5.04 /// Chores, Pocket Money, Memories and Life Lessons

Ever wonder how those Saturday morning chores and the pocket money you earned as a kid have shaped the person you are today? Join me on Infinite Prattle as I recount my own childhood experiences growing up in a semi-detached house in the UK. From the meticulous yet sometimes inconsistent way I tidied and organised my room to the broader socio-economic context of my upbringing, I explore how early family responsibilities and dynamics can leave lasting imprints on our adult lives. Listen to personal anecdotes that reveal the mix of enjoyment and resentment that chores brought, and learn how they influenced my approach to tidiness and task management today.

As we continue, let's take a nostalgic journey back to our childhood gifts and consider their present-day equivalents. I'll compare the cost of a second-hand Game Gear from 1993 to the iPads of today, using an inflation calculator for some eye-opening insights. Reflect on how gifting and spending have evolved, and hear my own stories about doing chores for pocket money and receiving technology as presents. 

We’ll also touch on the impact of modern technology on both children and adults, and I share some thoughts on maintaining engagement through social media, contrasting past and present expectations and responsibilities. Don't miss this episode for a heartfelt look at how our childhood experiences shape us.

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Chapters

• 0:05 Childhood Chores and Pocket Money
• 12:27 The Value of Childhood Presents

Transcript

Stephen: 0:05

Hello and welcome to Infinite Prattle. On today's episode I'm going to be talking about pocket money and doing childhood chores.

Stephen: 0:11

I've kind of touched on this subject before, but I want to talk about how it formulates us as adults. So yeah, let's talk about that.

Stephen: 0:19

Hello and welcome to Infinite Prattle, Unscripted, unedited prattle on everything Hosted by me, Stephen, Listen like, share, subscribe and enjoy the show.

Stephen: 0:41

I hope you're all very, very well. Welcome to Infinite Prattle, the podcast hosted by me. Stephen, if you're new, welcome. If you're not, thank you for returning. I've just taken a massive drink and it's giving me a wind, so, oh, terrible Fizzy pop. Well, it's not Pepsi today. I can't beat that flog, that dead horse about sponsorship, any longer. I don't think it's coming.

Stephen: 1:10

Yeah, so I've touched on this before. I think I don't think I've done like a full podcast about it. I think I've touched on it with, like pocket money stuff and but like when you're a kid, you know you have things to do, not as much as you do as an adult, but I think it's good to have chores and jobs to do around the house and allocation and responsibility. When you're growing up, when you're a kid, some of it you don't mind, especially if there's a monetary reward and some of it you hate. Let's face it. It's like some things you just hate because you just expected to do it, just to be good and yeah, that kind of grates when you're a kid, doesn't it? Sometimes things when you're a kid, you just think leave me alone, I'm playing on my Mega Drive. Yes, I'm that old and, uh, I, I just, I just want to be left alone and I, I don't want to be bothered. I've got my Manta Force out. This is if you recognise any of these toys, then you're ace my Micro Machines and my Lego. Lego's a silly thing, but I'm happy, leave me alone.

Stephen: 2:17

I don't want to tidy my room. Why are parents always obsessed about your room being tidy? Well, I kind of know why they are, but it also is very, very annoying. Um, my mother was super obsessed about having having my room tidy and I was actually quite meticulously tidy, but I I it's kind of how I am now. To honest, things either have meticulous placement or it's in flux. And if you're in my room right now, the moment, again my room is in flux, because I don't always put things back when I should and because my brain moves from one thing to another so fast and I get bored so quickly. Well, not bored, I just get.

Stephen: 3:03

I have to change my process a little bit sometimes. So I'll start doing a job, kind of maybe get frustrated with it, or I might have grossly underestimated the time it was going to take me to do it. So I either stop doing that job because it's then frustrated me because I haven't completed it, and the ironic thing is then I just leave it and don't complete it, and then sometimes going to someone else, I think it's going to give me joy, but that could be in the same area and that could be tidying something different again. Really weird. So yeah, so when I, when I was a kid, I think I still had this trait.

