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What was your most hated chore as a child?

(171 Posts)
littleflo Thu 11-Nov-21 10:12:58

My mother worked full time including Saturdays. So we were left with a big list of chores. My most hated one was, ‘cleaning the cutlery’. For some weird reason, I had to take everything out of the draw, clean each individual item with Vim and then wash and dry it before putting it back neatly in the drawer.

One day I went out with a friend and did not get back in time for all the chores. I tipped the cutlery into a sink of water and then dried it. She never noticed and so that became the norm afterwards.

timetogo2016 Thu 11-Nov-21 10:17:38

Peeling potatoes,still hate the job.
Oooooh that was crafty littleflo,good for you haha.

Shinamae Thu 11-Nov-21 10:20:52

The only thing I don’t mind doing is the washing and hanging out to dry, I never iron anything and the rest of the house work I absolutely hate and it’s only done when it absolutely has to be ?

Shinamae Thu 11-Nov-21 10:23:00

Sorry I missed a bit as a child. As a child we had a guest house and I had to do a lot of housework including emptying bins making beds, cleaning sinks and bathrooms and the worst job emptying the chamber pots under the guests beds ??

eazybee Thu 11-Nov-21 10:24:54

Taking the vegetable peelings to the compost heap at the bottom of the garden on a wet winter's night.
Having to fill the coal bucket from the coal shed, (only occasionally).

littleflo Thu 11-Nov-21 10:25:02

Peeling potatoes was a job for my brother. One of my other jobs was polishing the furniture with Tops cream. Thinking that, the more I used the easier it would be, I used loads. It took forever to get of.

The worst bit was the spindly legs of the dining room chairs. I could have just dusted if I had thought of it. We must have got through loads of that Tops cream. I also had to use it for polishing the shiny black floor tiles either side of the hall carpet and round the edge of the living and dining rooms where the carpet did not cover.

Baggs Thu 11-Nov-21 10:31:11

I don't remember hating anything. Still don't but, like shinamae, I only do what I regard as absolutely necessary anyway. I keep hygienic what needs to be hygienic (kitchen, bathroom) but dust and general mess busy-ness because of interests and hobbies doesn't bother me.

I actually find washing-up relaxing in a meditative sort of way.

Kate1949 Thu 11-Nov-21 10:31:26

My mother had 7 children and we never had chores really. I don't know how she coped. We went to the shop for her but would do very little.
One thing I did (but only if she paid me sixpence, to my shame) was go to the gas works to fill an old pram with coke when she couldn't afford coal. I used to dread it in case one of my grammar school friends saw me.

Oldwoman70 Thu 11-Nov-21 10:37:03

We had an open fire with a large lead surround - my Sunday morning job was to black lead the grate, hated it!

paddyann54 Thu 11-Nov-21 10:43:22

No chores for us My mum said we'd have a lifetime of chores as women so we didn't need them as children. I loved to cook though and when mum was ill ,she had lung problems, I cooked for all six of us from around age 9 .

littleflo Thu 11-Nov-21 10:48:55

We cooked for ourselves too on Saturdays and during school holidays. The parents of today would be horrified at 9 year olds lifting heavy hot oil for the chips or bring roasting pans out of the Ben. The lighting of fires was a job I loved.

My DH felt hard done by as he had to collect the heavy shopping once a week and do the drying up after every meal

henetha Thu 11-Nov-21 10:56:45

I was a feather plucker from an early age. We kept chickens and Mum used to kill them and then give them to me to pluck.

shysal Thu 11-Nov-21 10:58:09

De-fleaing the dog! Had to sprinkle on a powder and wait for the fleas to crawl onto the surface, from where they were plucked and squashed in my fingers!

lemongrove Thu 11-Nov-21 11:03:27

Cleaning out the grate/ ashes and then getting it all ready to go ( just not allowed to start the fire myself) including filling up the coal scuttle.That was when I was about seven, but it continued to be my job until the age of 15....by the age of 12 I was allowed to light the fire.All that with nobody in the house but me!Different days.

