Money and Children's Household Jobs: Parents' Views of their Interconnections

Abstract

Parents' ideas and practices regarding monetary payments and children's household jobs have been considered as an index of more general values related to what children should learn and what parents should do. The present study explores (a) the acceptability to parents of a variety of practices, and (b) some general ideas about money in exchange for jobs that may provide a background for discussing actual practices. At issue are both the content of parents' ideas and the degree to which there is coherence or structure within the ideas held and between ideas and practices. The sample consisted of 118 Australian parents (mothers and fathers) each with a child aged either 9-11 or 14-16 years. The results indicate the value of exploring ideas about money as a route into parents' ideas about children and their development, together with the value of exploring both the extent to which ideas are shared by parents and the nature of departures from a coherent set of ideas.

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