Make your bed. Clear the table. Do laundry. Prepare the taxes. When do parents turn themselves into a broken record to get their kids to do their chores? If ever. The Dads debate the merits of household chores for kids. Do they teach important like skills? Do children learn the merits of work? Are they contributing to the family? Watch their take on this parenting topic. DadLabs Ep. 75 The Lounge.

Daddy Clay: Welcome back to the DadLab Lounge. I’m Daddy Clay.

Daddy Brad: I’m Daddy Brad.

Daddy Clay: And today we’re going to be talking about….

Daddy Brad: You’ve got a - uh, something different. You’ve got…you’re wearing a different shirt.

Daddy Clay: No I’m not.

Daddy Brad: Dude, look – I’ve got the blue on, you’ve got some, something…

Daddy Clay: It’s pink, it’s the same.

Daddy Brad: Change is hard for me.

Daddy Clay: Viewers said if I wore that shirt again they were going to kill their pets.

Daddy Brad: Good, okay.

Daddy Clay: So, I’ve saved lots of pets by changing my shirt.

Daddy Brad: Okay. I just hope they don’t request you to do this naked.

Daddy Clay: So today we’re going to be talking a lot about chores. That’s the subject today. Chores – whether or not to assign chores to your kids. Which no sensible parent would do that.

Daddy Brad: Every sensible parent would do that. Chores are a wonderful thing to do.

Daddy Clay: It silly to give chores to children. Do you know why?

Daddy Brad: Why?

Daddy Clay: They’ll always screw it up.

Daddy Brad: That’s the whole point, they learn.

Daddy Clay: They screw it up and it takes more time to fix what they do as chores than it would take for you to just do it.

Daddy Brad: That’s not the point. They need…

Daddy Clay: And I have an example. I’m not afraid of chores out of hand. I’ve tried it, I’ve experimented. When I come in here with an opinion it means I’ve tried something and it’s failed. Okay, my oldest son is eight and I decided to give him a chore.

Daddy Brad: What was the chore?

Daddy Clay: And he totally screwed it up.

Daddy Brad: What was it?

Daddy Clay: Well, he likes fire so I gave him grilling. He was to do all the grilling and he overcooked everything.

Daddy Brad: Dude, what are you talking about?

Daddy Clay: He cooked it to death. Everything was well done. I was like, son, pink center.

Daddy Brad: Age appropriate chores…

Daddy Clay: One pink center. And he was just grilled the crap out of it.

Daddy Brad: Age appropriate chores. What are you going to do – let him light all the pilot lights in the house after the fall - Boom!

Daddy Clay: It doesn’t matter if it’s grilling or something appropriate or doing the laundry or taking out the garbage.

Daddy Brad: You need to learn how to do that.

Daddy Clay: They make a bigger mess…

Daddy Brad: Do you want your child not to know how to do laundry? They go to college – do all of his white clothes and his red clothes together and then have all pink clothes and walk around in pink clothes all the time? Well, maybe you would, but every normal parent would not like that.

Daddy Clay: Here’s the thing…

Daddy Brad: No, no, kids need to have chores because it teaches them responsibility.

Daddy Clay: What you said before is it teaches them important life skills, like they won’t know how to do the laundry. My children – I will be able to teach them how to run the laundry in fifteen minutes when they’re 18.

Daddy Brad: It’s acquired – it’s an acquired skill.

Daddy Clay: It’s not like you have to practice year after year…

Daddy Brad: No, you have to practice.

Daddy Clay: It’s not like being a great tennis star; you’ve got to practice your forehand. No, you push that button. I’ll teach it to him before he goes to college. It’s not important life skills. NO…

Daddy Brad: You need to start early…you need to start early.

Daddy Clay: This is how you run the vacuum – I mean it’s not rocket science.

Daddy Brad: It helps kids get a sense of being in the family; you are contributing to the family. It helps you establish some kind of quality of work; you learn what the quality of work means.

Daddy Clay: Brad – Brad, okay - here’s a suggestion. To teach the kids that they’re in the family, you know, let them sleep inside.

Daddy Brad: That is a good one.

Daddy Clay: Let them sleep in the house and they’ll learn they’re part of the family. It’s not a hard one to teach. You don’t have to have them doing labor, scrubbing the toilet…

Daddy Brad: You do! Because if they start doing a lot of it, then you have to do less of it. And oh, that is a glorious day when your son can crank up the old Huscavara and mow the grass and you can sit there and critique your son mowing the grass. And it teaches them about consistency, quality of work, being a part of this wonderful economy, you have to work to be a part of the economy. But, very important, do not ever, ever, ever tie chores to an allowance. I know you don’t like allowance, for some crazy reason you crazy communist, but…

Daddy Clay: It’s the same thing…

Daddy Brad: You get an allowance and you get chores and let’s separate the two – here are the things you need to do on a weekly basis to help the household and here is your allowance.

Daddy Clay: I think that if you’re going to ask your kid to do work – okay kid it’s time for you to go and take your toothbrush and scrub out the toilet. You know what’s going to happen? That kid is going to basically hate your ass. It’s gonna hate your ass.

Daddy Brad: But they’re gonna hate you when you make them go to school….

Daddy Clay: And you’re going to fight about it. Why don’t you just every go and every once in a while and just go kick your kids ass. Wouldn’t that save you the time – oh, why don’t you go clean up the kitchen and take out the garbage. Just kick their ass instead.

Daddy Brad: A lot of good things to learn from doing chores.

Daddy Clay: You’re bringing in conflict that you don’t need to do. You can teach them everything they need to know about household chores when they’re 18. I think that what you should do is invite kids to do work with you.

Daddy Brad: Well, that’s the way you start doing chores.

Daddy Clay: You don’t ever have to have them do chores. Unless you can’t do it yourself.

Daddy Brad: Chores are chores. Tomato-tomata; potato-potata – a rose by any other name is still a rose; it’s all work, it’s all the same deal, it’s just how you assigned them.

Daddy Clay: Did I tell you about the medication? Just dial it back, dude, just dial it back.

Daddy Brad: Okay, yeah –

Daddy Clay: The thing is…

Daddy Brad: Chores are good.

Daddy Clay: …is you invite them – you go out, you’re washing the car – you invite them to come do it with you. It’s a great experience. They have fun, they learn about work.

Daddy Brad: And then you evolve into…it’s your job to do the car now. Once you’ve taught them, it’s a wonderful interactive experience. It’s great. And then it’s your job to do the … well probably never the laundry because I still screw the laundry up. After 30 years of practice.

Daddy Clay: Well I think we all understand how important we think the value of work is here at the DadLabs, so…have a nice day. That’s all for us, here at the Lounge.

Daddy Brad: I need to get on my chores, about emptying the refrigerator…

Daddy Clay: You know, I think I’m just going to go to the bathroom for the rest of the afternoon.

Daddy Brad: Ha ha ha – what are you gonna do in there, dude?

Daddy Clay: I don’t know…

Daddy Brad: Take your toothbrush.

Daddy Clay: Does the wireless work in there?

Daddy Brad: I think so…

Daddy Clay: That’s what I’m doin’.