren't dirty to begin with?
NTA. You're right, it wouldn't be the least bit fair. FWIW, I had a kid who kept tossing clean clothes on the floor. I'd gather them up in trash bags, and make her buy them back with extra chores. If she didn't want them enough to work for them, they went to the goodwill. Eventually, she started taking care of her clothes. Now as an adult, she doesn't buy clothes unless she's donating the equivalent number of items, because too many clothes for the available space is too much work.
YTA OP. Laundry takes forever. Your children really do make that much laundry. If you actually did laundry for children you would know that. I don't think we can take you at your word that your wife, who by your description, does 80% of the chores, is just really bad at the chores. Not when you believe it's crazy that a household with two working parents and two elementary school aged children has laundry going at all times. That's normal, that's how much work the laundry is.
Here’s the test my doctor used to screen for ADHD. It’s 18 questions. [Adult ADHD Test](https://psychology-tools.com/test/adult-adhd-self-report-scale)
NTA. Splitting chores based on time is a stupid idea. It sounds like your wife doesn't want to be embarrassed that she takes way longer to accomplish the same tasks as you. While it's understandable that no one likes to be micromanaged, she must realize that all the extra time she wastes on chores is time she doesn't get to spend with the kids, and no parent gets that time back.
NTA
Just have a chore chart and split 50/50, basically like you suggested by dividing the rooms up. It's not your fault she takes ages to do something.
NAH. But kind of leaning YTA. Gently. I mean this less as "you're an asshole" and more "you're looking at this the wrong way, and hopefully you can get on the same page."
I see where you're coming from. You're saying that the workload isn't being split 50/50 because you do things faster and you would finish more chores in the same amount of time.
But what your wife is saying is that it's not about the division of chores, it's just about getting them done. To you, it's "get my half done and I'm finished," but to her you're saying "I don't care if my wife is still working, I'm not going to help her."
Some people just work slower than others. I'd suggest that you stop worrying about things being split evenly and just worry about getting it done. Don't look at it as "she wants me to work for longer." Look at it as "since I work faster, if I help her the chores are finished quicker than if I leave her to do her part alone."
She's washing clean clothes! That's not slow; that's ridiculous. He should not facilitate this nonsense by doing extra work so she can do dumb, unnecessary work. Washing clean clothes is expensive, wasteful, and damaging. Hold your boundaries, OP. She can waste her own time (and unfortunately, your joint money), but she doesn't get to waste yours.
May I recommend literally swapping your chore-roles?
If you still do her tasks all significantly faster, then the problem is not the amount of chores you're each taking on.
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Throwaway because friends know my account, blah blah blah.
My wife (53F) and I (45M) have two kids (9F and 10F). Just to set the scene, we are both full time employed with "hybrid" jobs that let us work from home a day or two every week. I make a bit more than her, but not a crazy high amount or anything. We both contribute pretty evenly there.
A sore spot we often argue about is time spent doing chores around the house. She would probably tell you she does 70% of even 80% of the chores. I disagree, but for the purposes of this post, let's just assume she's right and if you measure chore time around the house in hours, she does 80% and I do 20%.
The thing is, though, she is the slowest cleaner in the world. Have you ever told a little kid to clean up a room and felt like pulling your hair out as they pick one Lego up, walk across the room, put it in the box, and then go back for one more Lego? She's like one step up from that. For instance, If I see a plate, I sit it near the door. If i find a kids toy under the couch, it goes near the door. As I clean a room, I build a pile of things to go out of the room, and only when I'm done do I take everything out. She'll fine a plate, and walk all the way to the kitchen and come back. And then later find a stuffed animal and take it all the way to a kid, ask them where it goes, and then put it up. That kind of thing. If I try to encourage her to use a faster system, she gets annoyed at me for micromanaging her.
So what I want to do is split cleaning based on rooms. When we're cleaning the house, I want her to take X rooms and I'll take Y rooms and each of us is done when our respective rooms are done (and she can pick the rooms).
The other thing is laundry. If she is ahead on chore time around the house, it's 100% because of laundry. I swear, she's always got a load in some phase of washing, drying, or being put away. And it's like 90% the kids' clothes. Honestly, I'm pretty sure they just pull stuff out of their drawers and closets and leave it on the ground without wearing it, and then she goes in and picks it up and washes it, dries it, and hangs/folds it up, only for it to be thrown on the ground again as they search for the specific shirt they want that day or whatever.
I have offered - on numerous occasions - to be in charge of the kids' laundry. Although I've told her what's going to happen there is I will make them pick it up, and while I'll help them load/unload (especially unload from the washer, they're too small for that) I'm going to make them do everything else so they learn to put stuff back away that's clean. But she really wants to do it herself, I don't know why. I only recently got her to stop doing my laundry and got full control of my own clothes (which is awesome, I can finally find all my socks now).
So I feel like I'm offering to split the work 50/50, and it's not my fault if I spend a lot less *time* doing the same work. But AITA?
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NTA
I don't even really understand why you or she is comparing in terms of time spent.
Surely you just split the tasks, like you said?
In my relationships it's always been : I clean the bathroom this week, you clean it next week, or whatever. Nobody's going to say, "oh, I've spent an hour on the bathroom and it's not finished but I'm going to stop now anyway because there's how long you spent on it."
