Why I won’t give my children an allowance.
Am I being a mean mom when I refuse to give my children an allowance? I feel that I would be doing them a great disserve if I did pay them. What am I paying them for?
I love my children dearly, but I won’t pay them just for the pleasure of their presence. All my children’s needs are met by me and my husband. They have a warm, safe place to live. Good food to fill their bellies. Clothing for their bodies, and so on. They also get gifts throughout the year with the holidays and birthdays. And I should pay them on top of that? Nope.
Do I pay them for their chores. No. They are part of the family. They have obligations just like everyone else. If my kids want clean clothes, they need to make sure their dirty clothes find their way to the washer and then the dryer. They have wonderful toys given to them, it’s their responsibility to clean them up. They eat food provided by me, so they take turns with the dishes. Paying them for jobs that they will have to complete throughout their life seems silly. As my children enter adulthood, they will find that no boss will pay them to tidy up their living space.
So, what is the reward for their hard work? The satisfaction that comes with any job done well. Noticing the connection between taking something that is not organized and then a sense of peace that comes when you place things in their rightful place.
An example of this came from an experience I had with my daughter. Her room had become very untidy, and it was time to get it under control. After she had made considerable progress and was nearly finished, she came to me and said, “I feel so happy cleaning my room. Why?”
I want her and all my children to understand that having a clean space and accomplishing worthwhile work is rewarding. I would not be doing my children any favors by raising them to think mommy will always clean up after me. Or “I don’t feel like cleaning the dishes, “What’s the point? I won’t get any reward out of it.”
Here’s another experience I had with this concept. My parents tried to instill the value of work to their children. Growing up my family had a garden. Part of the chores my siblings and I had was to weed, water, and pick the produce in the garden. I hated weeding. It took so long, it was boring, and it was hard to get all the pesky little weeds. But at the end of the season, we literally saw the fruits of our labor. Because we had labored in the garden weeding and watering, we received corn, strawberries, peas, carrots, watermelon, and the list goes on. No one paid us to own a garden, we did it and we benefited from what that garden gave us.
Now, I know what some of you must be thinking. Okay if you never give your children money how do they learn to work with money or save? My kids still get money in birthday cards from their grandparents.
My husband and I provide opportunities to earn money. My daughter wanted some extra cash, so we planned to make a lemonade stand. Mommy and daddy helped her with making the food and drinks, as well as building the stand itself. She still had work to do, and she even had to pay mommy and daddy back for the cost of the groceries and labor. But in the end, she learned far more about money than if my husband and I had handed her a monthly stack of bills.
