It’s important for kids to have chores to learn responsibility, but sometimes parents are way too picky about how the chores are done.

Imagine being a teenager, and one of your chores is to take out the trash. If you did your chore but your parents claimed you didn’t do it well enough and needed to do it again, would you simply do as told, or would you prove a point to get your parents to back off?

In today’s story, one teen is in this situation, and in the end, he gets the rules for his chores to relax a bit.

Let’s see how he does that.

Take out the trash no matter what. Wait, not that!

Many years ago when I lived with my parents, my mom decided to task my sister and me with additional chores around the house.

Understandable.

We were entering the pre-teen and teenage years so helping around the house is expected.

This was OP’s new chore.

I got tasked with trash duty.

Essentially empty out all the small trashbins into a larger one, and then take out that trashbag.

All was well until one Saturday when my mom complained about why I hadn’t emptied the trashbins.

I said I had, and she pointed to the one in her bathroom where a single bath tissue was in the bag.

There’s a new rule.

She demanded that the bags had to be empty and that next time it happened she would have me empty all the trashbags again.

I asked “even if I’ve already done it and the bags are empty?”

She said “yes, even if the bags are empty”.

Duly noted.

Mom had the same complaint a few weeks later.

A few weeks later, after I had emptied the bags, looks like my sister decided to use the bathroom and left some Qtips in the trashbin bag.

Again, my mom burst out asking why I hadn’t emptied the bins and pointed to hers.

So I got up and grabbed every single bin and took the bag.

Mom finally got the point.

She asked “why are you throwing away empty bags?”

I replied: “because apparently I haven’t done my job well enough and per your instructions, I have to do it all over again even if the bags are empty”.

Needless to say, she loosened up afterward and bins were emptied as needed rather than at a set time; most of all, a single sheet or a Qtip wasn’t grounds for needing to take out the trash again.

The rule at the end makes the most sense. I’m glad this problem finally resolved itself.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person thinks OP’s mother was crazy.

This isn’t a bad idea!

I expected the story to go like this too.

Can you sense the sarcasm?

This person’s mother sounds horrible!

Some parents are way too picky about chores!

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.