We should do chores for the same reason we go to school – preparation

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Chances are, as a part of the family, you are asked to do various menial (or not so menial) tasks about the house or yard.

“Son, will you take out the trash?”

“Sweetheart, would you dust the house for me?”

“Will you mow the lawn?”

“Will you start the laundry?”

“Would you put away the dishes?”

Or, if, like myself, your mother decides to finish writing a fifty-lesson Bible study in a week flat, then you find yourself generously helping her keep the house running by taking over the role of “housewife” for a week. This should be easy.

Now, to most of us, the word “chores” sends us running to our bedrooms where we promptly take solace under the bed where nobody can find us (unless that’s always the first place you go when you’re trying to avoid doing something. Too predictable, mate. Find a new spot). Your parents assign you chores from an early age because you are a part of this family, and so it is your duty to contribute to the running of the house.

What if I told you that chores will inevitably prepare you for being an adult?

And if you hope to be married, you need to be doing chores for along the same reasons why you do school. It’s imperative that we all learn how to read, write, and calculate arithmetic so we can be better prepared for what the world has in store for us. It would be a bummer if you were not able to read your Bible because you had never learned how to read.

Same with chores. What if you had never learned how to load the dishwasher until after you moved out? Any roommates wouldn’t be impressed. Or what if you never learned how to fold clothes until you were finally forced to do it after your marriage? Your husband would come home and find his clothes smelling awful from not being washed, and all his shirts wrinkled after being stuffed carelessly into the bureau (hang them up – Braendlein men’s shirts should be hung up in the closet!).

What if you had never dealt with the trash in your life, and now you watch helplessly as your roommate drags the overflowing garbage bag to the apartment hallway, where he leaves it for no other reason than “I don’t know what to do with it!” …and you don’t know either!

What if you had never learned how to make a decent peanut butter and jam sandwich, and you starved? Or your kids starved? Or you starved your husband of the nutrition he so sorely needs in order to support his growing family? What if you never learned how to scramble a decent egg, and all you could do, to surprise your wife with breakfast in bed, was bring her the box of Cheerios?

Doing chores and learning how to manage a household will get you off on the right foot as you prepare to leave your home and someday get married.

And if you think that women should learn how to do women’s chores, like dishes and laundry, while men should learn how to do men’s chores, like mowing the lawn and taking out the trash, then think again. Both sexes should learn how to do all of the aforementioned chores, regardless of whether or not the wives will spend their married days mowing the lawn and the men folding the clothes. You might find that your husband is great at folding laundry, and that you actually love mowing the lawn. My father is terrible at folding laundry and figuring out the difference between his boxers and his son’s (what an awkward day it was when he tried on my brother’s boxers and found that he had put the wrong ones in his own drawer). But he will do it if it blesses my mother (actually, scratch that; he will willingly make his four children fold the laundry if it blesses his wife).

So if your mother asks you to move over the laundry and start a load of delicates, or your father asks you to take out all the trash in the house (how many trash cans are there, seriously?), do it with joy, and know that knowing how to do chores will save you a lot of pain when you finally move out or get married.

And besides, you get to do all the chores when you’re a grown-up!

Pictures by Hannah Penninga.