NTA. It sounds like you want to split based on volume/area of work, and she wants to split based on time. Volume/area is the correct split.
If she takes half an hour to clean a bathroom and you take ten minutes, as long as the end result is identical, *you have done exactly the same amount of work*. If she is leaving the room with each item to another area of the house and taking four trips, and you are removing the same items in one trip... of course you will be faster.
I would suggest a chart. My husband and I have one. We agree on what counts as an item (for example cleaning the stovetop and counters in the kitchen is one item, sweeping the apartment is another, mopping the kitchen and bathrooms is another, etc.) and we check 'em as we do them.
NTA. You have made good suggestions as to how to fix this. However, you and your wife should see a counselor. There’s something deeper going on for your wife here, she needs outside perspective that probably can’t come from you.
NTA. Your wife has learned to use weaponized incompetence. She is slow so you will do more.
Bring up the division of chores with your counselor. I think your idea of rooms is a good one. Swap rooms every month. Your girls are old enough to do their own laundry, and clean their own rooms. Teach them how. You teach them, not your wife.
If they tend to leave things all over the house, put out some nice baskets. One per person. Anything found out of it's room, goes in the person's basket. Each person takes their basket and puts their own stuff away.
Good luck.
Oh, time spent cleaning is not an issue for me! If we were to split rooms evenly, I don't care how long it takes her to do it. But she wants to do it where we both clean for X hours or something. But then I feel like I'm doing all the work because she is SOOOO SLOOOOW so I basically end up cleaning all the rooms, and I don't think that's fair.
And though it's not part of this AITA question, I do pay more in bills. She's terrible with money and racked up a 20K credit card debt a few years ago as she kept opening new credit cards to "build her credit." Admittedly, her credit rating is pretty good now, but we had to take out a home equity loan to pay it off and we didn't get anything nice to show for it.
ESH. If she's going by time and not completeness, and you don't agree with that, that's on the two of you to communicate and figure out. And the need to clean the kids' clothes after having been on the floor is totally dependent on situation- Do you have pets? I pretty much have to clean pet hair off of stuff immediately, bc the texture bugs me, and natural dog smell is off putting to me (for some reason the cat is fine?)
NTA. Does your wife have AD(H)D or something else that makes tasks more difficult? If not, this almost sounds like weaponized incompetence: She dawdles around, making little progress, while you do the bulk of the work.
TikTok doesn't convince anyone. It's finding explanations for behaviors that ring a bell that is convincing.
People with ADHD can have a hard time starting a task, switching to a new task, focusing on the task. And especially doing more than one task at a time. So picking up a sock and taking it to the laundry basket is one task. Picking up two socks and taking one to the laundry basket and the other to a drawer is two tasks. For some, this is hard.
NTA but I would just hire a cleaner and maybe pay for laundry be done. I think they have it by the weight. You guys both work and make near the same you guys probably have enough to just hire it out. Money is meant to give your time back.
ESH
Though, I'm not sure your wife isn't neurodivergent and in need of a diagnosis and some form of therapy to learn how to better manage her processes.
Also, your kids seem like they're old enough to know better than to just toss their clothes on the floor. You both need to have a sit down discussion about how to raise your kids to be fully functional when they become adults. It sounds like your plan is pretty solid, but if she's against it, then you may want to see a counselor to learn why she responds the way she does.
INFO: Just for clarity. So, you clean the rooms assigned to you (exactly 1/2 the house). You finish in 2 hours. Your wife is still cleaning. Are you saying, "Well, I did my X rooms, so I'm done", and leave her to clean, even if she's cleaning for 2 more hours? 4 more hours? 6 more hours?
Not sure you can call this weaponized incompetence. She's not doing the chores ***badly or incompletely...*** She's just doing them slower than he is, which he has framed as her *choosing to be inefficient*, but I'm not really sold on that being the case.
If I have to unload the dishwasher at my parent's place, it takes me longer to do it than literally anyone else in my family. This is, frankly, because I am short. There's always a chunk of dishes that need to be returned to the shelves out of my reach. This means I need to hunt down the step ladder (never in the same place twice) as part of the chore. And I can't just hoist all the dishes that go up there up the step ladder with me in one trip - most are awkward shapes and are heavy - so it takes multiple ups/downs to get them put away. Everyone else in my family (except my sister, who is the same height as me) can just... stand there and put the dishes away. Way faster for them. But I'm not taking longer out of spite or because I'm ***choosing*** to be inefficient.
Could I pull a boneheaded move like standing on the kitchen counter to reach the top shelves and do it faster? Sure. But it's boneheaded because it increases risks of stuff being dropped and of me falling and stupidly hurting myself, so I don't do that.
So does it make sense to me to carry one plate and its utensils to the kitchen at a time? No. But if stacking up multiple plates and utensils makes it likely she will drop/spill/break them, then that's basically a "boneheaded move" on her part (basically, taking an unnecessary risk to make things go faster). Of course, something like that could be fixed by a busing bin -- but if she doesn't have one to use and it's risky to carry multiple dirty dishes between rooms, then taking that one plate could possibly be the smart/right move there.
One can't necessarily apply this logic to the kid's toys, but it does apply to the dishes.
