The Archive

TL;DR

• The “Harvard study on chores” all over Instagram isn’t really a Harvard study about chores. The real longitudinal data comes from the University of Minnesota.
• Dr. Marty Rossmann followed 84 kids from preschool into their mid-20s. The strongest predictor of adult success in the dataset was whether they started household tasks at ages 3–4. Not 8. Not 10. Three.
• A 2014 Braun Research survey of 1,001 adults: 82% had regular chores growing up, only 28% require their own kids to do them. I’m in the 72%. Cleanly. No defense.
• Mechanism is executive function — working memory, impulse control, sequential planning. The exact stuff that makes someone good at school, work, and not losing their keys. I had not connected those dots.