Stephen: 3:37

Well, I did have this trait. It's followed me into adulthood. So, um, my bedroom was was pretty tidy, and the weird thing was, when I was a kid as well, I I actually had the bigger room in our house. We had a three-bedroomed, uh, semi-detached house, which, for anyone around the world doesn't want a semi-detached house, it's basically where two houses are connected by one wall, so it's like I don't know if it's unique to this country so like terraced houses is like a full row of houses and this is like two of them cut off.

Stephen: 4:08

So it's a bit weird. It's kind of like a middle class, like working class, middle class kind of style of home and then if you're a bit more wealthy then you can have a detached house which is just a free house on its own. If you're really wealthy you can have a detached house with land around it. So there you go. There's a breakdown of some um classes of houses in the uk.

Stephen: 4:33

Uh, we lived in semi-detached and my mom, dad, weren't loaded. Like you know, my mom didn't work for a while. She was a stay-at-home mom, she had a bit of child minding and then she went back to work part-time and then full-time. So I wish my dad supported us when, me and my brother, especially when my brother was very young. And then when I came on scene it wasn't as bad. You know, I got hand-me-downs and stuff like that. So again, when you're a kid you don't care, do you? But having two kids, obviously money was a bit tighter and until we grew up a little bit it probably became easier in some ways because you know we could help around the house. And well, this is my take on it at least. Anyway, like you kind of eat more as well. So I suppose it doesn't really save on the money, um, but yeah, like I, I I felt I feel like obviously they they got promotion and better jobs and more hours and stuff like that. So I suppose it was like a combination of maybe us being less demanding and them working more and earning more. So I suppose there's a bit of a balance there.

Stephen: 5:37

I don't think I was a demanding kid. I don't think I was like ever buy me this, buy me that Mum and Dad did the best for me they could, and that was supplemented with me obviously being a good. Mom and dad did the best for me they could, and that was supplemented with with me obviously being a good got a good person and a good, a good kid. Really I mean, um, it's it, it was very good. If you don't, if you're not good, you don't get. The kind of thing was. That was a was a good phrase in our household, for my mom especially.

Stephen: 5:58

And uh, and we I was saying we didn't really get pocket money, like we used to sometimes get some money for some of the chores we did, but it was almost like the chores were just an expectation. We weren't you know, we were expected to like do a bit of hoovering when we got to a certain age, so, like when we were very young, it was just like keep your own area tidy, keep your room tidy, put your clothes away. You know, make your bed in the morning. It all starts with making your bed in the morning, like to have a productive day, like get up and make your bed, that's the first thing you can do and it'll keep you going throughout the day. I suppose it's kind of right in a way, because I used to do that. I make my bed now, but it's just not. It's not like I don't to get in. My mum used to kind of like, really like to see quite a pristine bed, quite a pristine bed. Um, that's slipped. When we got older, I suppose it's picky battles when you know your kids become teenagers and they back chat and start getting their own mind. It's just a bit harder when you, when you, when you got a toddler and a young child, it's probably easier to like enforce things. But yeah, I think um like making the bed, keeping your room tidy, putting your toys away after you've played with them, like get your toys out, but you've got to put them away, you can't leave them everywhere, uh.

Stephen: 7:12

But yeah, I had the, I had the big room. This was what I had the big room. We had a three bedroom semi-detached house. Uh, we'd moved from a terraced house actually and my dad upscaled when I came along and I was, I was about two, three, four I think, when we moved and it was just we needed a bigger house.

Stephen: 7:28

So they went and got a three bedroom house and, um, I was actually given the second largest room. So there was like mom, dad's room, which was the biggest, um, mine, which was the like medium-sized room, and then there was like a small, quite a small room. That's what my brother had and I don't know why that was the case. Um, I really don't. I think my room had massive wardrobes in it. It had some of my brother's clothes as well as my own, and I think all the toys and stuff were pretty much kept in my room. My brother just kind of had like very, very personal items and a lot of the stuff was kept in my room. So maybe that was why it was just. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I probably should ask my mum that actually I wonder why that was the case.