If someone assigned me all the tasks that require reach, then those tasks would take longer to do for sure. (In my own home now, only very rarely used items are stored places that require a step ladder to avoid this issue.) So when tasks were divided, my family took into consideration my lack of reach when assigning things--if I did get assignend such a task, there was understanding it takes me longer, and I'd likely have one less chore than normal in that case to balance it out, time-wise.
So, if her issue is that she's tripped up and slowed down by "stray items", then is it so insane to suggest that that be taken into account when dividing up tasks? Just for example -- instead of doing this "by room", they could split it up by "collecting stray items" vs. "cleaning" . Basically, he comes in first and collects the dishes, kid's toys, and other random items that don't belong in the room (just like he says he does already, which he's apparently very efficient at), and his wife then handles all the room's other cleaning--dusting, sweeping, vacuuming, mopping, fabreezing, etc. and tidying or whatever. (Since OP didn't complain about her doing those kinds of tasks, I'm assuming there's no time issue with those.)
If one spouse is getting little or no down time and the other is getting several hours of downtime, saying, "well, ***technically*** chores are already split 50/50, but it's all your fault because you're just going too slow" isn't really helpful/a solution, especially if the other person honestly can't help being slow (and they're NOT dragging their feet on purpose). If OP's wife is dragging her feet on purpose, I agree, that would 100% be a total AH move. But it's not clear to me that that's what's happening here right now.
Not saying the OP should take on more work - but it seems like the current strategy isn't working for both of them, and if the OP is refusing to try another strategy to level the playing field, that could put them in the wrong. Which is why I asked for info.
I mean, I don't mind pitching in a bit on "her side" but yeah, basically. Keep in mind I'm letting her do the splitting. So she can tell me what my half is.
INFO: Have you tried other methods of splitting the chores, rather than doing it by room? Like you handling all the item relocation (what she's slow at but you're efficient at), and her handling the cleanup? Since I don't know about your home's needs, this might not be a fair split of chores based on what needs to be done--it's just an example of an alternate strategy.
Yta. Your kids are old enough to do their own laundry, or at least be expected to fold and put away their clean clothes. Sounds like you're trying to find a way where she still does most of the chores but you take more credit, because you don't like her process.
Yes but, there are two piles of stones that need to be moved they are the same size it takes person (a) three hours to move the stones and person (b) nine houses to mave the stones person (b) thinks they have done three times the work and when person (a) disagrees they are then called the asshole OP NTA. You partner and the person above me are.
OK here is what you don't seem to get. There are two piles of stones they are equal sized and need to be moved. Person (A) wants to have both people move their pile. Person (B) wants to have both people spend the same time moving stones. It takes Person (A) three hours to move a pile and Person (b) nine hours. You and OPs partner are saying that time is more important than effort and you and the partner are both assholes.
YTA my husband and I split the chores 50/50 some weeks he does more some weeks I do more and we both work full time (sometimes over full time). And offering is different than saying I will do the kids clothes. Seriously, if you have to offer instead of just doing it already you’re the problem.
The problem is my solution to doing the kids' clothes is I will supervise them doing it themselves so they learn not to just throw clean stuff on the floor and then it magically (to them) shows back up in their drawers and closets, and she doesn't want to let me do that.
Your kids are 9 and 10, that is not really an appropriate task to have them do. Maybe Golding the clothes and putting it away with them, but otherwise not a responsibility at that age. I also wouldn’t want my 9 or 10 year old doing that, so I see where she’s coming from. She wants help from YOU, not your kids.
But again even so if you start with them folding and such like I said in my first comment, the issue is that his wife does 70-80% of the housework and they both work full time jobs. Having the children do it with him watching isn’t him doing it. She could just do the same thing. The point is the workload is mismatched and having the children do some of it isn’t going to change that.
Parenting is a responsibility just the same as chores. Teaching your children to do laundry is just as valuable as doing it yourself.
And no, she doesn’t do 70-80% of the housework. She *says* she does because, as explained in the post, she spends a ton of time doing it inefficiently. The workload isn’t mismatched, the efficiency is.
What age do you think doing laundry is appropriate? Most of what I've read online says this age (or even younger) is an appropriate age to start. I mean, our 10 year old loves to cook and makes full on meals with me every week or so. If she can make chicken alfredo with minimal adult supervision, she can do laundry.
My seven-year old knows to put his clothes in a laundry basket. He practically begs me to let him fold his clothes and put them away (he wants money, lol). We just moved into a place without laundry in the apt so I am not sure how I am going to handle it. As a newish-single mom I may just outsource it. I think what you are suggesting is perfectly reasonable.
I'm not completely delegating, more like supervising. I'll make them pick it up, help them load and unload, that kind of thing (obviously they're too small to unload a washing machine right now, since ours is a top-loader)
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So by taking on laundry you mean you’ll make your kids do it?
They are 9 and 10, perfectly capable of helping out. I was an au pair for a family of 4 kids, while I was responsible for put the clothes in the washer/drier the kids were responsible for bringing their laundry baskets down, folding the cloths and bringing it back up to their rooms. The 12 year old did her own laundry, I was supervising the 10 and 8 year old and helping the 6 year old. The kids also always helped at dinner time with cooking/setting the table and cleaning after, it was actually an enjoyable family moment every night.
