When you were a kid, did you have a set timetable of chores to be done around your home, or was there a more relaxed approach to this?

When I was around 13 yrs old, I asked my mom if we could make a chore chart, so when I got home from school I would know what I had to do without her telling me to do it (which irritated me a lot.) It worked out great, but my mom was really surprised at my request.

We did not have set chores. We were expected to pitch in when asked.

Same as @marinelife. There were no charts or schedules or anything. People helped when they were asked (and obviously were expected to take care of their own room). It seemed to work.

My parents would often assign a certain set of jobs (sweeping the floor or doing the dishes, for example) for my sibling and I to finish before bedtime. If they weren’t done, we were assigned more work for the following day. It seemed to work out pretty well, actually.

There were eight kids in my family. We had set chores that rotated weekly. Every night after supper, someone washed dishes and someone dried the dishes and someone put them away. Every night someone sweep the kitchen floor and someone shook out the kitchen rugs. We did the laundry also, which meant nightly washing, drying, folding and putting away the laundry. It was up to you to get your homework done.

I was a teenager, probably 16 or 17 and put off putting away the dishes one night until I fell a sleep with my chores undone. My dad woke up every morning at 4:30 am to get ready for work. He woke me up at 4:30 am and told me he needed me to put away the dishes so he could start breakfast. He wasn’t mad or upset. He just matter of fact told me to get my work finished so we could eat.

There was always work to do and you didn’t get out of your fair share.

There were only three of us, but our chores worked out similar to @bkcunningham . My Dad was very strict.

There was only me, my brother was off to college. There was no chore chart or assigned work. My mom had very high standards when it came to cleaning so she expected me to do it right and her way, the only way. As a result, we often fought whenever I helped her.
Today, she isn’t so rigid. She’s mellowed out quite a bit over the years. We get along much better now.

My mother would be alternately very relaxed about things and freaking out and pulling the martyr act. In retrospect I feel guilty for not helping out more. I only helped when she asked/required it. But then, I think most kids are this way. I think my mom didn’t want to require it, demand it. She was a little Utopian about thinking we should all pitch in because it was the right thing to do. Most kids are selfish though. I was no different. I admit it.

We had the dairy farm, so our schedule was set by the cows. I don’t remember any extra time to do work around the house.

We had chores and they had to be done but I do not remember a rigid timetable. But, woe unto you if they did not get done.

We didn’t have a rigid schedule except that we were supposed to do dishes every night. We did have other chores, but not a rigid schedule for doing them.
Other than that, we were expected to help out whenever we were asked.

We only had our mother and she worked all the time but she never really had to ask us to do chores, we felt obligated to make the house nice and tidy and do our share of work. It always put her in a good mood to come home to a tidy house. I was always kind of a neat freak anyway so it also made me feel better to get things organized and what not. My thing was usually dusting, polishing, mopping, and vacuuming. I hated cleaning the bathroom, but no one else would do it so that was usually my job, too..

Nah. My dad asked me to wash the dishes every now and then, two or three times a week, piece of piss. Got ten bucks out of it a week, too. I was expected to keep my room clean, but he didn’t really care if I didn’t. XD Thing is, I’m a a neat freak, as much now as when I was a kid. But I had phases…no, my dad didn’t make me do that many chores, and when he did, he asked, instead of ordered.
What he was strict on was me not getting the place dirty, like if I didn’t rinse my dishes, or walked in with my muddy boots and dirtied the floor, then he’d set his foot down. We had some few rules established; I had to respect curfew, always knock on a closed door and wait for an answer before entering, stuff like that.

My mom was even worse. I never had to do a damn thing lol.

Same as @marinelife as well as being expected to use our own initiative if we thought something needed doing (ie: washing up) but other people in the house were unable to.

Thanks for tidying up this thread, you all did very well & you may each have a lollipop as a reward treat.

My dad was an engineer. He made a chart once. The chart failed due to human error.
I don’t remember having any set chores….Mom would tell us to do something so we did it. This was in the 70’s, the era of bell bottoms and shag carpeting. My friend was visiting. Mom told me to rake the living room, so I did. My friend kept rolling all over the raked part because she was laughing so hard. Had never heard of anyone RAKING their LIVING room!

Actually, I now remember that there were always a few things that we were expected to do without being asked and one of them was bring our bikes in at night and clean our toys up out the yard. Oh you wouldn’t want to see my father in a fit because we left our bikes in the driveway! If he couldn’t pull the car in without moving those bikes they were flying across the lawn. Wiiiiinnnnnggg!!!! I always laugh though now when I think about it. He was really pretty mild mannered most of the time but that would set him off.