Celebrating National Family Day the Old Fashioned Way

Kenmore is all about family… the ties that bind us, whether through blood or otherwise. And as we come together to celebrate American Family Day (Aug. 6), let’s take just a brief moment to focus on one of the fundamental yet not so expected ways that families can stay close. We’re talking about chores.

Yes, we said chores

Doing regular household chores together, like cooking, cleaning, sweeping, laundry, and doing the dishes, may seem a bit boring at first blush. But one in four Americans say that it helped them bond with their parents, according to a new survey of 2,000 Americans conducted by Kenmore and OnePoll.

Seven in ten poll respondents believe they have a strong relationship with their parents, and 61% say that spending quality time together was the main reason for it. And nearly two-thirds (64%) find comfort in doing tasks the way they learned from their parents.

Seven in ten respondents learned to wash dishes in a specific order: silverware, glasses, plates, and then pots and pans. And over 60% still follow the habit of “putting the kitchen to bed,” meaning they clean the kitchen before leaving it for the evening.

Doing chores together not only gave families an opportunity to bond, it taught the kids valuable life lessons they can take with them when they fly the coop, AND it gave mom and dad help around the house while they still live there. That’s what we call a win-win-win!

The power of togetherness

By simplifying and enriching the ordinary, routine moments and tasks we all experience, we have the power to create something genuinely meaningful with the people closest to us. The ongoing shared experience of working together, and getting things done to make our living environment a little more enjoyable makes an impact that transcends generations.

Parents are usually a child’s first teacher, giving them an opportunity to shape the way kids handle issues such as mental health by learning de-stressing and de-escalation techniques. For example, more than half of the respondents (51%) say they learned to find humor and laugh things off from their parents. Additionally, half of them learned to de-stress through journaling and exercise (57%).

At the end of the day, one fact stands clear: the family that cleans (and can laugh) together, grows together.

What else we learned

Following are some of the top household cleaning tips that people say they picked up from their parents, according to our survey:

Pick up the household item, don’t just dust around it – 73%

Hand-wash dishes in a specific order: silverware, glasses, plates, then pots and pans – 70%

Put the kitchen to bed (clean the kitchen before you are leaving it) – 68%

After you use a bar of soap, clean it off – 57%

Keep surfaces clean – 50%

Take off shoes inside the house – 32%

While vacuuming move furniture around – 24%

Using the 10/30 rule for cleaning (take the 10 extra steps or 30 extra seconds to do something the right way while cleaning) – 21%

Divide the house into zones and assign each person in the household a zone to clean – 19%

Listening to music while cleaning and relax as you clean – 16%

About the Survey

This random double-opt-in survey of 2,000 general population Americans was commissioned by Kenmore between June 28 and July 5, 2023. It was conducted by market research company OnePoll, whose team members are members of the Market Research Society and have corporate membership to the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) and the European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR).