Community Corner

Kids' Allowance: To Give or Not to Give?

Some Patch readers say their kids are lucky to have a roof over their heads and free wi-fi.

When it come to doling out weekly stipends to their kids for "allowance," some parents around town are not sold on the idea of paying their children to help out around the house. 

Parents who do buy in to paying allowance as a "gratuity" for laundry and lawn-mowing say they are loathe to overpay for what is essentially the privilege of living in their houses and hooking up to free wi-fi.

Wrote Jennifer Christie Gudelis on Holmdel-Hazlet Patch Facebook Page, "To quote Chris Rock, " I ALLOW you to live in my house"

The candid thoughts of hard-working parents surfaced after we posted a question on Patch Facebook Pages on "Money Monday" asking, "How does allowance work in your house?"  

"Allowance = spending money," wrote Steve Sapp on the Middletown-NJ Patch Facebook Page. "If you don't have it - you don't get/do/buy it. Just like in the real world. We teach about budgeting for larger purchases and respecting the purchases you've made." 

"$0.00 from me, get a job," said Charlie Zalenty on the Toms River Patch Facebook Page, who got himself a job as a young teen, and can't figure why you don't have one too. "I already paid $$$$$ for everything you need and some of the things you 'want,'" he said. 

Kelly Arciniaco also chimed up, saying she is bringing her kids up with the same tough love. "When I was a kid we didn't really get allowance. We had chores and my mom would say that we had to do them because they had to be done, not to get paid for doing them. If we wanted extra money we did extra things like raking leaves and shoveling snow. I used to hate it as a kid but I can appreciate now as an adult."

On the other side of the coin are parents who are making noble attempts to instill the value of work = payoff. 

Jennifer Miller said on Freehold Patch Facebook that she gives her 6-year old $5 every Sunday for helping out with household chores. "Responsibilities include helping with the dishwasher, dusting and being a good listener," reports Miller. "She is currently saving to have her own spending money for a Disney trip." Who can argue with that goal-setting approach? 


Karen Kappes Shupp contributed an interesting scheme: "If they want something, they have to come to us and ask for it," she posted on Middletown-NJ Patch Facebook Page. "If it is something we feel that is worthwhile buying, we buy it, write down the amount in a notebook, and then they will be required to "work it off" by doing something that will benefit them, e.g. exercise, reading an informative article, putting away their laundry, watching an educational show, etc. (Most parents would probably have them do "chores" to work off whatever they bought, but I prefer to have them do something that will benefit them as a person, rather than me....but that's just me!) This system is like a 'reverse' allowance, with the advantage of the parents getting to make the decision with how the money gets spent."

Overinflation in kids' wages is cause for parents to float the idea of price-fixing -- if only so we can afford to feed the famished 13-year old boys, clothe the ultra-picky teens and have something left over to pay Apple for all those apps that show up our credit card bills. 

"Don't pay too much," cautioned Jennifer Waters Dahl, on Ocean City Patch Facebook, "or kids won't work for less." 

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