Stephen: 8:15

Anyway anyway, and my brother's room was actually quite small and then, being a foolish child, I actually begged for his room. I don't know why I did that when I was about like we'd been living there a few years, and I always thought I think it was because his room was so compact and I think I liked the. I still like small, compact spaces. I think if I ever had loads of money and bought a house, I would have rooms that were the correct size for their use. I would have a big, I would have a big, massive games room and stuff like that and pool table and big, massive screen. I'd have like a sports bar basically, but, like all my other rooms would be functional like I would like. The room I'm in now would be perfect as like a small hobby room. Then I would have I would have a separate room for podcasting and a separate room for this and a separate room for that, and that's how. That's how I would lay things out each room for a purpose, everything self-contained, um, and I think that's why I changed rooms. I think I really, really wanted that compact space. So, yeah, we did that, and I've lost my thread on this already. I'm meant to be talking about chores. So yeah, but I had to kind of earn the right to change rooms, and my brother was well up for it, obviously. So we swapped rooms. But then I used to, I used to like I think I had to save up to help pay for the wallpaper. You had to be really good because I yeah, that's what it was, yeah, that's where I was going with this. Um, so we didn't just get handouts and stuff, we had to earn big gut.

Stephen: 9:41

So when we changed rooms, I wanted to decorate a certain way. My dad. Obviously decorating is expensive, it takes time, um, and I wanted there was. There was a cartoon on TV at the time, so I must have been quite young when I swapped rooms, probably about seven or eight, maybe, maybe, and there was a cartoon at the time and we painted the room like a very pale blue to match this like wallpaper border. I don't know if you remember back in the day, like borders were all the rage, so wallpapering kind of you could still do that, but then you could place a border around your room, so it was like a really thin piece of wallpaper with a repeated part on, and they were doing these like in all different things you could have like like cartoons and all this sort of stuff. But I was really, strangely enough I don't know how into it was, because it's like now it doesn't really play a big part in my life. It was a tv show, I think it was called barney and there was like a dog in it and a a little mouse, I think, and anyway I had that board around the room.

Stephen: 10:32

But I kind of had to earn that because I was good, they let me have it because I was good. So it wasn't like Because I think they moved me rooms and then they decorated afterwards and yeah, so I had to earn that. And that's kind of how my home life was. It was like you can have nice things if you, if you earn them, and I'm sure, like I'm sure people do that nowadays. I'm sure that's how things are now surely.

Stephen: 10:57

I just feel that a lot of kids nowadays they seem to get a lot of stuff and things are expensive. Like it seems to be the norm to buy a child an ipad at a very early age and like I had to take, I bought an ipad pro recently and it's another quite expensive compared to a normal ipad, but normal, normal iPad's like 500 quid, 600 quid, and the iPad Pro is like 1,000. But I had to make a really massive decision whether I was going to buy myself a new iPad because I've not had one in years and I've got a work one and I do find it useful and I thought I want my own one. So I'm not using the work one because I'm allowed to use it for certain personal things, but not really everything. So I was like, oh it's, I'm just blurring the lines now what I'm allowed to use it for, so don't just get your own. So I decided to get one, but it was a big choice for that and I people buy their children iPad Pros at like eight years old, nine years old, like I've seen it, and it just blows my mind and I'm like how good do they have to be to get that present? Like I mean I don't know what it's comparable with, because obviously, like everything's comparable with something.

Stephen: 11:58

So like I'm trying to think of something. I'm trying to think of something that I had when I was a kid. That may have even been close to that. I mean I had a Game Gear. Let's say I had a Game Gear when I was a kid, and when? When would I have got that? Probably like maybe early 90s. I would say I was probably maybe 10 years old, but it wasn't brand new. It wasn't brand new and I think my mum paid like 30 quid for it.

Stephen: 12:27

Off a friend with a few with a few games, let's say, let's say 45 pound off a friend with a few with a few games, let's say, let's say 45 pound chance per chance. And um, I had that, I think for a christmas present or a birthday present. I'm pretty sure it was the quitchy paid for. You know, let's say 40 quid. Let's say 40 quid because I'm pretty sure it was 30, but like that in today's money. I'm using this inflation calculator on the Bank of England. It's really really cool. I use it quite a lot. It's really interesting and you can go really far back in time anyway. So 40 pound in 1993, works out as about 83 pound, 40 now. So I had a second-hand game gear and it was 83 quid in today today's money. So that's, that's quite expensive, but not breaking the bank.