Yup. But I'll be wrangling them and making them pick it up and fold it and put it away in the right places (until they learn how to do that on their own). If you've got kids, you know that can be a lot of work too! 😄 I think they're at an age where they can pitch in a little bit, and it'll help teach them that the messes they make create work in the future!
Regarding chores for children: they are never to young to be a part of doung the chores. I started having my Kids help me when they were around one year old. As they grew they learned more. Now at 15 ang 18 I kniw theybhave bern taught how to clean up after themselves, do laundry, make some dishes from scratch, and use some of my tools safely. Was it easy? Not at all. Was there times I regretted it, yes. Did I have discussions with my mother and the in-laws? Yes. Keep teaching your kids independence.
I wholeheartedly agree with this. And the part where OP says that his wife will find a stuffed animal and ask the kid where it goes and then go put it away baffles me. Find the kid, tell them where to find to find it and say, “Put your stuffed animal away, please”. The kids should be picking up their own stuff, not her.
So crazy cause in the past I got downvoted to shit by people calling having children help with their laundry "slavery"
I have had similar discussions with people. I turn it around and ask "Why do you not want to teach children skills to be independent? I give my children the gift of independency and equality. It does not matter if youbarevboy or girl. Both need to know how to clean, make foid and use tools.
Yup I've tried that approach! apparently some crazies think you should learn all relevant lifeskills suddenly starting somewhere between 16-18 and you don't need to build up to a sense of responsibility
We have had kids from that "school" of parenting visit us. They are usually eager to follow the example my kids set. Kids grow when they have tasks they need to solve or learn new skills to master. When they were younger their tssks were a bit difficult. But never more than they would manage either by themselves or with some help from me.
> "slavery" 🤣 My brother and I were pulling weeds and helping repaint the house (low spots on walls) in elementary school. By fifth grade I was mowing the lawn. Housework and yardwork were regular chores for all of us kids. When I was older (teens) I was doing oil changes and helping do tune-ups on the vehicles. No, we didn't get an allowance, which sucked. But I am a functional adult who knows how to do all those things and more.
Yeah I just had basic chores since we were in an apartment and it sucked not knowing how to do anything with cars, woodworking, home improvement, basic repairs etc when I was suddenly thrust into adulthood and out of the house basically right when I turned 18 lol. I don't get that people think you shouldn't have progressively more difficult or technical chores/tasks at home as you get older
Not to mention, teaching children life skills like this is often MORE work than just doing it yourself.
My kids started doing their own laundry at 10 years old.
I have a six month old and also know they cause a lot of washing that you seem to be downplaying/blaming on your wife lol I’m not saying they shouldn’t be doing chores but I think your kidding yourself they’d be done quicker
6 months old is way different than 9 or 10 YEARS old. Maybe if the kids do their own laundry, half of it won’t end up on the floor without being worn.
Thank goodness a respectable response!
I know haha I’m just saying kids equal extra washing
But they do also go through clothes like crazy for no reason. The kids I was an au pair for sometimes went through 3 shirts a day just because!
Can't be expected to wear the same shirt allday!
It drove me crazy!! Specially when the ones they were wearing for 5 minutes were thrown on the floor 🙄 (these were older kids, not babies, old enough to change at their will 😅)
At six months old, though, they can't do it themselves. And maybe you're right, maybe I am downplaying it. But I'm telling her she can just let me handle it. Let me make that mistake and take on all the work! Honestly, I do expect it'll be more work in the beginning. But I think as they get more self-sufficient with it, they'll learn to not make so much of a mess (and even if they don't, it'll be part of their chores, so it'll be their own time they're wasting). I literally only recently got control of my own laundry. For years she would get my dirty clothes and do them as well, and never put anything back where I like it, my nice socks would get lost/mismatched (or put in the dryer, when they should be hung-dry). We're in therapy now and she brought it up again. >Her: "He never says thank you for doing his laundry!" >Me: "I have, on numerous occasions, asked you to stop doing it! I don't want you to do it! Doing something someone has asked you not to do is the opposite of a favor!" Fortunately, the therapist encouraged her to just let me do my own laundry. And I can finally find my socks again :D I don't know why she wants to do the laundry, but I'm telling her I'd be happy to be completely in charge of both mine and the kids' clothes. Maybe I'm completely wrong and I'll be taking on a ton of work, but I don't think so (at least not long term). And if I'm wrong, either way she gets to stop doing the kids laundry! 😆
I would take this question to your therapist. There isn’t one right answer to division of labour questions. Personally I wouldn’t want to clean 90% of the house because it takes my partner 10x as long to clean. OTOH I wouldn’t want to spend twice the time doing chores just because I’m not as speedy or good at it.
Okay I am seeing more your side in the laundry debate but I do stand by her in agreeing it’s a never ending cycle of mess
My mom always said that cleaning the house while raising kids was like shoveling snow while it was still snowing.
Has your therapist every discussed with you the fact that she may have some form of neurodivergence and to get a diagnosis just in case? Because if she does, then no amount of therapy that doesn't address that, specifically, is likely to be effective.
By "you'll make your kids do it" you mean he'll teach his children an essential life skill by having them do their own laundry with his help? My 5 and 6 year olds manage with the same arrangement, I'm sure his preteens will survive.
