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Care and Feeding: Dad comes after kids do their chores and redoes them
Dear Care and Feeding,
Our daughters, 8½ and 11, carry out age-appropriate chores such as sweeping, vacuuming, folding laundry, taking out the trash. They don’t complain and seem to enjoy it as much as one can enjoy such tasks. What they do complain about, though, is my husband’s responses. He’s a germaphobe and a neat freak and tends to redo or touch up whatever the girls have done, often right in front of them, which they find demoralizing. My youngest recently asked me why I bother to ask her to wipe the counter if Daddy is just going to do it again. I didn’t know how to respond. I’ve asked him several times not to redo their chores in front of them, but he insists that they need to learn to do it right the first time. I agree that they should take pride in their work, but I also want them to feel comfortable doing chores and trying to do new tasks without a lot of anxiety. Can you advise us on a balance?
—Let Them Do It Their Way
Dear LTDITW,
I think you should ask your husband how he’d feel if this was how he was treated at work—if his boss insisted on stepping in and redoing every task he’d handled. I can’t imagine he’d like it. Your kids are right to object.
Sometimes you do need to intervene as the kids are learning stuff and help them master a task. But you also need to know when to butt out. The point isn’t that the counters are scrubbed to hospital standards or the laundry precisely folded and piled up—you’re aiming to fairly distribute labor in the household and teach your kids responsibility.
You could reassign things, focusing on tasks even kids their age could handle easily (fetching the mail, sorting the recycling, ferrying groceries from the car, watering plants). But I also think you could push your husband to reexamine his behavior. Ascribing his micromanaging to a fear of germs or compulsion for cleanliness is just an excuse.
He should be thrilled that he’s raised kids willing to help without a lot of drama (chore time in my house is … operatic), and he should communicate this to them by getting out of their way. If he is absolutely unable to cede control over the kitchen’s cleanliness, fine—that can be his chore. But that should mean he butts out entirely with respect to the laundry and other matters.
Our daughters, 8½ and 11, carry out age-appropriate chores such as sweeping, vacuuming, folding laundry, taking out the trash. They don’t complain and seem to enjoy it as much as one can enjoy such tasks. What they do complain about, though, is my husband’s responses. He’s a germaphobe and a neat freak and tends to redo or touch up whatever the girls have done, often right in front of them, which they find demoralizing. My youngest recently asked me why I bother to ask her to wipe the counter if Daddy is just going to do it again. I didn’t know how to respond. I’ve asked him several times not to redo their chores in front of them, but he insists that they need to learn to do it right the first time. I agree that they should take pride in their work, but I also want them to feel comfortable doing chores and trying to do new tasks without a lot of anxiety. Can you advise us on a balance?
—Let Them Do It Their Way
Dear LTDITW,
I think you should ask your husband how he’d feel if this was how he was treated at work—if his boss insisted on stepping in and redoing every task he’d handled. I can’t imagine he’d like it. Your kids are right to object.
Sometimes you do need to intervene as the kids are learning stuff and help them master a task. But you also need to know when to butt out. The point isn’t that the counters are scrubbed to hospital standards or the laundry precisely folded and piled up—you’re aiming to fairly distribute labor in the household and teach your kids responsibility.
You could reassign things, focusing on tasks even kids their age could handle easily (fetching the mail, sorting the recycling, ferrying groceries from the car, watering plants). But I also think you could push your husband to reexamine his behavior. Ascribing his micromanaging to a fear of germs or compulsion for cleanliness is just an excuse.
He should be thrilled that he’s raised kids willing to help without a lot of drama (chore time in my house is … operatic), and he should communicate this to them by getting out of their way. If he is absolutely unable to cede control over the kitchen’s cleanliness, fine—that can be his chore. But that should mean he butts out entirely with respect to the laundry and other matters.
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Also, correcting someone's work in front of them is not in any way the same as teaching them the right way to do it, and he needs to stop insisting that it is. "I'm not doing this to soothe my agitation, I'm doing it for your own good" is a perilous trap for someone with OCD.
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Because even if he does have a mental illness, he is not the most important person in the room here. (Those would be the kids, for whose healthy and loving upbringing he is equally responsible.)