Are we perpetuating gender stereotypes through kids’ chores?
Yes. But a few purposeful decisions could have long-term impact.
Many people are staying close to home this summer. Travel rules are looser in some places than others, but generally speaking, we will all have more time with our nuclear family than during a typical July or August. Summer camps are closed in our area, and except for the occasional play date, our kids will be home for at least two more months.
Partly because my husband and I are tired of 24/7 cleaning, and partly because my kids can’t use the, “I have a Google Meet call for school,” excuse, we’ve decided our kids should do more work around the house this summer.
And this brought me back to thinking about kids, chores and gender norms.
It is commonly known that even in dual-income homes, women do twice as much housework as men. Data clearly illustrates how this household burden limits women’s professional and earning potential. My frustration with this inequality is what drives my writing about the intersection of household work and stereotypical gender norms.
But household imbalance goes beyond our own partnerships — it extends to the lessons we’re teaching our kids, and the effects those lessons will have on their own future household balance.
The Inequity of Chores
Even parents that claim they do not assign chores based on gender do not necessarily do so. Chore diaries show that not only are girls still assigned more housework overall, but they continue to be assigned female-coded chores while boys are assigned male-coded chores.
You can guess what those are: Girls do cooking, washing, cleaning, and caring for siblings. Boys do yard work, fix-it projects and take out the trash.
This isn’t data from 1950 or even 1980 — but from 2019. Consciously or subconsciously, we’re passing down gender stereotypes to our own kids.
A 2018 article from BusyKid, a kids’ allowance app, lends additional perspective on how chores are even monetized differently by gender. BusyKid revealed that boys in their data sample are, on average, paid $13.80/week compared to girls of the same age earning $6.71/week.
Let’s not gloss over that. That data suggests we are collectively paying boys more than twice the allowance we pay girls.
And we wonder why we have a wage gap.
Further evidence suggests that teenage girls spend twice as much time cooking and cleaning as teenaged boys. And teenage boys are more likely to be paid for general hygiene — like tooth brushing and showering.
Don’t get me wrong — I know a few teenage boys, and I can see how this could happen to any well-meaning parent. And perhaps one or two isolated instances would not be an issue. But a trend among American teenagers elevates this practice to a social problem.
If we are willing to pay our boys for hygiene, then we should not be surprised when men feel entitled to rewards for completing the most basic household tasks.
The low bar we set for male partners begins during childhood. The result is that Millennial men might be happy to marry a woman who is employed — and thus adds to the family income. But those men are not willing to do more work around the house to support their wives’ professional dreams and ambitions.
It Does Not Need to Be This Way
Last year, I interviewed a man we’ll call Sam. Sam was born in the late 1970's and raised by a single mother in the Midwest; his father passed when he was very young, leaving his mom to raise Sam and his brother. She eventually remarried, but not until the boys were grown.
I didn’t LIKE chores. I’m the first to admit that. But mom was always so tired, and worked so hard for us. Guilt was a powerful feeling, and so we always helped her out.
I asked if, as a kid, he differentiated between women’s chores and men’s chores.
Not really. Someone had to do the cooking, the vacuuming, and mow the lawn. It was sort of whoever had the time. I never thought — I’m not going to vacuum because that’s women’s work. Never. The house just came with work, and in one way or another, one of us would do it.
And did this affect Sam’s role in his home as an adult?
I never thought about it, but I suppose so. I don’t feel comfortable sitting down and relaxing while my partner is doing housework. We both chip in until it’s done. I just do what needs doing — then, we can both relax together. Sure, there are chores I like better than others, but there’s nothing I refuse to do because I think of it as women’s work.
Thinking about the connection between Sam’s upbringing and his current household role made me think more about my own kids and what I can do now to prepare them for equal partnerships in the future.
Making Purposeful Decisions
I am the first to admit that I am “up to here” with articles about what I should do during COVID. I should exercise more, I should take the opportunity to spend more quality time with my kids, I should take up baking, I should start a garden, I should learn a new language. The truth is, I am flat out exhausted just trying to keep up with work while co-parenting my home-bound kids.
So please don’t think of this as a “you should” article. This is more of a “file this away for later” article, to be used when and if the need presents itself.
If your kids are already doing chores, you could do a quick audit of their tasks and see if your family has a gender-aware division of labor.
Personally, I am going to draw on this information as I assign my kids new chores for the first time this summer. Maybe I’ll have them randomly pull tasks from a bowl. Maybe I’ll assign my daughter “male coded” chores, and my son “female-coded” ones. (Assuming society will more than compensate for that imbalance later on.) Maybe we’ll have a rotating schedule to ensure everyone has the opportunity to do everything.
To be honest, I don’t really have a plan yet — I am playing these next few months by ear. But whatever I decide, I will make more purposeful decisions to try and avoid yet another gender-cycle trap.