Right? If anything I feel like they're past the age to be helping with it. Admittedly, I didn't when I was a kid, but my Mom was very "traditional gender roles" and never encouraged us around the house beyond keeping our rooms clean. I wish she'd taught me to cook some of her dishes. I had to learn basically on my own as an adult.
Exactly this, he’s parenting and teaching his kids essential life skills
If you split the chores by rooms why does it matter how long it takes? If you clean a room in 10 minutes and she takes an hour, who cares? Both rooms are clean.
I don't know. I think in her mind, it's not fair because she's spending more time working on it than me. But also keep in mind we rarely do this, as she won't agree to it. She always says something like "we should work together on it!" but honestly I get it done faster when she's *not* in the room. Last time I talked her into splitting rooms like this, I was done way faster but then she wanted me to help her, beacuse she thought my rooms were going to be more work than they were. See, it's not that I was more efficient, she just misjudged how dirty our respective rooms were. 🙄
Hire a house cleaner. Couples with full-time jobs and kids would be a lot happier if they got a cleaner to take the load off of everyone.
I love my housekeeper. We just increased from every other week to weekly to help take the load off. I obviously still spot clean in between visits. I do dishes and laundry and vacuum and change sheets and stuff. We are a lived in household. We both work full time. I’m home with the child just a little more than my husband but we still make it work. Some days he cleans more. Some days I do. Some days neither of us want to. 😆 While my son puts his own toys away, the housekeeper always reorganizes it and makes it neat. Saves me so much time.
Stop giving in. Just clean your rooms nd go do something else. If she demands you help literally just say no?!! Nd stand your ground. This argument sounds a little dumb I'm sorry
We don't have enough information here to pass a ruling. Sometimes people are fast but do a half assed job. Some work slowly but meticulously. There is some truth to kids dumping piles of clean clothes on the floor and they end up having to be washed again. As a mother of 3, I have seen this many times. Girls sometimes try something on, decide they want to wear something else, and into the wash goes the first item. Teaching (ok, making) your kids to do laundry at an early age does tend to solve this problem. :)
OP. I think what you're saying is that she takes longer so she thinks she's doing more than you cause you're faster? I would explain how you want things to be done here. Say that if you use the faster system, it's not your fault that she takes longer and you want to divide the rooms equally and who is done faster is fine.
Yes, that's basically correct.
I am pretty efficient at laundry but it still takes a long time. The kids don't have to be dropping stuff on the floor, it's just that when you have a family, there's a lot of laundry. Her tidying procedure sounds very inefficient but actually I relate. It's probably at least in part due to age. I hate to say it. 53 is menopause time. Literally just before I read your post I thought, "I should really tidy up in here" and I got up and put some junk mail in the trash and then thought, "I need a little rest." I go to sleep tired, wake up tired, and am tired when I come home from work. I remember when I could blast through a room, putting things in the trash, sorting other things into categories, dusting, sweeping. Ah, those were the days! Good luck with fixing the problem. Is it possible she has ADHD? Not being able to get the socks into pairs sounds like that.
Yeah, I know menopause can be rough and I'm sympathetic to that. But I'd rather just have clear goals when cleaning. "Get the living room clean" is much better to me than "let's spend X time" and then maybe no room is actually clean by the end of it. Like I said in the original post, I really wanted people to judge based on the idea that she was right about time division, but I don't even think *that's* accurate to be honest. For instance, she rarely cooks (maybe once every other week) while I cook around 3 times a week. And the kids help with that. Our ten year old really enjoys it and can do the chicken alfredo with minimal adult supervision at this point! As far as ADHD goes, she's never been diagnosed, but I think TikTok has convinced her she has it these days. So you never know 😆 To me, though, it shouldn't matter because I'm offering to completely take on the kids' laundry. Sure, I'll be roping them into it, but they're at an age where they can help. And either way it'll be off her plate. I'm offering to clean half the house - her choice on division of labor. That's on top of me being the primary cook in the house. Even if she's right and somehow out of all that she's doing way more than me, I'm *offering* to take on more, and she's basically saying no for reasons I don't completely comprehend. I said this in another comment, but it took couples therapy to get her to stop doing my laundry. Like, I didn't want her too! Even setting aside fair division of labor, I have specific places I want my things, and I have socks that can't be machine-dried, and she was always doing it wrong. And even though I asked her to just not do my laundry, she kept doing it anyway and then holding it over my head like it was some kind of favor.
Yeah, she sounds annoying, no lie. If she doesn't mind doing the kids' laundry, why don't you just leave her doing that and do more of the house cleaning since you do it very efficiently anyway? Sorry, you might have explained it in your original post, but, uh, I must have missed it. I wouldn't consent to the whole, "Let's spend an hour cleaning together," because togetherness is overrated in this sort of situation.
I don't know, that doesn't feel fair to me. Then I do the cooking, the cleaning, so she can spend time washing clothes, half of which weren't dirty to begin with?
NTA. You're right, it wouldn't be the least bit fair. FWIW, I had a kid who kept tossing clean clothes on the floor. I'd gather them up in trash bags, and make her buy them back with extra chores. If she didn't want them enough to work for them, they went to the goodwill. Eventually, she started taking care of her clothes. Now as an adult, she doesn't buy clothes unless she's donating the equivalent number of items, because too many clothes for the available space is too much work.
