<p>A friend recently sent me this email seeking help and I thought this forum might offer some wise advice.
As you all know, the cost of college is pretty outrageous these days, and as parents, we will be making a big commitment to fund a huge chunk. DD/DS will also have some debt upon graduation (in the form of Stafford loans, which we may help pay off).<br>
Because we are allocating such a huge chunk of our current pay towards tuition, that means less (or no) money for home repairs and improvements. I'm not looking to remodel my house or anything, but maintenance and upkeep is imperative.
So here is the survey:
1. Is it reasonable to expect that your college bound child will give you a certain number of hours per week towards home maintenance jobs (like painting, deck staining, mowing, weeding, etc.) so that you can take the money you would have spent hiring someone (at thousands of dollars!) and allocate it toward tuition?
2. If it is reasonable (a yes answer to #1), then how many hours a week would be fair? Or if quantifying hours is too hard, then what sort of project is reasonable? (such helping me finish paint the exterior of the house and/or scrub and stain the deck but never anything dangerous, like climbing up the ladder and painting the 2nd floor, although help might be needed in moving the ladder.)
3. OR, should college tuition be completely unconditional from parents? And if so, how much home maintenance is reasonable to ask of an able bodied 17 1/2 year old? (I realize that DS/DD doesn't own the houses; we do.) And lastly, should a 17 1/2 year old, dependent on parents, help out just because it is the right thing to do, when we ask, whether it is tied to her college tuition or not?
Thanks for your thoughts on this!</p>
<p>Is this any different from the discussion about allowance when they were younger? Are you paying them to do chores? Or do they get an allowance and they are also expected to do chores? I think able-bodied kids who are living at home have to help out, whether or not you’re sending them to college. I’d de-couple the two.</p>
<p>Before they go away to college - yes. The summer prior to college mine was my pool boy - however, the pool was opened because he wanted to entertain his gf and have parties.</p>
<p>As they get older, no. They are coming home to visit - not be your slave. Plus, I don’t want my kids around poisonous chemicals and in a position to fall of a ladder. And I would rather have a professional doing work around the house to get professional quality. Also, my kids were able to earn more money at white collar jobs throughout college.</p>
<p>However, my children were never required to have chores. They had better things to do.</p>
<p>I guess you can look at this two ways–you can “pay” them the going rate in your area for handyman work and apply that to their school costs or not contribute so much to their costs and expect them to get a job outside of the home for the summer. A friend of mine way back when I was in college, her parents were remodeling their house top to bottom. They could well afford to do that AND pay for college for their 3 children, at private schools, but they still wanted the kids to be responsible for helping. They were expected to get outside jobs (my friend was a waitress) and help around the house with the remodel–sanding wood, painting, tearing up old carpet, etc. Worked well for them.</p>
<p>Our DD is a recruited athlete so her “summer job” is to work on her skills. She has a part-time job working at a camp in her sport as well. Our other children are expected to work as many hours as possible in the summers and earn as much money as they can, on top of getting good grades and merit aid. We will help with the rest. The first line for paying for school, however, is on their shoulders and if they aren’t doing as much as they can, we don’t give anything, and they know that. It’s worked well so far.</p>
<p>Unless you’re 100% sure your child can do a reasonably competent job of it, I wouldn’t. </p>
<p>Several colleagues tried this route to save money on remodeling/upgrades and then ended up spending more money to repair the damage because it wasn’t done right the first time. </p>
<p>And that’s not including possible resentments as this is not the typical household chore most families I know who own homes would allocate to their kids…or even themselves unless they’re reasonably competent or do upgrades/remodeling/repairs on houses for a living. </p>
<p>A college classmate who grew up in urban Chicago still has a frosty relationship with a wealthier aunt/uncle who compelled him to perform such chores one summer because they’re cheap and seem to feel they have a right to use their nieces/nephews to perform unpaid labor…even if they weren’t notified beforehand and don’t have any experience due to living in urban apartments all their lives.</p>
<p>Contrast that with an older favorite uncle who considers my schedule when asking for computer help and insists on paying me a decent hourly rate and providing dinner.</p>
<p>It probably depends a lot on the family dynamic. parent1986’s kids never had chores. My S has mowed the yard since he was 12, and both S and D have cleaning and other household chores. We have very different parenting views on this. The “friend” needs to evaluate what will work in their own family and fit with their views.</p>
