helping mother in household chores essay

Essay on How I Help My Mother aT Home

Students are often asked to write an essay on How I Help My Mother aT Home in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on How I Help My Mother aT Home

Introduction.

My mother is the busiest person at home. I always try to help her to reduce her workload.

Cleaning Duties

I help my mother with cleaning duties. Every morning, I dust the furniture and sweep the rooms.

Kitchen Assistance

In the kitchen, I assist my mother by washing vegetables and setting the table for meals.

Laundry Help

I also help with laundry. I gather dirty clothes, put them in the washing machine, and later fold them.

Helping my mother not only eases her work but also teaches me valuable life skills.

250 Words Essay on How I Help My Mother aT Home

Helping my mother at home is a responsibility I take seriously. Not only does it foster a sense of camaraderie and respect, but it also provides me with an opportunity to understand the intricacies of managing a household.

Sharing Household Chores

I partake in daily chores, ranging from cleaning to cooking. I ensure to maintain a clean environment by sweeping, dusting, and doing the dishes. I also assist in meal preparation, which has significantly improved my culinary skills. These tasks, albeit mundane, have taught me the value of discipline and time management.

Managing Finances

Being a college student, I’ve learned the importance of financial management. I assist my mother in budgeting our monthly expenses. This not only helps in maintaining a balanced expenditure but also provides me with practical knowledge about financial planning.

Emotional Support

One of the most important ways I help my mother is by providing emotional support. I make it a point to spend quality time with her, discussing her day, sharing thoughts, and sometimes, just listening. This emotional bonding helps in reducing her stress and strengthens our relationship.

Helping my mother at home has been a transformative experience. It has instilled in me a sense of responsibility, improved my practical skills, and deepened my understanding of the nuances of managing a home. It has also brought us closer, enriching our relationship. In essence, it is an experience that has contributed significantly to my personal growth.

500 Words Essay on How I Help My Mother aT Home

One of the primary ways I help my mother at home is by sharing household chores. I take on tasks such as washing dishes, doing laundry, and cleaning the house. These tasks may seem mundane, but they are essential for maintaining a clean and healthy living environment. By sharing these responsibilities, I alleviate some of the burdens on my mother’s shoulders, allowing her to have some time for herself.

Assisting in Cooking

Cooking is another area where I lend my hand. I assist my mother in meal planning, grocery shopping, and meal preparation. This not only reduces her workload but also provides an opportunity for me to learn about nutrition, budgeting, and culinary skills. Furthermore, cooking together strengthens our bond as we share stories, laughter, and create memories.

Providing Emotional Support

Helping with technological challenges.

In this digital age, I assist my mother in navigating the technological landscape. Whether it’s setting up a new smartphone, troubleshooting a computer issue, or guiding her through the use of a new app, I ensure that she stays connected and updated. This not only makes her life easier but also empowers her to be independent in a technology-driven world.

To conclude, helping my mother at home is not merely about doing chores or tasks. It is about learning, sharing, and growing together. It is about understanding the value of hard work, developing a sense of responsibility, and fostering empathy. It is about strengthening our bond and creating a harmonious living environment. I believe that the lessons I learn from helping my mother at home will be invaluable in my future endeavors, be it in my personal or professional life.

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10 Lines Essay On Helping My Mother For Students in English

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Family Work

The daily work of families—the ordinary hands-on labor of sustaining life—has the power to bind us together.

By Kathleen Slaugh Bahr and Cheri A. Loveless in the Spring 2000 Issue

Illustrations by Rich Lillash

I grew up in a little town in Northern Utah, the oldest daughter in a family of 13 children. We lived on a small two-and-a-half-acre farm with a large garden, fruit trees, and a milk cow. We children loved helping our dad plant the garden, following behind him like little quail as he cut the furrow with his hoe and we dropped in the seeds. Weeding was less exciting, but it had to be done. I was never very good at milking the cow. Fortunately, my brothers shared that task.

In the autumn, we all helped with the harvest. I especially loved picking and bottling the fruit. It required the hands of all 13 of us plus Mom and Dad. We children swarmed through the trees picking the fruit. My dad would fire up an old camp stove where we heated the water to scald the fruit. My mother supervised putting the fruit in jars, adding the sugar, putting on the lids. My youngest sister remembers feeling very important because she had hands small enough to turn the peach halves if they fell into the jars upside downand they usually did. When the harvest was complete, I loved looking at the freezer full of vegetables and all the jars of fruit. They looked like jewels to me.

Caring for our large family kept all of us busy most of the time. Mother was the overseer of the inside work, and Dad the outside, but I also remember seeing my father sweep floors, wash dishes, and cook meals when his help was needed. As children we often worked together, but not all at the same task. While we worked we talked, sang, quarreled, made good memories, and learned what it meant to be family members, good sons or daughters and fathers or mothers, good Americans, good Christians.

As a young child, I didn’t know there was anything unusual about this life. My father and mother read us stories about their parents and grandparents, and it was clear that both my father and mother had worked hard as children. Working hard was what families did, what they always had done. Their work was “family work,” the everyday, ordinary, hands-on labor of sustaining life that cannot be ignored—feeding one another, clothing one another, cleaning and beautifying ourselves and our surroundings. It included caring for the sick and tending to the tasks of daily life for those who could not do it for themselves. It was through this shared work that we showed our love and respect for each other—and work was also the way we learned to love and respect each other.

“Many social and political forces continue the devaluation of family work.”

When I went to graduate school, I learned that not everyone considered this pattern of family life ideal. At the university, much of what I read and heard belittled family work. Feminist historians reminded us students that men had long been liberated from farm and family work; now women were also to be liberated. One professor taught that assigning the tasks of nurturing children primarily to women was the root of women’s oppression. I was told that women must be liberated from these onerous family tasks so that they might be free to work for money.

Today many social and political forces continue the devaluation of family work, encouraging the belief that family work is the province of the exploited and the powerless. Chief among these forces is the idea that because money is power, one’s salary is the true indication of one’s worth. Another is that the important work of the world is visible and takes place in the public sphere—in offices, factories, and government buildings. According to this ideology, if one wants to make a difference in the world, one must do it through participation in the world of paid work.

Some have tried to convince us of the importance of family work by calling attention to its economic value, declaring, as in one recent study, that a stay-at-home mom’s work is worth more than half a million dollars. 1  But I believe assigning economic value to household work does not translate into an increase in its status or power. In fact, devaluing family work to its mere market equivalent may even have the opposite effect. People who see the value of family work only in terms of the economic value of processes that yield measurable products—washed dishes, baked bread, swept floors, clothed children—miss what some call the “invisible household production” that occurs at the same time, but which is, in fact, more important to family-building and character development than the economic products. Here lies the real power of family work—its potential to transform lives, to forge strong families, to build strong communities. It is the power to quietly, effectively urge hearts and minds toward a oneness known only in Zion.

Back to Eden

Family work actually began with Adam and Eve. As best we can discern, they lived a life of relative ease in the Garden of Eden. They “dressed” and “kept” it ( Moses 3:15 ), but it isn’t clear what that entailed since the plants were already flourishing. There were no weeds, and Adam and Eve had no children to prod or cajole into watering or harvesting, if such tasks needed to be done

When they exercised their agency and partook of the fruit, Adam and Eve left their peaceful, labor-free existence and began one of hard work. They were each given a specific area of responsibility, yet they helped each other in their labors. Adam brought forth the fruit of the earth, and Eve worked along with him ( Moses 5:1 ). Eve bore children, and Adam joined her in teaching them ( Moses 5:12 ). They were not given a choice about these two lifetime labors; these were commandments ( Moses 4:22–25 ).

Traditionally, many have considered this need to labor as a curse, but a close reading of the account suggests otherwise. God did not curse Adam; He cursed the ground  to bring forth thorns and thistles ( Moses 4:24 ), which in turn forced Adam to labor. And Adam was told, “Cursed shall be the ground  for thy sake ” ( vs. 23 , emphasis added). In other words, the hard work of eating one’s bread “by the sweat of thy face” ( vs. 25 ) was meant to be a blessing.

According to the New Testament, the work of bearing and rearing children was also intended as a blessing. Writes the Apostle Paul: “[Eve]  shall be saved  in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety” ( 1 Tim. 2:15 , emphasis added). Significantly, Joseph Smith corrected the verse to read, “ They  shall be saved in childbearing” ( JST, 1 Tim. 2:15 , emphasis added), indicating that more than the sparing of Eve’s physical life was at issue here.  Both  Adam and Eve would be privileged to return to their Heavenly Father through the labor of bringing forth and nurturing their offspring.

According to scripture, then, the Lord blessed Adam and Eve (and their descendants) with two kinds of labor that would, by the nature of the work itself, help guarantee their salvation. Both of these labors—tilling the earth for food and laboring to rear children—are family work, work that sustains and nurtures members of a family from one day to the next. But there is more to consider. These labors literally could not be performed in Eden. These are the labors that ensure physical survival; thus, they became necessary only when mankind left a life-sustaining garden and entered a sphere where life was quickly overcome by death unless it was upheld by steady, continual, hard work. Undoubtedly the Lord knew that other activities associated with mortality—like study and learning or developing one’s talents—would also be important. But His initial emphasis, in the form of a commandment, was on that which had the power to bring His children back into His presence, and that was family work.

Since Eden many variations and distortions of the Lord’s original design for earthly labor have emerged. Still, the general pattern has remained dominant among many peoples of the earth, including families who lived in the United States at the turn of the last century. Mothers and fathers, teenagers and young children cared for their land, their animals, and for each other with their own hands. Their work was difficult, and it filled almost every day of their lives. But they recognized their family work as essential, and it was not without its compensations. It was social and was often carried out at a relaxed pace and in a playful spirit.

“The wrenching apart of work and home-life is one of the great themes in social history.”

Yet, long before the close of the 19th century this picture of families working together was changing. People realized that early death was often related to the harshness of their daily routine. Also, many young people longed for formal schooling or to pursue scientific careers or vocations in the arts, life courses that were sometimes prevented by the necessity of hard work. Industrialization promised to free people from the burden of domestic labor. Many families abandoned farm life and crowded into tenement housing in the cities to take jobs in factories. But factory work was irregular. Most families lived in poverty and squalor, and disease was common.