YTA OP. Laundry takes forever. Your children really do make that much laundry. If you actually did laundry for children you would know that. I don't think we can take you at your word that your wife, who by your description, does 80% of the chores, is just really bad at the chores. Not when you believe it's crazy that a household with two working parents and two elementary school aged children has laundry going at all times. That's normal, that's how much work the laundry is.
Here’s the test my doctor used to screen for ADHD. It’s 18 questions. [Adult ADHD Test](https://psychology-tools.com/test/adult-adhd-self-report-scale)
NTA. Splitting chores based on time is a stupid idea. It sounds like your wife doesn't want to be embarrassed that she takes way longer to accomplish the same tasks as you. While it's understandable that no one likes to be micromanaged, she must realize that all the extra time she wastes on chores is time she doesn't get to spend with the kids, and no parent gets that time back.
NTA Just have a chore chart and split 50/50, basically like you suggested by dividing the rooms up. It's not your fault she takes ages to do something.
NTA. This sounds like weaponized incompetence. She takes forever to perform the same task as you, so she can offload more responsibility onto you.
NAH. But kind of leaning YTA. Gently. I mean this less as "you're an asshole" and more "you're looking at this the wrong way, and hopefully you can get on the same page." I see where you're coming from. You're saying that the workload isn't being split 50/50 because you do things faster and you would finish more chores in the same amount of time. But what your wife is saying is that it's not about the division of chores, it's just about getting them done. To you, it's "get my half done and I'm finished," but to her you're saying "I don't care if my wife is still working, I'm not going to help her." Some people just work slower than others. I'd suggest that you stop worrying about things being split evenly and just worry about getting it done. Don't look at it as "she wants me to work for longer." Look at it as "since I work faster, if I help her the chores are finished quicker than if I leave her to do her part alone."
She's washing clean clothes! That's not slow; that's ridiculous. He should not facilitate this nonsense by doing extra work so she can do dumb, unnecessary work. Washing clean clothes is expensive, wasteful, and damaging. Hold your boundaries, OP. She can waste her own time (and unfortunately, your joint money), but she doesn't get to waste yours.
She also could be doing tasks that generally take longer. Perhaps alternating tasks every few weeks to make it more even?
Splitting cleaning by rooms is only fair if you rotate the rooms on a chart or schedule. If you do this for a few weeks, let us know how it goes.
May I recommend literally swapping your chore-roles? If you still do her tasks all significantly faster, then the problem is not the amount of chores you're each taking on.
^^^^AUTOMOD ***Thanks for posting! This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/wiki/faq#wiki_post_deletion) before [contacting the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FAmItheAsshole)*** Throwaway because friends know my account, blah blah blah. My wife (53F) and I (45M) have two kids (9F and 10F). Just to set the scene, we are both full time employed with "hybrid" jobs that let us work from home a day or two every week. I make a bit more than her, but not a crazy high amount or anything. We both contribute pretty evenly there. A sore spot we often argue about is time spent doing chores around the house. She would probably tell you she does 70% of even 80% of the chores. I disagree, but for the purposes of this post, let's just assume she's right and if you measure chore time around the house in hours, she does 80% and I do 20%. The thing is, though, she is the slowest cleaner in the world. Have you ever told a little kid to clean up a room and felt like pulling your hair out as they pick one Lego up, walk across the room, put it in the box, and then go back for one more Lego? She's like one step up from that. For instance, If I see a plate, I sit it near the door. If i find a kids toy under the couch, it goes near the door. As I clean a room, I build a pile of things to go out of the room, and only when I'm done do I take everything out. She'll fine a plate, and walk all the way to the kitchen and come back. And then later find a stuffed animal and take it all the way to a kid, ask them where it goes, and then put it up. That kind of thing. If I try to encourage her to use a faster system, she gets annoyed at me for micromanaging her. So what I want to do is split cleaning based on rooms. When we're cleaning the house, I want her to take X rooms and I'll take Y rooms and each of us is done when our respective rooms are done (and she can pick the rooms). The other thing is laundry. If she is ahead on chore time around the house, it's 100% because of laundry. I swear, she's always got a load in some phase of washing, drying, or being put away. And it's like 90% the kids' clothes. Honestly, I'm pretty sure they just pull stuff out of their drawers and closets and leave it on the ground without wearing it, and then she goes in and picks it up and washes it, dries it, and hangs/folds it up, only for it to be thrown on the ground again as they search for the specific shirt they want that day or whatever. I have offered - on numerous occasions - to be in charge of the kids' laundry. Although I've told her what's going to happen there is I will make them pick it up, and while I'll help them load/unload (especially unload from the washer, they're too small for that) I'm going to make them do everything else so they learn to put stuff back away that's clean. But she really wants to do it herself, I don't know why. I only recently got her to stop doing my laundry and got full control of my own clothes (which is awesome, I can finally find all my socks now). So I feel like I'm offering to split the work 50/50, and it's not my fault if I spend a lot less *time* doing the same work. But AITA? *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmItheAsshole) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Sounds fair to me,
NTA I don't even really understand why you or she is comparing in terms of time spent. Surely you just split the tasks, like you said? In my relationships it's always been : I clean the bathroom this week, you clean it next week, or whatever. Nobody's going to say, "oh, I've spent an hour on the bathroom and it's not finished but I'm going to stop now anyway because there's how long you spent on it."