<p>My parents required all of us to work a certain amount of hours in the summer (I think it was 15) doing jobs listed on a family to-do list. OR we could pay a flat fee. This started our senior years of high school and continued as long as our primary residence was the family home. The expectation was that we would pitch in as needed beyond those hours. Used to make me crazy that my oldest brother would just pay up, and read books while the rest of us stacked wood (honest) but my mom said it was his right, and his choice.</p>
<p>My kids have always been expected to help; as their monthly allowance is/was their fair share of what we have together, so too their work is the fair share of what needs to be done. That ranges from yardwork, housework, errands, and laundry. I don’t think you need to justify it by saying you are spending tuition money on them, the family unit requires more work than two adults can do on their own. Or as I say, " Your father and I worked 8.5 hours today, and I come home and you couldn’t be bothered to unload a dishwasher? What if we all had that attitude? Lazy doesn’t run the world" which is a favorite quote of my mom’s. We do have “money jobs” which are the miserable things I post a dollar value for doing; this started when they were little so they’d learn how nice it is to have money and how hard it is to earn it.</p>
<p>Make 'em pull their weight. It’s good for them, it’s good for you. If they have a summer job, well…grownup life is full of tasks. Might as well buckle up.</p>
<p>If your friend really needs his/her child’s help and explains it in that way, I don’t think there will be any problem. </p>
<p>But if your friend tries to work some kind of a deal or make a threat, there probably will be.</p>
<p>When my son was in his junior year of college, I broke my leg a couple of weeks before he came home for winter break. My husband, my then-teenage daughter (who did not yet have a driver’s license), and I had great difficulty getting things done – especially errands and transportation for my daughter, who attended a magnet school a half hour’s drive from home – because I could not drive or do many of my other usual tasks. </p>
<p>Then my son came home for the break. And without the slightest hesitation, he did anything that was asked of him – most of which involved errands and driving. He bought groceries, picked up prescriptions, and went to the bank and post office. He drove his sister to extracurricular activities at her faraway school and came back and picked her up several hours later. He missed a party, without complaint, because we needed him to drive his sister to a required evening high school event and wait for it to end so he could bring her home. He even offered to stay home for an extra three weeks in January instead of taking the course he had planned to take in his college’s three-week winter session if we needed him to do that. (We said no.) He was hugely useful, and his help greatly reduced the stress on other family members. (And by the time he went back to college, his sister had passed her driver’s test, which solved most of our problems for the remaining weeks until I could drive again.)</p>
<p>There was never any mention of “this is your obligation because we pay your tuition” or “if you don’t help out, we won’t pay your tuition” or anything of the sort, and my son had not grown up doing chores. He helped out because he was an adult, we were his family, and we needed his help. It was as simple as that. </p>
<p>If your friend truly needs help in getting household repairs done and cannot afford to pay for the work to be done, I don’t think there will be any problem in getting the college-bound young person to help. If the young person lacks the skills, it may be necessary for him/her to only work on projects together with an experienced person. Or perhaps the young person could take over some routine chores (cooking, laundry, errands) to free up time for the experienced person to work on the home improvement projects. I’m sure the family can figure something out. The key thing is that it has to be real. Young people understand real.</p>
<p>My son has always helped me around the house when I’ve asked him, but while he was in high school, I felt that was basically a full time job that he was doing really well so I didn’t ask him for a lot. Once he graduated, I figured he should learn how to cook, so I asked him for more help in the kitchen. Whenever he comes home, he helps me make dinner and he’s gotten really good at cooking. It’s fun for both of us. He’s also great about any task that requires heavy lifting. If I worked outside the home I’m sure I would have expected more help from him.</p>
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<p>Agreed. It also needs to take into account their skill set and respect their own scheduling needs. </p>
<p>No one wants to be in a situation where family members suddenly dump heavy chores/other tasks on them in the last minute without giving them a chance to plan and work it into their schedule…especially if they have little/no experience/skill set in that area. </p>
<p>That was my Chicago-native college classmate’s situation with his aunt/uncle…and my situation one time when parents volunteered me to try helping a high school kid who waited to the absolute last minute with SATs without checking in with me beforehand so I could have told them I had a part-time job commitment that I cannot break…especially for a feckless high school kid/parents who waited to the evening before the exam. </p>
<p>I didn’t help matters when I stated correctly that 1. By waiting to the very last evening…there wasn’t much I could do. 2. It is wrong to expect me to break a prior commitment with a client…especially considering the kid and his parents waited to the very last minute.</p>