Once upon a time, I had a housekeeper, and it wasn’t me. I paid for this service twice a month, and it was amazing. Also, I did not have children full-time in the home, which, in hindsight, feels ridiculous now that I’ve raised six children without a housekeeper at all.

I did not grow up with a wicked stepmother, but I did grow up with a very organized mother in a household with chores on Saturday. My mother, armed with a little box from the junk drawer, gave each of us the eagle eye as we chose our chores from small slips of folded paper. On each slip was written a particular chore. Whatever chore was jotted on these slips of doom, the expectation was that the job was done sooner rather than later.

To avoid the “worst” chores, I learned quickly to fold these slips of paper creatively, in a way that I was sure to remember for the next time. These particular crinkles and wrinkles helped me avoid the chores I despised, such as vacuuming the stairs, cleaning the bathroom, or dusting all the baseboards in the house.

As an adult, I still dread particular chores. Putting away the laundry, forget it. Unloading the dishwasher, hate. However, as any good parent should do, I attempted to instill the value of work in my children. I’ve tried many tracking methods over the years for said chores. I used stars and tickets. I’ve used whiteboards and markers. I even tried my mom’s method with slips of paper. My organizational attempts were pretty much futile. The chart on the fridge was a permanent placard holding all the hopes and dreams of an unorganized mother. I found that being bossy worked best for me: “Go empty the trash,” “Tonight the dishwasher is yours,” “Go vacuum.” Barking orders was also transferred to paper. Handwritten notes scrawled out on scrap paper. A kid’s name, what chores were theirs, and the punishments to follow if the jobs didn’t get done, were complete with underlining and exclamation marks.

Just as Cinderella wanted to emulate her stepsisters in their ball gowns, I think we, too, often, as moms, can fall into the trap of comparing our “system” with that of social media, Pinterest accounts, or more recently, suggestions from ChatGPT. I tried to emulate my ultra-organized Mother, and I wasted a lot of time trying on someone else’s ball gown. Looking back, I wish I had not wasted time and money trying to organize in a way that didn’t fit my personality or the way our household ran. As a mom, you do what you think is best, but if you’re not organized in your own life with a planner and highlighter, starting a big chore system and keeping it up is likely not sustainable. I wish I had just kept true to myself and started barking orders a lot earlier!

No matter what chore system you end up with, don’t try too hard, and don’t expect that your child will know what to do without oversight and guidance. Kids aren’t watching TikTok videos on cleaning unless it somehow involves ASMR. It’s our job as parents to lead the way. Despite my lack of follow-through and organization, I feel fairly confident that all my kids can clean a toilet, even if they don’t want to.