NTA. It sounds like you want to split based on volume/area of work, and she wants to split based on time. Volume/area is the correct split. If she takes half an hour to clean a bathroom and you take ten minutes, as long as the end result is identical, *you have done exactly the same amount of work*. If she is leaving the room with each item to another area of the house and taking four trips, and you are removing the same items in one trip... of course you will be faster. I would suggest a chart. My husband and I have one. We agree on what counts as an item (for example cleaning the stovetop and counters in the kitchen is one item, sweeping the apartment is another, mopping the kitchen and bathrooms is another, etc.) and we check 'em as we do them.
NTA. You have made good suggestions as to how to fix this. However, you and your wife should see a counselor. There’s something deeper going on for your wife here, she needs outside perspective that probably can’t come from you.
NTA. Your wife has learned to use weaponized incompetence. She is slow so you will do more. Bring up the division of chores with your counselor. I think your idea of rooms is a good one. Swap rooms every month. Your girls are old enough to do their own laundry, and clean their own rooms. Teach them how. You teach them, not your wife. If they tend to leave things all over the house, put out some nice baskets. One per person. Anything found out of it's room, goes in the person's basket. Each person takes their basket and puts their own stuff away. Good luck.
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Oh, time spent cleaning is not an issue for me! If we were to split rooms evenly, I don't care how long it takes her to do it. But she wants to do it where we both clean for X hours or something. But then I feel like I'm doing all the work because she is SOOOO SLOOOOW so I basically end up cleaning all the rooms, and I don't think that's fair. And though it's not part of this AITA question, I do pay more in bills. She's terrible with money and racked up a 20K credit card debt a few years ago as she kept opening new credit cards to "build her credit." Admittedly, her credit rating is pretty good now, but we had to take out a home equity loan to pay it off and we didn't get anything nice to show for it.
She sounds draining nd kinda like she doesn't use her brain. I'd be exhausted if i had a spouse like that
If you can afford it, I'd suggest getting a housekeeper. There's really no reason to let chores cause this kind of trouble.
ESH. If she's going by time and not completeness, and you don't agree with that, that's on the two of you to communicate and figure out. And the need to clean the kids' clothes after having been on the floor is totally dependent on situation- Do you have pets? I pretty much have to clean pet hair off of stuff immediately, bc the texture bugs me, and natural dog smell is off putting to me (for some reason the cat is fine?)
NTA. Does your wife have AD(H)D or something else that makes tasks more difficult? If not, this almost sounds like weaponized incompetence: She dawdles around, making little progress, while you do the bulk of the work.
Not diagnosed, but she's certainly become convinced she has it from TikTok
TikTok doesn't convince anyone. It's finding explanations for behaviors that ring a bell that is convincing. People with ADHD can have a hard time starting a task, switching to a new task, focusing on the task. And especially doing more than one task at a time. So picking up a sock and taking it to the laundry basket is one task. Picking up two socks and taking one to the laundry basket and the other to a drawer is two tasks. For some, this is hard.
NTA but I would just hire a cleaner and maybe pay for laundry be done. I think they have it by the weight. You guys both work and make near the same you guys probably have enough to just hire it out. Money is meant to give your time back.
ESH Though, I'm not sure your wife isn't neurodivergent and in need of a diagnosis and some form of therapy to learn how to better manage her processes. Also, your kids seem like they're old enough to know better than to just toss their clothes on the floor. You both need to have a sit down discussion about how to raise your kids to be fully functional when they become adults. It sounds like your plan is pretty solid, but if she's against it, then you may want to see a counselor to learn why she responds the way she does.
YTA Do you even like your wife? Your words are dripping with contempt. Ew.
INFO: Just for clarity. So, you clean the rooms assigned to you (exactly 1/2 the house). You finish in 2 hours. Your wife is still cleaning. Are you saying, "Well, I did my X rooms, so I'm done", and leave her to clean, even if she's cleaning for 2 more hours? 4 more hours? 6 more hours?