Reformers of the day sought to alleviate these miseries. In the spirit of the times, many of them envisioned a utopian world without social problems, where scientific inventions would free humans from physical labor, and modern medicine would eliminate disease and suffering. Their reforms eventually transformed work patterns throughout our culture, which in turn changed the roles of men, women, and children within the family unit.

By the turn of the century, many fathers began to earn a living away from the farm and the household. Thus, they no longer worked side by side with their children. Where a son once forged ties with his father as he was taught how to run the farm or the family business, now he could follow his father’s example only by distancing himself from the daily work of the household, eventually leaving home to do his work. Historian John Demos notes:

The wrenching apart of work and home-life is one of the great themes in social history. And for fathers, in particular, the consequences can hardly be overestimated. Certain key elements of pre-modern fatherhood dwindled and disappeared (e.g.,  father as pedagogue, father as moral overseer, father as companion). . . .

Of course, fathers had always been involved in the provision of goods and services to their families; but before the nineteenth century such activity was embedded in a larger matrix of domestic sharing. . . . Now, for the first time, the central activity of fatherhood was cited outside one’s immediate household. Now, being fully a father meant being separated from one’s children for a considerable part of every working day. 2

By the 1950s fathers were gone such long hours they became guests in their own homes. The natural connection between fathers and their children was supposed to be preserved and strengthened by playing together. However, play, like work, also changed over the course of the century, becoming more structured, more costly, and less interactive.

Initially, the changing role of women in the family was more subtle because the kind of work they did remained the same. Yet  how  their tasks were carried out changed drastically over the 20th century, influenced by the modernization of America’s factories and businesses. “Housewives” were encouraged to organize, sterilize, and modernize. Experts urged them to purchase machines to do their physical labor and told them that market-produced goods and services were superior because they freed women to do the supposedly more important work of the mind.

Women were told that applying methods of factory and business management to their homes would ease their burdens and raise the status of household work by “professionalizing” it. Surprisingly, these innovations did neither. Machines tended to replace tasks once performed by husbands and children, while mothers continued to carry out the same basic duties. Houses and wardrobes expanded, standards for cleanliness increased, and new appliances encouraged more elaborate meal preparation. More time was spent shopping and driving children to activities. With husbands at work and older children in school, care of the house and young children now fell almost exclusively to mothers, actually lengthening their work day. 3  Moreover, much of a mother’s work began to be done in isolation. Work that was once enjoyable because it was social became lonely, boring, and monotonous.

Even the purpose of family work was given a facelift. Once performed to nurture and care for one another, it was reduced to “housework” and was done to create “atmosphere.” Since work in the home had “use value” instead of “exchange value,” it remained outside the market economy and its worth became invisible. Being a mother now meant spending long hours at a type of work that society said mattered little and should be “managed” to take no time at all.

Prior to modernization, children shared much of the hard work, laboring alongside their fathers and mothers in the house and on the farm or in a family business. This work was considered good for them—part of their education for adulthood. Children were expected to learn all things necessary for a good life by precept and example, and it was assumed that the lives of the adults surrounding them would be worthy of imitation.

With industrialization, children joined their families in factory work, but gradually employers split up families, often rejecting mothers and fathers in favor of the cheap labor provided by children. Many children began working long hours to help put bread on the family table. Their work was hard, often dangerous, and children lost fingers, limbs, and lives. The child labor movement was thus organized to protect the “thousands of boys and girls once employed in sweat shops and factories” from “the grasping greed of business.” 4  However, the actual changes were much more complex and the consequences more far-reaching. 5  Child labor laws, designed to end the abuses, also ended child labor.

At the same time that expectations for children to work were diminishing, new fashions in child rearing dictated that children needed to have their own money and be trained to spend it wisely. Eventually, the relationship of children and work inside the family completely reversed itself: children went from economic asset to pampered consumer.

“In almost every facet of our prosperous, contemporary lifestyle, we strive for the ease associated with Eden. . . . Back to Eden is not onward to Zion.”

Thus, for each family member the contribution to the family became increasingly abstract and ever distant from the labor of Adam and Eve, until the work given as a blessing to the first couple had all but disappeared. Today a man feels “free” if he can avoid any kind of physical labor—actual work in the fields is left to migrant workers and illegal aliens. Meanwhile, a woman is considered “free” if she chooses a career over mothering at home, freer still if she elects not to bear children at all.

In almost every facet of our prosperous, contemporary lifestyle, we strive for the ease associated with Eden. The more abstract and mental our work, the more distanced from physical labor, the higher the status it is accorded. Better off still is the individual who wins the lottery or inherits wealth and does not have to work at all. Our homes are designed to reduce the time we must spend in family work. An enviable vacation is one where all such work is done for us—where we are fed without preparing our meals, dressed without ironing our shirts, cleaned up after wherever we go, whatever we do.

Even the way we go about building relationships denies the saving power inherent in working side by side at something that requires us to cooperate in spite of differences. Rather, we “bond” with our children by getting the housework out of the way so the family can participate in structured “play.” We improve our marriages by getting away from the house and kids, from responsibility altogether, to communicate uninterrupted as if work, love, and living were not inseparably connected. We are so thoroughly convinced that the relationship itself, abstract and apart from life, is what matters that, a relationship free from lasting obligations—to marriage, children, or family labor—is fast becoming the ideal. At every turn, we are encouraged to seek an Eden-like bliss where we enjoy life’s bounties without working for them and where we don’t have to have children, at least not interrupting whatever we’re doing. 6

However, back to Eden is not onward to Zion. Adam and Eve entered mortality to do what they could  not  do in the Garden: to gain salvation by bringing forth, sustaining, and nourishing life. As they worked together in this stewardship, with an eye single to the glory of God, a deep and caring relationship would grow out of their shared daily experience. Today, the need for salvation has not changed; the opportunity to do family work has not changed; the love that blossoms as spouses labor together has not changed. Perhaps, then, we are still obligated to do the work of Adam and Eve.

For Our Sakes

The story of Adam and Eve raises an important question. How does ordinary, family-centered work like feeding, clothing, and nurturing a family—work that often seems endless and mundane—actually bless our lives? The answer is so obvious in common experience that it has become obscure: Family work links people. On a daily basis, the tasks we do to stay alive provide us with endless opportunities to recognize and fill the needs of others. Family work is a call to enact love, and it is a call that is universal. Throughout history, in every culture, whether in poverty or prosperity, there has been the ever-present need to shelter, clothe, feed, and care for each other.

Ironically, it is the very things commonly disliked about family work that offer the greatest possibilities for nurturing close relationships and forging family ties. Some people dislike family work because, they say, it is mindless. Yet chores that can be done with a minimum of concentration leave our minds free to focus on one another as we work together. We can talk, sing, or tell stories as we work. Working side by side tends to dissolve feelings of hierarchy, making it easier for children to discuss topics of concern with their parents. Unlike play, which usually requires mental concentration as well as physical involvement, family work invites intimate conversation between parent and child.

We also tend to think of household work as menial, and much of it is. Yet, because it is menial, even the smallest child can make a meaningful contribution. Children can learn to fold laundry, wash windows, or sort silverware with sufficient skill to feel valued as part of the family. Since daily tasks range from the simple to the complex, participants at every level can feel competent yet challenged, including the parents with their overall responsibility for coordinating tasks, people, and projects into a cooperative, working whole.

Another characteristic of ordinary family work that gives it such power is repetition. Almost as quickly as it is done, it must be redone. Dust gathers on furniture, dirt accumulates on floors, beds get messed up, children get hungry and dirty, meals are eaten, clothes become soiled. As any homemaker can tell you, the work is never done. When compared with the qualities of work that are prized in the public sphere, this aspect of family work seems to be just another reason to devalue it. However, each rendering of a task is a new invitation for all to enter the family circle. The most ordinary chores can become daily rituals of family love and belonging. Family identity is built moment by moment amidst the talking and teasing, the singing and storytelling, and even the quarreling and anguish that may attend such work sessions.

Some people also insist that family work is demeaning because it involves cleaning up after others in the most personal manner. Yet, in so doing, we observe their vulnerability and weaknesses in a way that forces us to admit that life is only possible day-to-day by the grace of God. We are also reminded of our own dependence on others who have done, and will do, such work for us. We are reminded that when we are fed, we could be hungry; when we are clean, we could be dirty; and when we are healthy and strong, we could be feeble and dependent. Family work is thus humbling work, helping us to acknowledge our unavoidable interdependence; encouraging (even requiring) us to sacrifice “self” for the good of the whole.

God gave us family work as a link to one another, as a link to Him, as a stepping stone toward salvation that is always available and that has the power to transform us spiritually as we transform others physically. This daily work of feeding and clothing and sheltering each other is perhaps the only opportunity all humanity has in common. Whatever the world takes from us, it cannot take away the daily maintenance needed for survival. Whether we find ourselves in wealth, poverty, or struggling as most of us do in day-to-day mediocrity, we need to be fed, to be clothed, to be sheltered, to be clean. And so does our neighbor.

When Christ instituted one of the most sacred of ordinances, one still performed today among the apostles, what symbolism did He choose? Of all the things He could have done as He prepared His apostles for His imminent death and instructed them on how to become one, He chose the washing of feet—a task ordinarily done in His time by the most humble of servants. When Peter objected, thinking that this was not the kind of work someone of Christ’s earthly, much less eternal stature would be expected to do, Christ made clear the importance of participating: “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me” ( John 13:8 ).

So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you?

Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.

For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. ( John 13:12–15 )

And so  for our sakes  this work seems mindless, menial, repetitive, and demeaning. This daily toiling is in honor of life itself. After all, isn’t this temporal work of tending to the necessary and routine currents of daily life, whether for our families or for our neighbors, the work we really came to Earth to do? By this humble service—this washing of one another’s feet—we sacrifice our pride and invite God to wash our own souls from sin. Indeed, such work embodies within it the condescension of the Savior himself. It is nothing less than doing unto Christ, by serving the least of our brethren, what He has already done for us.

