What a chore

I have not yet heard of anyone getting excited over household chores. Washing dishes, sweeping the floor, doing laundry, throwing out the trash, these are mundane routine tasks that we usually want to get out of our way as soon the need for them arises. We want them done and over with the soonest time possible, but the strong feeling of aversion does not always translate to our willingness to actually do them.

We delay doing them: we wait until the dishes have piled up taller than the sink, or until the trash has started to smell, or until the curtains have accumulated too much dust; extreme cases probably, but I think we all play around that window of time between when we have to do a chore, to when the consequence of postponing it has aggravated to a non-negligible degree. I do think we all understand the importance of household chores; they’re necessary to maintain cleanliness and order in our homes, and ultimately to ensure we are living in a safe and healthy environment. There’s just always that personal resistance that prevents us from doing our chores right when we need to. I only became conscious of this recently when I’ve been finding myself enjoying some household chores. The foreign feeling of enjoyment prompted me to reflect and led me to realize just how much I hated doing chores subconsciously.

On a personal level, it wasn’t hard to trace the root of my resentment for household chores. My siblings and I grew up having a “katabang” or “helper” in our home; essentially a maid, but my parents avoided the term at the risk of coming off as lazy people who can’t take care of themselves. Our helper would do most if not all of our household chores. As kids, the only thing we were obliged to do in the matter of household maintenance was to minimize our mess and be kind to our helper. The only time you’d find my brother and me sweeping the floor or folding our clothes was when we were punished for some misdeed. I therefore grew up perceiving chores as punishments, laborious tasks I could avoid if I stayed a good girl.

This was until 10th grade when my parents decided to stop hiring a helper. By that time, we had grown so dependent on someone doing our chores that it took us quite a steep learning curve to learn them and to live with the fact that we now have to do them on our own.

I understand that I come from a place of privilege to have grown up not being required to take on chores; and when the immunity wore off, I unwillingly, unhappily, accepted chores as a temporary burden to my life, longing for the day I won’t have to do them again. That was until I moved out to live on my own, and became fully and solely responsible for all household chores in my apartment.

In the past couple of months, I’ve embarked on a journey of chore discovery; from scrubbing surfaces in the comfort room to doing my laundry, to cooking, it’s quite a long list, and I’ve yet reached the end of it, but even so, the journey has already taught me to have a friendlier attitude toward chores. I’ve learned to appreciate these tasks I previously branded as boring, time-consuming, and nonvalue-adding. Indeed, they’re time-consuming, but it’s time worth spending. And it’s not boring; through these tasks that once mastered do not require highly concentrated attention, I can allow my mind some time to think freely, without any external feed of information interrupting or directing my train of thought. It’s a much more productive avenue for the mind compared to scrolling through social media.

Doing household chores is also definitely value-adding, not just to our homes, but also to our health, both mental and physical. Clean, neat, and organized homes keep away germs, mosquitoes, rodents, pests, and the mental stress of not knowing which of those could wake you up in the middle of the night. Aside from this health security, chores are also beneficial to physical health as they all involve some sort of physical exercise. Laundry works out your arms, sweeping the floor gets you walking, and essentially all chores get your body moving. And lastly, I believe chores enhance discipline, especially when you start out hating them. I think my problem was I grew up in a clean house without understanding the hard work necessary to maintain it. Laundry is not about splashing water and blowing bubbles over dirty clothes as they advertise on TV. You can’t effectively scrub out dirt in between tiles without applying pressure. As I said, household chores can be a full workout, one you have to do regularly. You’ll need discipline for that, in addition to cleaning materials and a physically capable body.

I would not go as far as to say I now love doing household chores. No, I’m not for hire. I do approach chores with more enthusiasm now. I understand that there must be a proportionate amount of effort you have to put into doing your chores to get the quality of cleanliness and order you want in your home. And so I’m happy and fulfilled when I see my enthusiasm is reflected in the state of my apartment. I hope you soon understand this feeling too if you don’t yet.

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Harriet Limpot, 23, is a facilities engineer. She likes to write on the weekends.