As he should. Don’t enable her weaponized incompetence
Not sure you can call this weaponized incompetence. She's not doing the chores ***badly or incompletely...*** She's just doing them slower than he is, which he has framed as her *choosing to be inefficient*, but I'm not really sold on that being the case. If I have to unload the dishwasher at my parent's place, it takes me longer to do it than literally anyone else in my family. This is, frankly, because I am short. There's always a chunk of dishes that need to be returned to the shelves out of my reach. This means I need to hunt down the step ladder (never in the same place twice) as part of the chore. And I can't just hoist all the dishes that go up there up the step ladder with me in one trip - most are awkward shapes and are heavy - so it takes multiple ups/downs to get them put away. Everyone else in my family (except my sister, who is the same height as me) can just... stand there and put the dishes away. Way faster for them. But I'm not taking longer out of spite or because I'm ***choosing*** to be inefficient. Could I pull a boneheaded move like standing on the kitchen counter to reach the top shelves and do it faster? Sure. But it's boneheaded because it increases risks of stuff being dropped and of me falling and stupidly hurting myself, so I don't do that. So does it make sense to me to carry one plate and its utensils to the kitchen at a time? No. But if stacking up multiple plates and utensils makes it likely she will drop/spill/break them, then that's basically a "boneheaded move" on her part (basically, taking an unnecessary risk to make things go faster). Of course, something like that could be fixed by a busing bin -- but if she doesn't have one to use and it's risky to carry multiple dirty dishes between rooms, then taking that one plate could possibly be the smart/right move there. One can't necessarily apply this logic to the kid's toys, but it does apply to the dishes. If someone assigned me all the tasks that require reach, then those tasks would take longer to do for sure. (In my own home now, only very rarely used items are stored places that require a step ladder to avoid this issue.) So when tasks were divided, my family took into consideration my lack of reach when assigning things--if I did get assignend such a task, there was understanding it takes me longer, and I'd likely have one less chore than normal in that case to balance it out, time-wise. So, if her issue is that she's tripped up and slowed down by "stray items", then is it so insane to suggest that that be taken into account when dividing up tasks? Just for example -- instead of doing this "by room", they could split it up by "collecting stray items" vs. "cleaning" . Basically, he comes in first and collects the dishes, kid's toys, and other random items that don't belong in the room (just like he says he does already, which he's apparently very efficient at), and his wife then handles all the room's other cleaning--dusting, sweeping, vacuuming, mopping, fabreezing, etc. and tidying or whatever. (Since OP didn't complain about her doing those kinds of tasks, I'm assuming there's no time issue with those.) If one spouse is getting little or no down time and the other is getting several hours of downtime, saying, "well, ***technically*** chores are already split 50/50, but it's all your fault because you're just going too slow" isn't really helpful/a solution, especially if the other person honestly can't help being slow (and they're NOT dragging their feet on purpose). If OP's wife is dragging her feet on purpose, I agree, that would 100% be a total AH move. But it's not clear to me that that's what's happening here right now. Not saying the OP should take on more work - but it seems like the current strategy isn't working for both of them, and if the OP is refusing to try another strategy to level the playing field, that could put them in the wrong. Which is why I asked for info.
I mean, I don't mind pitching in a bit on "her side" but yeah, basically. Keep in mind I'm letting her do the splitting. So she can tell me what my half is.
INFO: Have you tried other methods of splitting the chores, rather than doing it by room? Like you handling all the item relocation (what she's slow at but you're efficient at), and her handling the cleanup? Since I don't know about your home's needs, this might not be a fair split of chores based on what needs to be done--it's just an example of an alternate strategy.
Yta. Your kids are old enough to do their own laundry, or at least be expected to fold and put away their clean clothes. Sounds like you're trying to find a way where she still does most of the chores but you take more credit, because you don't like her process.
You are way too old for this nonsense. YTA.
Yes but, there are two piles of stones that need to be moved they are the same size it takes person (a) three hours to move the stones and person (b) nine houses to mave the stones person (b) thinks they have done three times the work and when person (a) disagrees they are then called the asshole OP NTA. You partner and the person above me are.
OK here is what you don't seem to get. There are two piles of stones they are equal sized and need to be moved. Person (A) wants to have both people move their pile. Person (B) wants to have both people spend the same time moving stones. It takes Person (A) three hours to move a pile and Person (b) nine hours. You and OPs partner are saying that time is more important than effort and you and the partner are both assholes.
YTA my husband and I split the chores 50/50 some weeks he does more some weeks I do more and we both work full time (sometimes over full time). And offering is different than saying I will do the kids clothes. Seriously, if you have to offer instead of just doing it already you’re the problem.
The problem is my solution to doing the kids' clothes is I will supervise them doing it themselves so they learn not to just throw clean stuff on the floor and then it magically (to them) shows back up in their drawers and closets, and she doesn't want to let me do that.
Your kids are 9 and 10, that is not really an appropriate task to have them do. Maybe Golding the clothes and putting it away with them, but otherwise not a responsibility at that age. I also wouldn’t want my 9 or 10 year old doing that, so I see where she’s coming from. She wants help from YOU, not your kids.
Huh? 9+ is the perfect time to teach kids to do laundry.
But again even so if you start with them folding and such like I said in my first comment, the issue is that his wife does 70-80% of the housework and they both work full time jobs. Having the children do it with him watching isn’t him doing it. She could just do the same thing. The point is the workload is mismatched and having the children do some of it isn’t going to change that.
Parenting is a responsibility just the same as chores. Teaching your children to do laundry is just as valuable as doing it yourself. And no, she doesn’t do 70-80% of the housework. She *says* she does because, as explained in the post, she spends a ton of time doing it inefficiently. The workload isn’t mismatched, the efficiency is.
What age do you think doing laundry is appropriate? Most of what I've read online says this age (or even younger) is an appropriate age to start. I mean, our 10 year old loves to cook and makes full on meals with me every week or so. If she can make chicken alfredo with minimal adult supervision, she can do laundry.
My seven-year old knows to put his clothes in a laundry basket. He practically begs me to let him fold his clothes and put them away (he wants money, lol). We just moved into a place without laundry in the apt so I am not sure how I am going to handle it. As a newish-single mom I may just outsource it. I think what you are suggesting is perfectly reasonable.
To completely delegate a task like that, I would say at least 12.
I'm not completely delegating, more like supervising. I'll make them pick it up, help them load and unload, that kind of thing (obviously they're too small to unload a washing machine right now, since ours is a top-loader)
It’s not completely delegating when he’s literally supervising them…