Family Work in Modern Times

If family work is indeed what I say it is—a natural invitation to become Christlike devalued by a world that has shattered family relationships in its quest for gain and ease—what can be done? Families working harmoniously together at a relaxed pace is a wonderful ideal, but what about the realities of our day? Men  do  work away from home, and many feel out-of-step when it comes to family work. Children  do  go to school, and between homework and other activities do not welcome opportunities to work around the house. Whether mothers are employed outside the home or not, they often live in exhaustion, doing most of the family work without willing help.

Yet we cannot go back to a pre-industrial society where hard family work was unavoidable, nor would it be desirable or appropriate to do so.

Life for most people may have changed over the century, but opportunities to instill values, develop character, and work side by side remain. We have all seen how times of crises call forth such effort—war, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods—all disasters no one welcomes, but they provide opportunities for us to learn to care for one another. In truth, opportunities are no less available in our ordinary daily lives.

The length of this article does not allow for the discussion we really need to have at this point, and there will never be “five easy steps” to accomplish these ends. Rather, the eternal principles that govern family work will be uncovered by each of us according to our personal time line of discovery. The following, however, are several ideas that may be helpful.

Tilling the Soil.

Although tilling the soil for our sustenance is unrealistic for most Americans today, modern prophets have stressed the need to labor with the earth, if only in a small way. Former LDS Church President Spencer W. Kimball was particularly insistent on the need to grow gardens–not just as a food supply, but because of the “lessons of life” inherent in the process as well as the family bonds that could be strengthened:

I hope that we understand that, while having a garden, for instance, is often useful in reducing food costs and making available delicious fresh fruits and vegetables, it does much more than this. Who can gauge the value of that special chat between daughter and Dad as they weed or water the garden? How do we evaluate the good that comes from the obvious lessons of planting, cultivating, and the eternal law of the harvest? And how do we measure the family togetherness and cooperating that must accompany successful canning? Yes, we are laying up resources in store, but perhaps the greater good is contained in the lessons of life we learn as we  live providently  and extend to our children their pioneer heritage.  (Emphasis in original.) 7

Exemplifying the Attitudes We Want Our Children to Have.

Until we feel about family work the way we want our children to feel about it, we will teach them nothing. If we dislike this work, they will know it. If we do not really consider it our work, they will know it. If we wish to hurry and get it out of the way or if we wish we were doing it alone so it could better meet our standards, they will know it. Most of us have grown up with a strong conviction that we are fortunate to live at a time when machines and prosperity and efficient organizational skills have relieved us of much of the hands-on work of sustaining daily life. If we wish to change our family habits on this matter, we must first change our own minds and hearts.

Refusing Technology That Interferes With Togetherness.

As we labor together in our families, we will begin to cherish certain work experiences, even difficult ones, for reasons we can’t explain. When technology comes along that streamlines that work, we need not rush out and buy it just because it promises to make our labor more efficient. Saving time and effort is not always the goal. When we choose to heat convenience foods in the microwave or to process vegetables in a noisy machine, we choose not to talk, laugh, and play as we peel and chop. Deciding which modern conveniences to live with is a personal matter. Some families love washing dishes together by hand; others would never give up the dishwasher. Before we accept a scientific “improvement,” we should ask ourselves what we are giving up for what we will gain.

Insisting Gently That Children Help.

A frequent temptation in our busy lives today is to do the necessary family work by ourselves. A mother, tired from a long day of work in the office, may find it easier to do the work herself than to add the extra job of getting a family member to help. A related temptation is to make each child responsible only for his own mess, to put away his own toys, to clean his own room, to do his own laundry, and then to consider this enough family work to require of a child. When we structure work this way, we may shortchange ourselves by minimizing the potential for growing together that comes from doing the work for and with each other.

Canadian scholars Joan Grusec and Lorenzo Cohen, along with Australian Jacqueline Goodnow, compared children who did “self-care tasks” such as cleaning up their own rooms or doing their own laundry, with children who participated in “family-care tasks” such as setting the table or cleaning up a space that is shared with others. They found that it is the work one does “for others” that leads to the development of concern for others, while “work that focuses on what is one’s ‘own,’” does not. Other studies have also reported a positive link between household work and observed actions of helpfulness toward others. In one international study, African children who did “predominantly family-care tasks [such as] fetching wood or water, looking after siblings, running errands for parents” showed a high degree of helpfulness while “children in the Northeast United States, whose primary task in the household was to clean their own room, were the least helpful of all the children in the six cultures that were studied.” 8

Avoiding a Business Mentality at Home.

Even with the best of intentions, most of us revert to “workplace” skills while doing family work. We overorganize and believe that children, like employees, won’t work unless they are “motivated,” supervised, and perhaps even paid. This line of thought will get us into trouble. Some managing, of course, is necessary and helpful—but not the kind that oversees from a distance. Rather, family work should be directed with the wisdom of a mentor who knows intimately both the task and the student, who appreciates both the limits and the possibilities of any given moment. A common error is to try to make the work “fun” with a game or contest, yet to chastise children when they become naturally playful (“off task,” to our thinking). Fond family memories often center around spontaneous fun while working, like pretending to be maids, drawing pictures in spilled flour, and wrapping up in towels to scrub the floor. Another error is to reward children monetarily for their efforts. According to financial writer Grace Weinstein, “Unless you want your children to think of you as an employer and of themselves not as family members but as employees, you should think long and hard about introducing money as a motivational force. Money distorts family feeling and weakens the members’ mutual support.” 9

Working Side by side With Our Children.

Assigning family work to our children while we expect to be free to do other activities only reinforces the attitudes of the world. LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley said: “Children need to work with their parents, to wash dishes with them, to mop floors with them, to mow lawns, to prune trees and shrubbery, to paint and fix up, to clean up, and to do a hundred other things in which they will learn that labor is the price of cleanliness, progress, and prosperity.” 10

Most of the important lessons that flow from family work are derived from the cooperative nature of the work. Christ said, “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise” ( John 5:19 ). Perhaps this concept is more literal than we have assumed.

Several years ago one of my students, a young mother of two daughters, wrote of the challenges she experienced learning to feel a strong bond with her firstborn. Because this daughter was born prematurely, she was taken from her mother and kept in isolation at the hospital for the first several weeks of her life. Even after the baby came home, she looked so fragile that the mother was afraid to hold her. She felt many of the inadequacies typical of new mothers, plus additional ones that came from her own rough childhood experiences. As time passed, she felt that she loved her daughter, but suffered feelings of deficiency, often to the point of tears, and wondered, “Why don’t I have that ‘natural bond’ with my first child that I do with my second?”

Then she learned about the idea of working together as a means to build bonds. She purposely included her daughter in her work around the house, and gradually, she recalls, “our relationship . . . deepened in a way that I had despaired of ever realizing.” She describes the moment she realized the change that had taken place:

One morning before the girls were to leave [to visit family in another state], Mandy and I were sitting and folding towels together, chattering away. As I looked at her, a sudden rush of maternal love flooded over me–it was no longer something that I had to work at. She looked up at me and must have read my heart in my expression. We fell laughing and crying into each other’s arms. She looked up at me and said, “Mom, what would you do without me?” I couldn’t even answer her, because the thought was too painful to entertain. 11

In a world that lauds the signing of peace treaties and the building of skyscrapers as the truly great work, how can we make such a big thing out of folding laundry? Gary Saul Morson, a professor of Russian literature at Northwestern University, argues convincingly that “the important events are not the great ones, but the infinitely numerous and apparently inconsequential ordinary ones, which, taken together, are far more effective and significant.” 12

To Bring Again Zion

Family work is a gift from the Lord to every mortal, a gift that transcends time, place, and circumstance. On a daily basis it calls us, sometimes forces us, to face our mortality, to ask for the grace of God, to admit that we need our neighbor and that our neighbor needs us. It provides us with a daily opportunity to recognize the needs of those around us and put them before our own. This invitation to serve one another in oneness of heart and mind can become a simple tool that, over time, will bring the peace that attends Zion.

I learned firsthand of the power of this ordinary work not only to bind families but to link people of different cultures when I accompanied a group of university students on a service and study experience in Mexico. The infant mortality rate in many of the villages was high, and we had been invited by community leaders to teach classes in basic nutrition and sanitation. Experts who had worked in developing countries told us that the one month we had to do this was not enough time to establish rapport and win the trust of the people, let alone do any teaching. But we did not have the luxury of more time.

In the first village, we arrived at the central plaza where we were to meet the leaders and families of the village. On our part, tension was high. The faces of the village men and women who slowly gathered were somber and expressionless.  They are suspicious of us,  I thought. A formal introduction ceremony had been planned. The village school children danced and sang songs, and our students sang. The expressions on the faces of the village adults didn’t change.

“Helping one another nurture children, care for the land, prepare food, and clean homes can bind lives together.”

Unexpectedly, I was invited to speak to the group and explain why we were there. What could I say? That we were “big brother” here to try to change the ways they had farmed and fed their families for hundreds of years? I quickly said a silent prayer, desirous of dispelling the feeling of hierarchy, anxious to create a sense of being on equal footing. I searched for the right words, trying to downplay the official reasons for our visit, and began, “We are students; we want to share some things we have learned. . . .” Then I surprised even myself by saying, “But what we are really here for is, we would like to learn to make tortillas.” The people laughed. After the formalities were over, several wonderful village couples came to us and said, “You can come to our house to make tortillas.” The next morning, we sent small groups of students to each of their homes, and we all learned to make tortillas. An almost instant rapport was established. Later, when we began classes, they were surprisingly well attended, with mothers sitting on the benches and fathers standing at the back of the hall listening and caring for little children.

Because our classes were taking time from the necessary work of fertilizing and weeding their crops, we asked one of the local leaders if we could go to the fields with them on the days when we did not teach and help them hoe and spread the fertilizer. His first response was, “No. You couldn’t do that. You are teachers; we are farmers.” I assured him that several of us had grown up on farms, that we could tell weeds from corn and beans, and in any case, we would be pleased if they would teach us. So we went to the fields. As we worked together, in some amazing way we became one. Artificial hierarchies dissolved as we made tortillas together, weeded together, ate lunch together, and together took little excursions to enjoy the beauty of the valley. When the month was over, our farewells were sad and sweet—we were sorry to leave such dear friends, but happy for the privilege of knowing them.