MissAdventure Thu 11-Nov-21 11:09:12

Changing the beds every Saturday.
We didn't have to do it alone; mum "helped", which mostly meant her pulling everything back off the bed and making us redo it.
Every time we folded a sheet, she went one way and I went the other, which didn't help, and then sometimes she would notice that the toy box lid wasnt closed properly.
We were really in trouble then!

Jaxjacky Thu 11-Nov-21 11:10:18

Cleaning what my mum called the ‘edges’, skirting boards. She’d be horrified at ours!

jaylucy Thu 11-Nov-21 11:17:08

Polishing the red floor tiles along our hall - they were always freezing cold, whatever time of year!
I was so glad that may parents replaced the runner along the hall, and replaced it with fitted carpet !

MissAdventure Thu 11-Nov-21 11:20:15

We had edges, too.
I think we had a square of carpet, so the edges included the bits between carpet and wall.

Tizliz Thu 11-Nov-21 11:25:37

Peeling potatoes was my worse job, still hate it and usually OH does it (otherwise he knows he will get scrubbed rather than peeled). Why do they have to be peeled? Taste better with skins, and he will eat skin on baked potato! I won’t pod peas either as I hate maggots.

Ginpin Thu 11-Nov-21 11:37:00

I'm glad others had chores too.
I thought my sisters and I ( born, 1953, 1957 and 1958 were the only ones!
My brother ( 1964) didn't seem to be given any !

My mum never went out to work but always seemed to be busy in the garden ( 1/2 acre, which she still has at 92 yrs old!) or dressmaking, making wonderful meals from scratch, washing using the twin tub and mangle , going out on the bus to collect groceries for the week ( we never had a car) and other time fillers.
So we were given plenty of chores!

The worst part was the list being unending, as soon as you got near the top of the list ( in my eyes) I seemed to be given more !

I do remember playing with my younger sister though, and studying for A Levels, so there were times without chores !!!

glammanana Thu 11-Nov-21 11:42:31

On Sunday's I had to go to my nanna's and pick the fresh mint at the bottom of her garden for the Sunday roast it was past a display of roses and I always got caught by the rose bush thornes.

littleflo Thu 11-Nov-21 11:42:53

The big carpet in the living room reminds me of a funny story that is still being told 65 years later to delighted GCs.

Being left to our own devices meant that we got up to all sorts of mischief. One day we decided to have a peashooter fight.,we each had a bowl of rice and a straw as the weapon of choice. We tried to clear it up before dad got home, but saw his car pull up before we finished. We quickly swept it under the carpet.

Of course, as he came in all you could hear was crunch, crunch, crunch. Rumbled!

tanith Thu 11-Nov-21 11:46:19

We lived in the top flat of a 3 storey Victorian house in London, on Saturday mum would give me a bucket of hot water a bar of household soap scrubbing brush and cloth and I’d have to scrub the wooden flight of stairs (no carpets) up to our flat and if I’d annoyed her in some way she’d make me do the other flight as well. It was worse if the coal man had been as there was black dust front the front steps upwards.
It got messy ?

Georgesgran Thu 11-Nov-21 11:52:30

Same as paddyanne here. I was an only child and Mum told me housework and chores would come soon enough. My only ‘task’ was a Sunday morning visit to my Grandad’s garden to get a cabbage, cauliflower, sprouts or whatever was on offer for lunch.

aggie Thu 11-Nov-21 11:53:08

We had a long , to me , stairs with carpet up the middle , held with brass stair rods! My job was to take them out and Brasso them , then clean the bit under them with a brush and dustpan before I put them back , this was every Saturday , we didn’t have a vacuum cleaner so during the rest of the week I had to use the brush and dustpan to clean the carpet every second day , mind you I had plenty of time for playing and day dreaming ,