Christopher Allen

Doing chores as a kid predicts how your life turns out better than your IQ does. Harvard followed 456 boys from Boston's poorest neighborhoods from age 14 all the way to 47. The ones who worked hard as kids, chores, odd jobs, whatever, grew up mentally healthier and had better relationships. That mattered more than how smart they were or how much money their family had. Kentrell kind of explained why without meaning to. Coolest man on earth, but hella structure. A Berkeley psychologist named Diana Baumrind spent the '60s studying exactly that combo. Parents who were warm and strict at the same time raised the most capable, independent kids. Strict with no warmth did worse. So did fun with no rules. Look at his dad's list. Out the door by 6:50am. Homework gets checked, no excuses. No dishes left in the sink. In bed by 10. Plus a four-week deep cleaning rotation that ends with him hosing down the outside of the house. Then look at what he gets back. Friday after 6 is his once chores are done. Saturday he can be out on the block till 10 and home by 11. And the Sunday laundry line says Dad will help if he's not working. Pretty much every rule on there earns him something. An 8-year-old can understand that deal. When you start matters too. Marty Rossmann at the University of Minnesota went back through 84 kids from Baumrind's research. The ones doing chores at 3 or 4 were doing the best in their mid-20s, and it predicted that better than IQ did. Kids who didn't get chores till 15 or 16 mostly resented them, and it backfired. Most of us grew up with this. In a 2014 survey of 1,001 American adults, 82% said they had regular chores as kids. Only 28% make their own kids do them. A kid who was 10 when that survey ran is 22 now. Some of the people in these replies are about that age, saving a stranger's dad's chore list so they can run it on themselves.