Over the next several years I saw this process repeated again and again in various settings. I am still in awe of the power of shared participation in the simple, everyday work of sustaining life. Helping one another nurture children, care for the land, prepare food, and clean homes can bind lives together. This is the power of family work, and it is this power, available in every home, no matter how troubled, that can end the turmoil of the family, begin to change the world, and bring again Zion.

• Study by Edelman Financial Services, May 5, 1999, (see https://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content5/mothers.worth.html ).
• John Demos, “The Changing Faces of Fatherhood,”  Past, Present, Personal: The Family and the Life Course in American History  (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 51–52.
• See R. S. Cowan,  More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave  (New York: Basic Books, 1983).
• William A. McKeever, “The New Child Labor Movement,”  Journal of Home Economics , vol. 5 (April 1913), pp. 137–139.
• See Viviana A. Zelizer,  Pricing the Priceless Child  (New York: Basic Books, 1985).
• See Germaine Greer,  Sex and Destiny  (New York: Harper & Row, 1984), and J. Van de Kaa, “Europe’s Second Demographic Transition,”  Population Bulletin , vol. 42, no. 1 (March 1987), pp. 1–57.
• Spencer W. Kimball, “Welfare Services, The Gospel in Action,”  Ensign , November 1977, p. 78.
• Joan E. Grusec, Jacqueline J. Goodnow, and Lorenzo Cohen, “Household Work and the Development of Concern for Others,”  Developmental Psychology , vol. 32, no. 6 (1996), pp. 999–1007.
• Grace W. Weinstein, “Money Games Parents Play,”  Redbook , August 1985, p. 107, taken from her book  Children and Money: A Parents’ Guide  (New York: New American Library, 1985).
• Gordon B. Hinckley, “Four Simple Things to Help Our Families and Our Nations,”  Ensign , September 1996, p. 7.
• Michelle Cottingham, unpublished paper.
• Gary Saul Morson, “Prosaics: An Approach to the Humanities,”  American Scholar , vol. 57 (Autumn 1988), p. 519.

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Helping Mother At Home (Essay Sample)

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Assisting With Family Chores

A mother is the most important person in a family. Every person needs her attention from cleanliness, giving directions, education, food, instilling discipline to managing all aspects including cleaning the compound. Mother is usually hard working with greatest responsibilities to support even their husbands with finances. As a result of such tremendous duties, children have the responsibility to help their mothers with family chores especially during weekends, holidays or at any moment they are instructed to do any duty. For example, children should be cleaning their rooms and study areas, watering flowers and plants, cleaning compound, dusting the house and furniture, help in hanging out the washed clothes among others. Therefore, helping mothers at home is our responsibilities as children besides making us stay fit and confident.

In most cases, when children stay beside mothers and listening to their instructions, they learn the art of doing activities. For example, cleaning itself is an art and requires skills. On the same note, allocating light duties to children at home makes them feel proud and confident as well as realizing that their existence in the family is of greater help. These children in time build high self-esteem since they contribute for the betterment of the family.

Secondly, helping mothers at home ensures positive buildup of relationships with the mother. In most cases, children take much time in schools. Therefore, helping mothers provides the best opportunity to bond with them. This is normally the best moment to share with mothers any information one feels as well as reassuring her that she is an important person. Helping the mother with such family chores is the best way of thanking her for all the good things that she has been doing to her kids. Thus, it creates the environment for bonding.

On a separate note, helping mothers at home is the perfect time of applying the practical skills gained in school. Mothers sometimes get ill and stay away from home. In such circumstances, most fathers do the cooking, doing all the shopping and planning meals for the day. However, the general cleaning of the house such as ironing, washing up, cleaning rooms entirely remains for the teens.  Ironing as chores, at home is important. As a home economics student, this is the time to apply the learned skills at school besides cooking light dishes for the family, doing the shopping as well as gardening.  Regarding the application of the skills learned in school, mother one time demanded that I take the responsibility of ensuring that the fridge at home is well kept and all the food items in it were arranged as required. However, she never knew that it was part of the cookery lessons that is done at school. These chores enable improved my technical skills, especially management of the fridge, monitoring the food items concerning their conditions among others.  Therefore, applying different skills learned at school have been of greater benefit to the mother. I recall one time when my mom was surprised to have saved a lot of money on food expenditure. She realized that she no longer spend much due to the best ways I use to preserve the food items at home. I was motivated to assist mother most of the time at home as I realize that is also a source of learning how to do activities.

Finally, helping mother at home is a responsibility that I have to undertake. This is the moment I say “thank you” to my mother who has helped me in many ways. Ensuring that the house is in order is my priority besides being a way of getting rid of my boredom. These little chores that I have been doing at home have taught me the art of persistence, being responsible besides improving my practical skills especially on cleaning, food preservation, and management.

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15 Ways to Help Your Busy Mother Out around the House

Last Updated: December 4, 2022 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Wits End Parenting and by wikiHow staff writer, Hannah Madden . Wits End Parenting is a parent-coaching practice based in Berkeley, California specializing in strong-willed, “spirited” children with impulsivity, emotional volatility, difficulty “listening,” defiance, and aggression. Wits End Parenting's counselors incorporate positive discipline that is tailored to each child’s temperament while also providing long-term results, freeing parents from the need to continually re-invent their discipline strategies. There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 388,941 times.

Things You Should Know

• Clean up after yourself to make your mom smile. If you've left a mess on your desk, on your bed, or in your room, tidy up.
• Help with household chores that your mom normally handles. For instance, set the table or take out the trash.
• Ask your mom what you can do to help her if you're not sure. She'll probably really appreciate your thoughtfulness!

Tidy up clutter in your room.

• If you have a playroom or a family room that’s looking cluttered, do the same thing there as well.
• Are there any dishes or cups in your room? Help your mom out by taking them to the kitchen to be washed.

Organize your school work.

• Having a homework spot doesn't just make your room look cleaner, it makes it easier to find what you need to get ready for school in the morning.

Make your bed.

• If you know your mom is doing laundry later, help her out by taking the sheets off your bed and putting them in the laundry pile. Try to wash your sheets at least once a week to keep them looking and smelling fresh.

Set the table for dinner.

• You can also pour cups of water for everyone at the table.

Feed and walk the pets.

• You could also play fetch or play with toys inside the house.

Water the plants.

• Outdoor plants usually only need to be watered during the spring and summer. If it’s raining, your plants are being watered for you!
• Some plants only need a little bit of water. If you aren’t sure whether or not yours need some, ask your mom.

Take out the trash.

• If you’re old enough to push the large trash bins out to the street, ask your mom when trash day is. Then, the night before, bring the bins out to the street for the garbage trucks to pick up in the morning.

Do a load of laundry.

• Some clothes are delicate and need to be washed on a special cycle. Ask your mom beforehand if there’s anything you should set aside before putting in the laundry.
• When the clothes are dry, fold them and sort them into piles based on where they go.

Vacuum or sweep the floors.

• If your floors are really dirty, you could even mop them for your mom. Ask her where the mop and bucket are, then fill up the bucket with water and whatever cleaning solution your mom usually uses.

Make your own breakfast or lunch.

• Packing your lunch the night before makes the mornings of school easier.
• If you have siblings, you can trade off whose turn it is to pack lunch or make breakfast for everybody.

Help make dinner.

Wash the dishes.

• If you aren’t old enough to do the dishes yet, focus on taking your dinner plate to the kitchen and scraping any food into the garbage or compost.

Dust around the house.

• Be extra careful if you choose to dust electronics, like the TV or your computer. Always use a clean microfiber towel, and go gently over the screen so you don’t damage it.

Do some yard work.

Ask your mom what to do if you’re not sure.

• Your mom will probably really appreciate you wanting to help. Even if she doesn’t have a chore for you right that second, she’ll love knowing that you’re willing to clean up around the house and lighten her load a bit.

Expert Q&A

You Might Also Like

• ↑ Wits End Parenting. Parenting Specialists. Expert Interview. 5 March 2020.
• ↑ https://pathways.org/chores-right-child/
• ↑ https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/focused.html
• ↑ https://www.chop.edu/news/chores-and-kids-how-much-should-you-expect
• ↑ https://raisingchildren.net.au/toddlers/family-life/routines-rituals/chores-for-children
• ↑ https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/FFF-Guide/Chores_and_Children-125.aspx
• ↑ https://www.healthychildren.org/English/family-life/family-dynamics/Pages/Household-Chores-for-Adolescents.aspx
• ↑ https://raisingchildren.net.au/toddlers/family-life/chores/chores-for-children

About This Article

If you want to help out your busy mother around the house, try taking over a task she usually does, like preparing lunch for your siblings. Another option could be to put your dishes in the dishwasher after eating or wash them up in the sink. If you'd rather help look after your pets, make sure they have food and water, and are walked regularly. Then, encourage your siblings to follow your example by planning a "Mom's day off" when all of you will take over the chores for a day to give your mom a break. To find out how you can keep your own room clean and how to encourage others to help out around the house, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Essay on Helping My Mother in the Kitchen [PDF]

Hello Readers, Today in this essay presentation we are going to see how I help my mother in the kitchen, so I hope you enjoy this writing. So let’s dive into it!

In today’s age and generation girls and boys must work with their mother in daily house chores. It is very important to know at this time of lockdown it has become really difficult to do all the housework alone and feed, dust, clean, and several other works.

I know exactly what does my mother goes through the whole day. Hence it is my foremost responsibility to help her in the kitchen. To help my mother in the kitchen I do the very simple things like, I keep the washed utensils at their desired place.

I also make sure the utensils are wiped by the dry cloth before they are kept in the rack. I also solely check that the slab is cleaned or not. Due to the scorching heat, it has become very problematic as we feel thirsty now and then. And the bottles get empty so fast.

I make sure that the bottles are filled and kept in the refrigerator. I make it my sole responsibility to keep the ice tray in the freezer so that no ice is wasted. It is also necessary for the mother to take some rest. As in the house generally, it is the mother who gets up early in the morning.

Working up for the whole day also makes her restless and if in such a case the family helps in small little work she will be having a huge thing done. I also make sure that whosoever eats the used utensils are turned to the basin or sink.

