Every parent has been there: your kid comes home swearing on their life that they are the only child in recorded history who has to do chores.

One parent on Reddit decided to crowdsource the answer, sharing that their almost-9-year-old daughter does a short list of weekly chores to earn her allowance. Picking up dog poop in the yard, unloading the dishwasher, keeping her room tidy, and bringing in the trash cans. Nothing outrageous. But the daughter had made her position clear: she was the only child in her 400-plus-student school who was asked to do any of this.

“She tells me she is the only kid in her whole school that has chores,” the parent wrote. “I doubt her data is that complete, however when I talk about chores with other parents, they always say stuff like, ‘Oh, I guess I should give my kids chores.’”

That detail, the offhand “Oh, I probably should,” is the one that sticks.

It suggests something a lot of us suburban parents recognize if we’re being honest. Chores don’t always get structured into family life on a clean schedule. You don’t hand a kindergartner a laminated chore chart the first week of school and never look back. It comes in waves. You’re consistent for a few months, marking everything on the calendar, and then the calendar gets buried under permission slips and soccer schedules, and suddenly you’ve been unloading the dishwasher yourself for six weeks while your kids watch videos in the other room.

That doesn’t mean you’ve given up on teaching responsibility. It means family life is messy and priorities shift week to week.

The Reddit thread that followed the original post did exactly what the parent was hoping for. The discussion brought in dozens of parents who confirmed that yes, chores are alive and well in plenty of homes. “My kids get their first chores at about 2 to 3, they pick up toys and match socks,” one commenter said. “I think chores are a totally normal thing.”

Another commenter offered a reality check on the daughter’s strategy: “I used to say this stuff all the time as a child to get my parents to cave. Good for holding her to responsibility. She will become a hard worker with less entitlement. Don’t compare yourself to other families unless something isn’t working.”

Smart kid, actually. Classic negotiating move.

Part of what makes this whole conversation worthwhile is the distinction between chores as a formal system and responsibility as a general habit. Some families run a tight chore chart with assigned days and dollar amounts attached to each task. Others have a looser expectation that everyone pitches in before dinner or before screen time. Both can produce kids who know how to carry their own weight. The American Academy of Pediatrics has long pointed out that giving children age-appropriate responsibilities helps build confidence and a sense of belonging within the family, not just obedience.

Age-appropriate is worth taking seriously here. A 9-year-old hauling in trash cans and unloading dishes is a very different ask than expecting a 5-year-old to manage laundry. Matching socks at age 3, picking up toys before bed, putting their plate in the sink when they’re done eating: these are entry points. By the time your kid is in third or fourth grade, they’re ready for tasks with a little more complexity, things that actually matter to the household running smoothly.

The original parent also mentioned something that’s kind of charming: their daughter gets a new chore added on her birthday every year, alongside actual presents. That framing, responsibility as something you grow into rather than something dumped on you all at once, is a genuinely solid approach. The University of Minnesota Extension recommends introducing chores gradually and connecting them to a child’s developing abilities, which is more or less exactly what this family is doing.

Your kid may insist, loudly and with great conviction, that no other child on earth empties a dishwasher or picks up after the dog. Don’t believe it. And don’t cave to it either. The Reddit parent held firm, got plenty of reassurance that they weren’t alone, and walked away with confirmation that teaching kids to contribute at home is as common as it is valuable. The daughter will figure that out herself eventually, probably around the time she has her own house and her own dog.