07-07-2025
- General
- Wall Street Journal
Chores Make for Great Summers and Résumés
Holly Peterson's 'Dealing With Lots of Messy Young Houseguests? Consider a Chore Doc' (Review, June 28) brought to mind our experience with six school-aged children. In lieu of hosting sleepovers and birthday parties with scads of youngsters, we told our kids that they could invite their friends to our cottage on the Chesapeake Bay for any length of time during the summer. At the cottage, they had unlimited use of two sailboats, two ski boats and a dinghy for fishing or crabbing, and the accompanying equipment needed for safe boating and water sports. The only condition was that they participate in family chores for part of the morning.
One summer my husband decided the exterior of the cottage needed to be restained. We promptly gave the youngest contingent the bottom rows of siding, the teenyboppers the next rows up and the high schoolers and college kids the upper sections. Every morning for a week, they happily slapped on stain, knowing they would be able to use the toys until dark, gas and refreshments included.