I also help my mother in the kitchen by making tea to my father when he is back from work. But nowadays as it is the lockdown hence it is impossible for the mother to also get up for everything. It gets tiresome.

My mother cooks fresh meals so whatever she needs for the kitchen from the market I get it for her so that she doesn’t have to work a lot. I also keep the thing in mind that all the vegetables in the fridge is fine or not. It is great if you help your mother in the kitchen.

She also requires rest. As in this lockdown, we all are set free from our educational institutions and are at home. And on the other hand, I can see my mother with so many works piled up on her head.

She actually needs some rest too and who can be more worthy and fast to her than her kids. We must take the pain on her part too as the one who stands in the heat and cooks meals for us while we sit in our air-conditioned rooms makes it inappreciable of her serving us.

Hence I always serve my mother while she is eating. I also make sure that once she is done with the kitchen chores I clean the kitchen. Keep all the material at its places. I also help my mother in disposing of the waste to the main dustbin.

She keeps the biodegradable waste in a different dustbin so I dispose of the waste in that and do the necessary. The basic help that everyone can do to their mothers is helping them know what to cook otherwise there is another debate on the topic.

My mother feels really comfortable in making food if she knows what we want to eat. I also help her in a basic way by telling everybody to be on time and dine together. This way, my mother can cook for everybody at the same time and serve.

She can also cook for herself at that time so that; firstly, we sit together at the dinner table for a meal. Secondly, even mom can sit and have her meal at that time this makes her more comforting and helping her clear all her chores.

If I can help my mother in this way you can also help her in the same manner. As mothers never complain about the deeds they do what actually don’t give an appreciation in return. All they want is love but sometimes it’s also important to say that to her.

So make it simple to opt-in some simple ways to help your mother in the kitchen or any other area. This will make her happy and you too, to see your mother stress free. I do it to her and in turn, she is able to spend some time with me.

What more I need form her is the love I crave for. Filling the water bottles, disposing of the waste, keeping the utensils at the places, dining together, telling her what to cook and what not to can help her to a great extent.

I am really privileged of the things my mother provides to me and in turn if I can help her to get some rest it would be undoubtedly the best help. I would say all to help your mothers too.

So I hope you liked the essay on Helping My Mother in the Kitchen, if so then do not forget to share this stuff with your friends and you social profile, and keep visiting Your Essay Club for more English Writing related content. See you soon!

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Why it is important to help your parents in household chores

It is common for children to want to help out their parents with household chores. However, for some children, the thought of helping out with chores may not seem appealing. Despite this, it is important for children to assist their parents in household chores for a variety of reasons. In this article, we will discuss why it is important to help your parents in household chores, and what benefits can be gained from doing so.

First and foremost, helping your parents with household chores is a way of showing your gratitude and love for them. Your parents have likely spent years caring for you and providing for your needs. By helping them with household chores, you are taking some of the burden off of them and making their lives a little easier. This can be a small but meaningful way to repay them for all that they have done for you.

In addition, helping with household chores can also help to build a stronger relationship between parents and children. When children assist their parents with chores, it creates opportunities for them to interact and communicate with each other. This can lead to increased understanding and closeness between family members. Children who help with household chores are also able to gain a greater appreciation for the work that goes into maintaining a household and running a family.

Furthermore, helping with household chores can also help to build important life skills in children. Children who are taught how to perform household chores are given the opportunity to develop important skills such as responsibility, organization, and time management. These skills can be valuable in many areas of life, and can help children to be more successful in their personal and professional lives.

It is also worth noting that helping with household chores can also benefit children’s physical health. Doing chores can be a form of physical activity, and can help children to stay active and healthy. Additionally, chores can help to build strength and coordination, which can be beneficial for children as they grow and develop.

Another important aspect to consider is that helping with household chores can also help children to develop a sense of pride and self-esteem. When children are able to contribute to the household and complete tasks successfully, they feel a sense of accomplishment and pride in their abilities. This can help to boost their self-esteem and confidence, which can be valuable for children as they navigate their teenage years and beyond.

Helping your parents with household chores is important for a variety of reasons. It can help to show gratitude and love for your parents, build stronger relationships between family members, develop important life skills, benefit physical health, and improve self-esteem and confidence. Encouraging children to help with household chores can be a valuable way to help them grow and develop into successful, responsible adults.

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Home — Essay Samples — Psychology — Personal Development Planning — The Importance of Chores

The Importance of Chores

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Published: Mar 20, 2024

Words: 622 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Responsibility and accountability, contribution to household and community, development of essential life skills, psychological and emotional well-being.

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10 Reasons Why Household Chores Are Important

Whether we like it or not, household chores are a necessary part of everyday life, ensuring that our homes continue to run efficiently, and that our living environments remain organized and clean, thereby promoting good overall health and safety. Involving children in household chores gives them opportunity to become active participant in the house. Kids begin to see themselves as important contributors to the family. Holding children accountable for their chores can increase a sense of themselves as responsible and actually make them more responsible.

Children will feel more capable for having met their obligations and completed their tasks. If you let children off the hook for chores because they have too much schoolwork or need to practice a sport, then you are saying, intentionally or not, that their academic or athletic skills are most important. And if your children fail a test or fail to block the winning shot, then they have failed at what you deem to be most important.

They do not have other pillars of competency upon which to rely. By completing household tasks, they may not always be the star student or athlete, but they will know that they can contribute to the family, begin to take care of themselves, and learn skills that they will need as an adult. Here is a list of household chores for kids:

1. Sense of Responsibility

Kids who do chores learn responsibility and gain important life skills that will serve them well throughout their lives. Kids feel competent when they do their chores. Whether they’re making their bed or they’re sweeping the floor, helping out around the house gives them a sense of accomplishment. Doing daily household chores also helps kids feel like they’re part of the team. Pitching in and helping family members is good for them and it encourages them to be good citizens.

Read here a detail blog: Routine helps kids

2. Beneficial to siblings

It is helpful for siblings of kids who have disabilities to see that everyone in the family participates in keeping the family home running, each with responsibilities that are appropriate for his or her unique skill sets and abilities.

Having responsibilities like chores provides one with a sense of both purpose and accomplishment.

4. Preparation for Employment

Learning how to carry out household chore is an important precursor to employment. Chores can serve as an opportunity to explore what your child excels at and could possibly pursue as a job down the road.

5. Make your life easier

Your kids can actually be of help to you! At first, teaching these chores may require more of your time and energy, but in many cases your child will be able to eventually do his or her chores completely independently, ultimately relieving you of certain responsibilities.

6. Chores may make your child more accountable

If your child realizes the consequences of making a mess, he or she may think twice, knowing that being more tidy in the present will help make chores easier.

7. Develop fine and gross motor skills and planning abilities

Tasks like opening a clothes pin, filling and manipulating a watering can and many more actions are like a workout for the body and brain and provide practical ways to flex those muscles!

8. Teach empathy

Helping others out and making their lives easier is a great way to teach empathy. After your daughter completes a chore, you can praise and thank her, stating, “Wow… great job! Because you helped out, now Mommy has one less job to do. I really appreciate that!”

9. Strengthen bonds with pets

There is a growing body of research about how animals can help individuals with special needs. When your child feeds and cares for his pet, it strengthens their bond and makes your pet more likely to gravitate toward your child.

10. Gain an appreciation and understanding of currency

What better way to teach your child the value of a rupee than by having him earn it. After your child finishes his chores,  pay him right away and immediately take him to his favorite toy store where he can buy something he wants.

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(15 Comments)

I love this! This has a lot of awesome information.

Thank you! Glad you like the information.

very well done it is resanoble reasons

cool info it helps me see why chores are important.

Thanks for your kind reply.

This was really helpful for a school debate!

Very helpful article!

My daughter has to speak about a topic which is why and how we should help our parent in household chores and this helped her a lot

Thanks so much for your feedback! All the best to your daughter.

Thnks a lot! the article helped a lot in my assignment and there is very nice information, Thank you!

Thanks, glad you found it useful.

Very nice article…Thank you 🙂

Thank you! Glad you liked it.

Very good article about house chore

This is very helpful for a student like me

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Should Kids do Chores? How to Promote Responsibility at Home and Beyond

Gentle parent. Positive Parent. Free Range Parent. Conscious Parent. No matter what your parenting style or label is, most parents we work express sharing a common value: to raise resilient, capable children who contribute meaningfully to their family and community. As in most things, there is a lot of confusion how to go about achieving this goal. Should kids do chores? If so, how to actually get kids to do them?

Beware of the Parenting Pendulum 

To navigate our way through the muck, it’s helpful to take a step back and understand how the swinging of the “parenting pendulum” is impacting parenting information (and misinformation) over time.  In the midst of the modern  “parenting wars” that dominate social media right now, parents often feel that expecting cooperation (or respect) is taboo. Sometimes it feels like any misstep in our wording or setting of a boundary may be irreversibly damaging our children! 

In context, our wariness of harsh boundaries makes sense. We are recovering, evolving, and sometimes overcompensating from generations of “spare the rod spoil the child” parenting in which warmth could be hard to come by and boundaries were often more harsh than firm. Thanks to decades of research, we’ve learned that parenting styles that are high on control/boundaries but low on warmth (called the authoritarian parenting style in the research) has some significant shortcomings.

This information about what isn’t good for kids allows us as parents a wonderful opportunity for growth and evolution. However, as with many things, as we run away from the “old way” we can sometimes swing to the opposite extreme as we struggle to find a new path. In fact, as psychologists who work with families directly, our clinical work has shifted over the last few years. Previously, much of our work was helping parents find healthy replacements for spanking. However, recently we’ve had more situations where we are helping parents find a way to face their anxieties around setting firm boundaries and increasing expectations of their children.

It’s okay to have high expectations for kids

This new wave of parenting anxiety seems to result from pressure to be “purely positive” all the time. And even if parents recognize they need to set boundaries, the advice they’re seeing online about how to do so is often very rigid (i.e., if you do XYZ your child will feel abandoned or will be destined for unhealthy relationships). No wonder parents are feeling overwhelmed.

