Family Work: Allowance, to Pay or Not to Pay

by Heidi Schulz | Aug 18, 2011 | Homeschooling

Need to catch up on your work? Past posts in the Family Work series:
Principles and Vision
If Mama Ain’t Happy
Are My Kids Allergic to Work? {link up}
Chore Charts and Other Motivators {link up}
And though not specifically about work, you won’t want to miss Nicholeen Peck’s guest post on Teaching Self Government.
If you haven’t already, please take some time to go visit (and comment on) the posts of those who have linked up. And remember, our September 2 Family Work post is a work-party. I’ve lined up some fun prizes to give away. Anyone who links up will automatically be entered to win.

Allowance, to Pay or Not to Pay

I’m firmly in the Give an Allowance Camp. Kids who don’t learn about money run the risk of becoming adults who make poor money decisions. A child who is allowed some spending money, taught how to use it, and allowed to make mistakes with it, is learning valuable lessons. Like: if I spend all my money on candy today, I’ll never be able to save enough for the game I really want.
I like allowance.  However, here is where my fellow Allowance Campers and I may disagree.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to pay children to do their chores.
Wait, before you take away my s’mores and kick me out of camp, hear me out.

Five Good Reasons Why You May Want to Reconsider Paying Children for Chores*

1. Money eclipses other good reasons for doing work and becomes the main motivator.
I mentioned this last week when we were talking about incentives for chore charts. Work can be rewarding in its own right. Children receive a sense of accomplishment, pride and increased self-confidence for a job well-done. Children also really do want to please their parents (even if they act otherwise). Putting a monetary value on chores overshadows all of those other things. They begin to work for the dollar instead of your praise.
In Freakonomics, the authors talk about a study done at several day care centers. Each center had a few parents that would habitually arrive late to pick up their children. The day cares decided to impose a monetary penalty on the parents if they were more than a few minutes late. To their surprise, the cash penalty caused the number of parents picking up late to increase. It was determined that once there was money involved it overshadowed the moral reasons for being on time. Instead there was a feeling of, this is okay because I’m only out a little bit of money.
The same can happen with chores. Contrast a child who thinks, “If I don’t clean up after my dog today, my mom might be unhappy with me” to one who thinks “If I don’t clean up after my dog today, I won’t get my dollar”. If that child decides they don’t really need a dollar today, it’s not so hard to decide not to do it.
That brings me to the next reason.
2. Paying for chores implies that the child can choose whether or not to do them.
Of course they can choose either way, right? But there is a big difference between “I have to do my chores because my parents expect each member of the family to do their part” and “I have to do my chores if I want money.” Sometimes the desire to not do the chores will be greater than the desire for money.
3. It creates a spirit of competition over cooperation.
Children are far less likely to help each other when there is money involved. Say you tell your family, “As soon as we all get done cleaning the living room, we’ll go to the park.”
If children are used to being paid for their work, you may begin to hear this: “I’m done with my jobs. I won’t help you unless you give me x amount of dollars.”
If money is not involved, the children may be more willing to help each other get done for the reward of going to the park.
4. Having to pay for chores reinforces the idea that “housework” is menial.
Have you ever heard a child ask “How much will you pay me to do this?” When children are asked to serve their families without compensation, the work is elevated.
We do these things because we love each other, because we take pride in our home and yard, because it feels good to create something lovely not because we are paid servants.
This goes along with the next point –
5. It teaches a love for money, not for the work, or the family the work benefits.
Think back to your vision. Do any of these points resonate?
Bonus Reason: Eventually children get old enough to begin earning money elsewhere and their motivation to earn money for chores at home decreases dramatically.

That’s not to say I think children should not be given opportunities to earn money at home. They should. But for extra (non-required) work.
I’m currently reading Cheaper by the Dozen, by Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. The parents had a genius idea for extra work that needed to be done around their place – a closed bid system. They would approach their children with a job, say, painting the fence. Any interested parties would write down what they would be willing to do the job for, seal it in an envelope and turn it in. The parents would go with the lowest bid. It worked well until the kids got together and started fixing prices. 🙂
Here’s how we do it. We give our daughter an allowance of $10 per month ($1 for every year of her age). She gives $1 to the church and the rest is hers to spend or save as she will. Of course, we encourage her to save, but allow her to make mistakes (and feel the result of them). If she is invited to a birthday party, she picks out a gift and pays half of the price (I pay the other half).
If she wants to earn extra money, my husband and I look to see if there is extra work that can be done and we make her an offer. She is also encouraged to look for other earning opportunities.
For example: a couple of years ago, she decided she wanted to save up for a wii. At the time she was being paid only $8 a month allowance, with 80 cents going to her church donation. $7.20 a month does not add to $200 very quickly, so she asked for extra work. We had a big weedy patch behind our house and we offered her a couple of dollars for every 5 gallon bucket she filled with weeds. She earned a little bit more for reorganizing cupboards and closets.
She also asked her grandma if there was work that could be done at her house. In exchange for some cleaning, our daughter was given all the soda cans in the her grandma’s garage ($35 dollars worth!). Little by little, her money grew. After seven months of extra work (and saving her birthday money) she had enough to buy that wii. All that she did to earn it meant something to her. She was so proud. We were too.

Homework: Evaluate your current allowance system in light of your long term vision for your home. Are they in line? If not, what steps can you make to change? Journal Page PDF

Your Turn: How do your kids earn money? Do you have a system?
What do you think about paying kids to do chores? Do you disagree with me?
I’d love to hear your point of view. Please link to your blog post (old or new) with a back link to this post. Or tell me in the comments or on facebook. Then go visit (and comment on) these posts:

*A few of the reasons for not paying a child to do chores were inspired by Kathleen Bahr, 2004 BYU Women’s Conference, “Rejoice in His Labour”.
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