In the midst of all this mental noise, we can me calmed by remembering what we know:

Healthy parenting is a balance of warmth and boundaries. 

Kids should be kids. Yes. We can go overboard with chores and expectations. Yes. But let’s not let the pendulum swing too far. No need to assign push-ups when your child’s room isn’t spotless, but also no need to wait until they feel “intrinsically motivated” to take responsibility for anything in the home.

In fact, when it comes to instilling responsibility, a recent study of 10, 000 kindergarteners found that those who participated in more household chores performed better academically, emotionally and socially by the 3rd grade. Additionally, many cultures across the world have emotionally health children (with secure attachments) who participate heartily in family teamwork in the home. 

So, let’s find some balance here together. Thankfully, there is flexibility in how we do this.  We use the limited research we have as a guide, mix that with what you know about your kid and give it a go. Chores are not one-size-fits-all. 

3 tools to promote responsibility

1. create a culture of appreciation.

Before we can even discuss chore charts or allowance, we need to back up a bit. Our first initiative is to build a culture of appreciation in our homes. What does this mean? First, it means to shift our mindset from “how to I get my child to comply with chores” to “how can I create an environment that facilitates helpfulness, responsibility, and mutual respect.”

One way we can do this is by using process-focused praise to acknowledge a job well done (or any baby step towards that), which has been shown to build intrinsic motivation. There’s an important concept in child development research called the attention principle. It essentially means that we will get more of what we pay attention to. Unfortunately, our attention is more easily drawn to “bad” behavior than it is to positive, helpful behavior. We notice and correct our kids when they haphazardly throw their coat the ground, but don’t say anything when they hang it up.

We have to be intentional about flipping this script. 

What might this sound like?

• “Thank you for hanging your coat up. It’s really helpful when you do that.”
• “Thank you for listening when I asked you to clean up. The floor looks so nice now.”
• “That’s really nice of you helping your brother get his shoes on.”

When our kids feel noticed and valued for their contributions to the home, they’re going to be more willing to participate. Moreover, when the adults in the environment thank each other for their contributions in front of their children, a powerful culture of appreciation and teamwork is being modeled. 

2. Avoid doing for

One of the best and easiest places to start when it comes to promoting responsibility is to assess what things you are doing for your child that they can actually begin to do for themselves. Especially when they’re little, our kids are reliant on us for so much! However, it’s easy to accidentally continue to do things for kids that they’re actually quite capable of doing themselves. Often, we continue to “help” because it’s easier and fast if we do it ourselves. But, all this “helping” can actually backfire.

Let’s take an example. For a 1-year-old who’s thirsty, it makes complete sense for the parent to grab the cup from the cupboard, fill it with water, and hand it to the child. However, this can easily turn into a parent doing this for years and years and years without even realizing their child can now learn to get their own water. Now, take a moment to review a typical day in your family. Are there moments that you’re stepping in too much? Are there things you do for you kids on autopilot that they may now be ready to learn?

Once you’ve identified some of those areas, when your child asks for help (or expresses frustration) try pausing before jumping in. What might this look like?

• If your child gets upset when building with Legos, pause and count to 10 before offering help. Often kids will work through their feelings without us intervening.
• When your child asks you do something try saying, “I’m happy to help. It looks like you are on your way to figuring it out! I’ll come back in just a minute to check on you and help out if you need it.” 

3. Find the “just right” amount of support

Chores summary

We know from research that kids who participate in household chores show higher levels of self-competency and experience other benefits later on. Building a culture of appreciation, avoiding doing things for kids that they can do themselves, and finding the “just right” amount of help are simple ways parents can support this aim.

For additional tools, including a research-backed approach to chore charts and allowance , check out our recorded workshop: Raising Capable Kids .

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My husband took on the housework after the birth of our son—and it bettered our relationship

a_gubinskaya via Twenty20

In the words of Sarah MacLean, “The best partnerships aren't dependent on a mere common goal but on a shared path of equality, desire, and no small amount of passion.”

By Mariah Maddox June 28, 2022

You hear about unequal partnerships after kids or moms taking on the heavier load while dads seemingly do less. But in my case (fortunately enough) it has been different. My husband’s help with household chores after the birth of our son was his own decision. I didn’t have to twist his arm. I didn’t harbor unspoken feelings of resentment. I couldn’t complain that he did nothing while I did everything—because he shared the load with me . Matter of fact, he downright took over the housework—from cleaning to cooking to maintaining the yard. And he did so without complaint.

In our case, it wasn’t expected to be this way. I had three months of maternity leave—he had two weeks. So while he went back to working a full-time job and eventually adding on a part-time one and enrolling in school, I stayed home with our son. And after the end of my maternity leave, I transitioned from a full-time job to a part-time remote one.

Related: 18 chores for kids that teach important life skills

In society’s eyes, I’m a working stay-at-home-mom with ample time on my hands to tend to the housework and childcare. I should have dinner hot and ready every night, the house should be clean, our child should always be tended to, and I should greet my husband at the door with a kiss upon his arrival home from work. But trust me—as much as I may try to do all these things, it just doesn’t always happen.

In society’s eyes, I’m a woman who should be able to do it all. But I can’t.

This belief has contributed to the burnout in mothers across the globe. In Motherly’s 2022 State of Motherhood survey , data shows that 40% of moms say more help would increase their positive feelings about motherhood. But are mothers really receiving more help without having to lose so much of themselves before the olive branch is extended?

We as women tell ourselves that we can do it all—not because we actually can, but because society forces us to believe that we must .

The reality is this: Parenting is a load that should be shared—no matter how you cut the cake. 

And in a society where many women have partners who don’t contribute to the housework or childcare, I am thankful to have one who does help with household chores—amongst many other things.

Related: Your burnout is not your fault

Even though I work from home and have more time on my hands to contribute to the maintenance of our household than he does, I also have no time at all . Because I’m busy tending to our son, running errands, grocery shopping, running a side business, scheduling appointments, worrying about dinner for the week and trying to maintain myself at the same time. 

I remember one evening when my husband came home from work and asked how my day was. My response was very short and dry. It must have been the tone in my voice because my husband asked, “Do you feel defeated?”

And I did. 

The house was a mess, our son was cranky and fighting his sleep, I was trying to multitask and make dinner and schedule swim lessons —and on top of that, I had so many other things on my to-do list that I felt needed to get done. I didn’t have it all together, and I felt defeated because I believed that I should .

But the words that my husband said to me that day made me realize that I was never meant to do it alone.

“I didn’t marry you for you to have to do it all. Capitalize on your strengths rather than harping on your weaknesses. And allow me to help out and do what I do best. That’s how we balance each other.”

And it is. We balance each other by helping each other out. By picking up the other’s slack and knowing that some days, one of us may only have a mere 30% to give, which puts the remaining 70% on the other. But that’s how we work together.

Where one of us is weak, the other is strong.

He noticed the weight of the load and offered to share it with me. And our marriage is stronger because of it. 

There are surely days when he carries most of the weight. And there are surely days when I carry most of it. But most times, we try to meet in the middle and make sure that the load is not a burden to either one of us. That’s the thing about our partnership. Where one of us falls short, the other one is there to provide a lift. Where one of us is weak, the other is strong. And that’s how we continue forward.

My husband noticed that the housework was one thing that he could easily dedicate his time to (in the thick of those initial postpartum months and even now), given the fact that he works late nights and our son is usually getting ready for bed by the time he gets home. 

Related: Mama, you were never meant to do it all

Throughout the week, we both recognize that he doesn’t have much time to help out with the majority of childcare, but he makes that up by taking the housework off of my hands. And over the weekends when he has time off, he’s more of a help with childcare and letting me get some much-needed “me” time.

In a culture where women are known for carrying most of the weigh t, especially after kids, I am fortunate to have a husband who does not allow me to carry it alone.

I understand that not everyone is fortunate to have partners who willingly offer their help. This is not to spark more resentment from moms who experience unequal partnerships. It isn’t to spark a debate about dividing household chores. It isn’t to make a mom guilty that even her husband helping with chores still may not feel like enough.

But it is to bring some awareness to the fact that partnerships, where both parties balance each other out, can go a long way. In the words of Sarah MacLean , “The best partnerships aren’t dependent on a mere common goal but on a shared path of equality, desire, and no small amount of passion.”

METHODOLOGY STATEMENT

Motherly designed and administered this survey through Motherly’s subscribers list, social media and partner channels, resulting in more than 17,000 responses creating a clean, unweighted base of 10,001 responses. This report focuses on the Gen X cohort of 1197 respondents, millennial cohort of 8,558 respondents, and a Gen Z cohort of 246 respondents. Edge Research weighted the data to reflect the racial and ethnic composition of the US female millennial cohort based on US Census data.

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5 Household Chores Mom’s Should Get Help Doing

Moms are always on the lookout to make their daily chore list quicker and more efficient. With this in mind, there are a variety of household chores that you can outsource to individuals or companies to take these items off of your to-do list. Here are 5 chores that you should think about getting help doing:

Grocery Shopping

Grocery shopping with your kids in tow or going after a long day at work can be downright exhausting! That’s why this is a very good chore to outsource.

Apps such as Instacart allow you to select your favorite local store (that participates) and full your online grocery cart, pay and even tip your Instacart shopper all online. Within an hour, a personal shopper will start shopping for your items and typically, will deliver your food with a two hour window. You can even communicate with the shopper while they are in the store shopping in case you need to make changes to your list or an item that the store doesn’t have in stock needs to be replaced. Most areas offer delivery options for as little as $3.99.

If you are looking to have food delivered on a smaller scale, sites such as Hello Fresh and Blue Apron will deliver boxed meal ingredients with easy to follow directions for you to make your family a delicious, nutritious and affordable meal without the trip to the grocery store. Many large grocery store chains also now offer drive up grocery pick up too!

House Cleaning

Giving your house a good, deep cleaning is not only time consuming but typically dreaded.

If you hate scrubbing toilets or mopping floors, why not consider hiring a housekeeper or home cleaning service to come in and do this for you every once in a while? Check out Facebook for home cleaning companies near you. Thumbtack estimates having a single house cleaner come into your home for one hour to be approximately $50/hour. Other costs will depend on the size of the agency, if they charge for products and what type of cleaning tasks you will be asking them to complete.

Yard work may not technically be a household chore, yet somebody has to do it.

Raking, mowing, landscaping and snow removal takes up a considerable amount of time for most people. Why not consider hiring a professional to make your yard look top notch? Sites such as Home Advisor and Angie’s List are a great starting point if you are on the hunt for a landscaper.

The one household chore that literally piles up more than any other is probably laundry.

If you hate doing laundry or have very little time to complete this necessary task, look into hiring someone to do it for you. Many laundromats offer in house laundering of clothes. You may even be able to hire a friend or relative to do it for you. Some housekeepers will also complete laundry while they are already in your home for house cleaning, for an added fee. Even though you probably end up paying more for laundry services, just think of the amount of time you will gain instead!

Help! I Can’t Take Care of My Mother-in-Law for One More Minute.

How did i get stuck with this job.

Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column.  Submit questions here .

Dear Prudence,

What’s my responsibility to take care of my mother-in-law? My wife moved her 80-year-old mom into our house. She was soon after diagnosed with cancer and Alzheimer’s. She’s also nearly deaf. Now I’m a full-time caretaker for someone else’s parent. I never signed on for this. Both she and my wife refuse to consider moving her mom into another living situation. I tried making it work for 18 months, taking her to most of her medical appointments because my job has more flexibility than my wife’s job. We’re managing her finances and also multiple repairs to her home that she refuses to sell. After all this, she still gets upset that we don’t give her enough daily attention and involvement in our lives. I have my own parents, my own job, and we’re raising two kids. This is too much for me.

—Feeling Stuck

Dear Feeling Stuck,

Since you agreed to let her move in, your responsibility is to be kind to her, engage with her and talk to her like you would with any other member of your family, prepare enough food for her when you’re making a meal, and assist with any emergencies. That’s it. You say you didn’t sign on for all the work you’re doing, but I would argue that when you started doing it, you kind of did. It’s time to stand down.

If you’ve pushed for your mother-in-law to move out and your wife has refused, you should revisit that conversation. But this time, don’t just say, “This isn’t working for me.” Be clear by saying: “I’m not going to continue to participate in her care in the way I have. It’s too much.” If you kindly but firmly stop handling the trips to the doctor’s appointments, finances, and home repairs (give a couple of weeks’ notice that it’s become too much and you need her to take over), I suspect your wife will realize that the arrangement isn’t as great or as sustainable as she once thought it was.

Give Prudie a Hand in “We’re Prudence”

Sometimes even Prudence needs a little help. This week’s tricky situation is below.  Submit your comments about how to approach the situation here  to Jenée, and then look back for the final answer  here  on Friday.

Dear Prudence, My husband and I are at an impasse over his weed smoking. A little backstory: We are in our 60s (me early, him late), retired, and married for 15 years. When we began dating, he was upfront about his previous drug use—mostly weed from his mid-teens to his 40s. He told me then that his life was so much better without weed and he would never go back to smoking. When marijuana became legal in our state, he mentioned he’d like to get some “for old times’ sake” and assured me it would be just an occasional thing. At first, it was but within a few weeks, it became an everyday thing. Then in a few weeks more, it was an all-day, everyday thing. When I pointed this out, he said it was just the novelty of being back to living high and he would cut back soon, but soon has never come.  On several occasions over the last few years, I’ve tried to explain the impact his smoking has on our lives. I’ve waited until he wasn’t high and explained how his smoking negatively impacted our relationship (the smell makes me nauseous so I don’t want to be close to him, it’s hard to have meaningful conversations with him because he tends to monologue, and even if I do manage to get a word in, he doesn’t remember what I say), and also have pointed out the impact in the moment (“No, I don’t want to you to kiss me because your breath is dank, I’ve told you this before, but you talked over me and don’t remember what I said”), but all I get are more promises that he’s going to quit or slow down, which of course, he doesn’t. For the past few years, I’ve resigned myself to this friendly, somewhat distant relationship where he’s high most of the time and I don’t expect too much of him. Three weeks ago, he told me he was going to quit (again) because he wanted to take a more active, responsible role at the nonprofit where he volunteers, and he didn’t think they’d take him seriously or trust him if they knew he smoked. I was a bit irritated because he was more motivated to quit for relative strangers who might judge him for his marijuana use than because of the impact it was having on our marriage. —Weed Wars

I have two friends who had a DEVASTATING falling out following the death of our third friend when we were all in college. Context: Friend one was having a horrendous fight with a male friend, and he died of a tragic accident before they could resolve it. He got a girlfriend shortly before he died, and they took completely different sides in the conflict. Ever since he passed, our friend group has been frozen in our positions on who was right and who was wrong.

Question: Even though it’s years later, Friend one and Girlfriend can’t be in the same room as one another. I care about them both and they mean so much to me, but EVERY TIME I plan a gathering I have to manage the guest list. I want to let go of this and just invite them both and count on them to decide for themselves whether to come or just be civil with one another. But I worry that doing that will make both feel unsafe and worried during an event that should just be fun. Lately, I’ve been planning two separate birthday parties and separate events for people who took different sides on the issue. But it’s exhausting. I feel like if I stop, it would mean picking a side. What should I do?

—Can’t We All Just Get Along?

Dear Get Along,

You might actually need to pick a side! If the fight was that devastating and horrendous, and both of these people are holding onto it, I’m guessing it couldn’t have been a simple misunderstanding or difference of opinion. Someone did something that wasn’t OK. I’m almost sure of it. You don’t provide any details here but really go back over the facts and your experience with Friend one and Girlfriend and ask yourself, honestly, who deserves your support, and who (if anyone) has a basis for feeling unsafe around the other. If you really can’t do that, at least stop with the two separate birthday parties. That’s ridiculous. You can warn each of them that you don’t have the capacity to do every event twice and—as you said—let them figure it out for themselves. Tip: The one who gets mad at you or makes you feel guilty about your decision is probably the one who was in the wrong to begin with.

How to Get Advice

Submit your questions anonymously here . (Questions may be edited for publication.) And for questions on parenting, kids, or family life, try  Care and Feeding !

After college, a toxic relationship and drug use forced me (he/him) across the country for rehab. In early sobriety, I got a barista job that I kept while in school for a license I never completed. COVID hit, and having a job at all felt lucky. Another emotionally abusive relationship, alongside preexisting mental health issues, landed me in the psych ward for suicidal ideation. Poor management and five years without a raise became quiet quitting, which became getting fired. Now I’m struggling to get interviews, and still am clueless about what career I even want. I feel like a complete fuck-up. I see people my age having kids and buying houses, not struggling to find work or withdrawing from their retirement to avoid eviction. It’s impacted my relationship with my brother. 17 months younger, I’ve always felt compared to him. He and his (genuinely amazing) wife live somewhere I can’t afford. I struggle talking to them because they’re living the life I wanted. I’ll be seeing them during a trip home for my 30th birthday, which I’m already struggling with. I don’t want to resent them for doing well but don’t know how to control those feelings currently. I’m afraid I’ll make a dick of myself during this trip (which they paid for), but don’t know if I can bite my tongue that long. How can I balance all this?

—Unmoored Going on 30

Dear Unmoored,

Your awareness of where these feelings are coming from and your desire to stop them from harming your relationship with your brother make me really hopeful. I have an idea: Just put it all out there. Tell him everything you’re feeling before the trip like this: “You know I’ve really struggled over the past decade, I’ve had so many setbacks and I honestly feel like a complete fuck-up right now. I’m so jealous of people around my age who are doing well, including you. You have a wonderful life that’s exactly what I would want for myself and you totally deserve it but I just can’t shake this feeling of resentment. I’m telling you this because I’m worried I’m going to make a dick of myself during the trip because of all these feelings, and I am afraid of ruining our relationship. I’m hoping that being open about it might help me avoid lashing out. But also, if I do say something out of line, I hope you’ll call me out but also maybe give me a little leeway and know that I’m not my best self right now.”

I think he’d receive this kind of vulnerability well, it might make everything feel less intense for you if you know you’re understood, and it could even lead to some kind of an offer to help you get to a better place.

In addition, to address the underlying feelings, I think you should dive into recovery communities for drug use and support groups for people who have mental health issues. Really surround yourself with people who have been through the same things you’ve been through. The conversations that happen in these places could remind you that you’re actually a huge success story, a survivor, and a person who’s overcome two major challenges. Being sober and not suicidal is really something to celebrate. You’ll be so much happier with yourself if you can start to compare yourself to the version of you that existed years ago, instead of to people who are a few steps ahead financially.

Classic Prudie

I live in the same small town where I grew up; I’ve had lifelong relationships with many of my friends (and their moms were friends with my mom 50 years ago!). I was laid off in the pandemic and decided to start a small business from home, just to keep myself occupied and add a little income to the household. Prudie, I’ve been devastated by how unsupportive my friends have been.

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Fighting a fire and odds against survival for Wisconsin family farms

Our family farm was in midst of sensitive transition when a spark touched off flames that could have finished it for good.

My sister was down by the calf barn when she looked up the hill and saw the fire. The flames were already 5-feet high, dancing atop a corn stalk bale they’d swallowed, one of more than 100 highly flammable bales stacked in front of the loafing shed where we kept dozens of cattle. And all of it — the cattle and the bales and the fire — was just feet away from our farm’s three gas tanks, ready to blow.

Malia was pregnant with her fifth child, but you wouldn’t have known it by how quickly she jumped into the side-by-side Kubota utility vehicle and sped toward the flames. Along for the ride were three fire extinguishers, and knowledge of exactly what could happen.

“Paxton was still with me,” she remembered thinking of her 6-year-old son before she leapt from the side-by-side to fight the fire. “So I had to park the Kubota far enough away to keep him safe.”

If this seems like something most people wouldn’t do, running toward flames, it’s something that for my sister is part of our way of life. And it’s these moments that represent the crisis of disappearing farms across rural America. While so many farms are ground into the dust by hard economics and other forces, there is often a personal tragedy that actually drives them under. A herd of animals dead, or a crop lost. A family member sick. God forbid, an accident.

Living the crisis of Wisconsin’s disappearing family farms

According to survey data released this year by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Wisconsin lost another 8 percent of its farms from 2012 to 2022, topping the nationwide loss of 5 percent. And that drop, part of a trend that bounces around year-to-year but maintains its general downward spiral, is just the latest chapter in a decades-long loss. In the past generation, America has lost about 85 percent of our country’s dairy farms. Farms that long drove Wisconsin’s economy , and still define our identity.

Learn more about the plight of Wisconsin farms: Dairyland in Distress

The day of the fire, Malia, 34, wasn’t thinking about the trends in global economics, technology or society that have left farms on the edge. She was thinking of the steer with its head stuck in a gate. In order to keep the poor thing from choking, she used a cutting torch to slice through the gate. Afterwards, she checked spots where sparks could have flown.

Last October, we were in a vulnerable transition to keep our farm, with my dad still owning it and my sister taking over with a new business model. That's when a little spark from the cutting torch slipped into a corn stalk bale and began to smolder.

Our farm milked cows for over 100 years, until ongoing economic changes left a small operation like ours — just 50 cows — too small. We either needed to get bigger as my sister prepared to take over the farm from my dad, Jim, or find another business model. Luckily for us, our parents had never taken out large amounts of debt, so we were able to sell our herd and transition to Malia’s plan to raise heifers for other dairy farms, beef for consumers, and cash crops for the open market.

“Luckily we’re hanging on to what we have,” my dad said. “It’s downright tough. But that’s what we’re doing.”

Other farms haven’t had that shot. Rising input costs — seed, fertilizer, feed, fuel, electricity, and more — alongside a milk price that hasn’t kept pace have made it harder for all dairies, especially small ones like ours, experts and industry advocates agree. Many farms along the way borrowed to expand or make ends meet, and if they didn’t emerge more successful, they folded. Technology has also been geared toward helping farms get to a larger scale with less reliance on scarce labor, which, in turn, actually, has driven consolidation further and faster, according to Jim MacDonald , an agriculture researcher at the University of Maryland.

Succession issues are the hardest for me to admit. Many farmers sell for lack of someone to take over as their kids find economic opportunity elsewhere, and I’m an example of that. Short on talent for tractors and cattle, I pursued a career off the farm. I never lost my love for where I grew up, and years later I’ve found ways to help on the business side, and share our story. But the simple fact is, if my sister didn’t have what I lacked, we may have sold long ago.

That hard mix of economic and social trends leaves farms with very little room for error, said Pam Jahnke , a Wisconsin broadcaster who farmers have trusted on commodity prices and agriculture trends for decades.

“Agriculture today is not for somebody who just has a passing interest,” Jahnke said. “You have got to have your eye on the ball at all times.”

That’s why when my sister saw those flames up the hill, nobody had to tell her what hung in the balance. She was living it.

Fighting a fire, struggling with impact of losing farms in Wisconsin

It didn’t take long for Malia to know she couldn’t stop the fire. It was rising out of the bale and spreading, too big to knock down as she emptied one fire extinguisher after another. A hot wind whipped the inferno onward, blowing the fire extinguisher blasts back into her face. The air tasted salty, and wreaked of smoke.

“My only goal,” she said, “was to knock it away from the gas tank.”

More: 5 ways we can help save Wisconsin family farms

With the fire still raging, Malia called 911. Then she ran around the back of the loafing shed to move the animals as far from the flames, smoke, and possible explosion as she could. She called our parents, away on a rare long weekend, and contacted me and others she felt should know, or could help. Then all she could do was return to the Kubota with Paxton as the flames overtook more bales.

It's those moments — the quiet amid the crisis — when the emotion rushes in and sparks questions, "What if something had happened?”

Of all the things she said, her voice careful as she unpacked the emotions of the day recently, those words held more meaning than most things most people say. Not only what if something happened to her, what if something had happened with her little boy watching? And what if the animals or loafing shed were lost, or the barn and house and onto the fields. What if it was all too much to keep going?

That would have meant my sister’s living, our parents’ retirement, our family home, our land, and the physical bond with over 100 years of farming heritage. My parents have faced those moments as well: dry weather destroying crops their first-year farming together, herd-wide sickness, two-dozen animals dead from a feeding mishap, and more.

It’s this kind of pressure — to save not just a job, but a way of life — that has fueled farm country’s mental health crisis. Michael Perry , the national bestselling author who grew up on a Wisconsin farm, felt so strongly about the human cost of such loss that he wrote his most recent book about it, the novella “ 40 Acres Deep. ” Though he’s careful to note every person’s situation is different, Perry said the same resilience that enables farmers to carry on through hard times can make it tough to talk about mental health issues.

“You just didn’t complain, you buckled down,” he said. “It’s just about, ‘Get out there and get the chores done.’”

As the mental toll that comes from our disappearing farms becomes better known, so too are the other losses: economic, ecological, cultural, and more.

If a five-generation family operation like ours carries a special weight, it also offers its own redemption. On that day, it came from my nephew. Paxton had shown a rare streak of obedience, listening to his mother’s stern warning that he not leave the Kubota. Whenever she returned to him from fighting the fire, he’d pipe up with wisdom he’d learned in school.

“Mom, call 9-9-1!” 

“Stop, drop, and roll!”

(No, 9-9-1 is not a typo. And no, my sister never caught fire. You can’t expect a 6-year-old to watch out for his mom, and share everything he knows about fire, and make sure she gets everything exactly right on top of it all, can you?)

Waiting with Paxton for the fire department, Malia hugged him and felt the tears surface.

Farmland spirit gives hope, even in darkest times

When I arrived, fire trucks lined the farmyard and firefighters were hitting the flames with the hose.

I’d driven my pickup from work at speeds I don’t care to disclose, weaving between vehicles and bombing through curving roads, not really knowing, based on a few frantic texts and calls, how bad the fire was, or whether my sister was really OK. When I finally saw Malia, she looked tired but resolute. She put me to work, using our skid steer to haul piles of soaked corn stalks out into the field as the firemen fought ever deeper into the fire.

By the time it was under control, over 100 bales had been hosed and torn apart across the farmyard. The Plain Fire & EMS, and Spring Green and Lone Rock fire departments, all volunteers, had responded. The Sauk County Sheriff’s Department stopped to assist. The Plain fire chief’s wife had brought food. A local backhoe operator worked tirelessly, driving his rig into the fire to break up the flaming bales while the firefighters hosed his machinery down to keep it cool.

Our neighbor had volunteered his manure spreader, so we could spread the extinguished corn stalk bales on our fields quicker. And when the Department of Natural Resources came (believing from inaccurate scanner chatter that the fire posed a risk beyond our farmyard) the local firefighters raised hell, making clear the fire was ruled accidental, under local jurisdiction.

When they were all gone after dark, I sat alone in the farmhouse. My parents were still gone and my sister was with her family. It was my job to check the pile of corn stalks overnight, several feet high and spanning much of the farmyard like the rubble from an explosion, to make sure none of it caught flame. So I sat there, and thought about what our community, after losing so many of its local farms for years, had shown us.

More essays from Brian Reisinger: Wisconsin's rural drug addiction crisis through the eyes of a childhood friend in our hometown

We’d grown up hearing about the old days, when farmers would band together for the harvest until the work was done. When families took in the children of relatives who couldn’t feed them in the Depression. Those days may be gone, but that farmland spirit was still alive, in the firefighters, paramedics, friends and neighbors.

If we haven’t lost that unique spirit — the blend of rugged individualism it takes to carve your living out of the ground, and sense of community it takes to come running when a neighbor is in trouble — then there’s hope. And where there is hope there is capacity for solutions, even against the forces driving so many of our farms under.

For a good month after, my sister felt the angst of that day any time she smelled smoke. I told her some people might say she’s a hero for saving our farm. To me she’s one that day, and every day for carrying our farm forward. My dad put it this way: “She’s a good, true farmer.”

To Malia, it’s not about her at all.

“In the end, I’m really happy that that steer was safe.”

Brian Reisinger is a writer who grew up on a family farm in Sauk County. He contributes in-depth columns and videos for the Ideas Lab at the Journal Sentinel. Reisinger has written for a wide range of publications and tells the hidden stories of rural America, including the drug crisis, past and future of Wisconsin farmers and adventures in the outdoors. Reisinger works in public affairs consulting for Wisconsin-based Platform Communications. He splits his time between a small town in northern California near his wife’s family, and his family’s farm here in Wisconsin. Reisinger studied journalism and political science at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, and has won awards from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, Seven Hills Review literary magazine, Wisconsin Newspaper Association, and more.

Editor’s note, Feb. 6 : This story was republished to make it free for all readers.

india’s economic promise

Women in India Face a Jobs Crisis. Are Factories the Solution?

As multinational brands shift factory production from China, Indian women — long shut out of the work force — could be prime beneficiaries.

Sarika Pawar, second from right, in line with other workers for the company bus at the All Time Plastics factory in Silvassa, India. Credit... Elke Scholiers for The New York Times

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By Peter S. Goodman

Photographs and Video by Elke Scholiers

Reporting from across India including Silvassa, New Delhi and Manesar

• July 3, 2024

Before her husband died, leaving her to raise their 2-year-old daughter alone, Sarika Pawar had never imagined working a regular job. Like her own mother and most of the women she knew in rural India, she spent her days confined to her village. Her hours were consumed with looking after her toddler, boiling water to drink and fashioning an evening meal.

But with her husband gone, eliminating his wages as a server, she was forced to earn money. She took a job at a nearby factory run by a company called All Time Plastics in Silvassa, a city about 100 miles north of Mumbai. A dozen years later, she is still there, plucking newly molded food storage containers and other household implements off a conveyor belt, labeling them and placing them in cartons bound for kitchens as far away as Los Angeles and London.

Ms. Pawar earns about 12,000 rupees per month, or roughly $150, a meager sum by global standards. Yet those wages have allowed her to keep her daughter in high school while transforming their everyday lives.

She purchased a refrigerator. Suddenly, she could buy vegetables in larger quantities, limiting her trips to the market and giving her more power to bargain for better prices. She added a stove powered by propane — liberation from the wood fire that filled her home with smoke, and an escape from the tedious work of scouring the ground for branches to set alight.

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