Stephen: 13:12

For a birthday, I would say that's not like there's one big present, because I used to get one big present and then a few presents off relatives, maybe the unlike few quid and an envelope and stuff. My aunt sally in ireland used to always send me a, a postal check. I don't even know if you can still get them anymore. So yes, £83 for a Game Gear. I mean, I don't know how much Game Gears were new. Let's see if I'm even, even if I was even close, let's see what it's like. Let's have a Google Live Google. So I don't know how much they're worth.

Stephen: 13:50

I'll get them as they are now, so you can get them second hand now for £85. Refurbished, it was a great console. Anyway, that's what I'm talking about. So, yeah, that's the sort of thing I used to get. I'm not going to Google all that now. That's ridiculous.

Stephen: 14:02

I should research before I start these things. But yeah, so that's the sort of present I got, and is £83 too much? Not compared to an £800 iPad? Is it really Like that's like a tenth of they're really getting 90% extra stuff spent on them? Like how much is an iPad?

Stephen: 14:21

I don't even know how much an iPad is. If I'm honest with you, shop iPad, there we go, go. So just a normal, just from 349 pound, but that'll be the shit one on it, because you know what they're like, the uh, they always give you like the lowest, the lowest price one for that. So yeah, 64 gigs. So you always you're gonna go with the 256 storage straight away, wi-fi. So yeah, for 500 quid. So 500 quid for an iPad. And I had an 80 pound Game Gear at about the same age. So I don't think that's comparable. Really, I think kids are spoiled nowadays. There you go. I've said it, kids are spoiled and we were the best and they're crap. I suppose kids don't have to have to have these things, don't they? In some sense it's getting a bit out of hand though.

Stephen: 15:20

You see kids, you see adults on the phones and stuff all the time and I'm terrible. I'm on my phone quite a lot, but I have recently been trying to try to reel it back in a bit, um, trying to stay off social media as much. I mean, I'm trying to post what I can on here on instagram and stuff.

Stephen: 15:39

I already broke my promise of like trying to post something every single day or whatever, so that's gone out the window um, yeah, maybe I might might try and do like a weekly roundup of some pictures and say this is what I've been doing, like just before the podcast, something that'll come out the beginning of the week for the previous week, or something, just for engagement's sake. Oh god, engagement, um, yeah, so I. I say I never really got a party money. I used to get the odd bit and I've said before I used to go to the cinema. When I was a bit older, me and my mate used to go to the cinema, so my mum used to throw me a fiver pretty much every Saturday and that was kind of to get me out of the house, I suppose. So a fiver, so going on, a fiver in 1997, probably when it started. I'm going to be surprised how much this is worth, isn't it so less than a tenner. £9.55 was in 1997, even less in 1996 and weirdly enough.

Stephen: 16:45

1995 was worth nearly a tenner and then towards the end it was worth even less. So obviously inflation reduces the value of it, so yeah, so, um, you're talking about just under a tenner she used to give me every saturday well actually that's actually not too bad if you think about it.

Stephen: 17:03

Nowadays. I've heard about kids getting a tenner, so maybe that hasn't changed, but then the presents have changed. People think they need to spoil their kids more. But I used to do chores all the time. I used to really not spoke about chores that much. Welcome to Infinite Prattle.

Stephen: 17:20

That was well annoying. I don't know why I do these voices. I don't know. It pleases me on my own brain, don't you? I don't know how I do these voices. I don't know. It pleases me on my own brain. Like you think I would annoy myself, and I do, but you know, um, but it pleases me, but then I get annoyed, as God knows what you guys think. Um, yeah, so I I used to like wash the cars, mum and dad.

Stephen: 17:38

Uh, well, it was just my mum's car and then my dad and my dad's got then my mum's car when she got a car and used to cut grass. Do the weeding, dusting, hoovering, like tidying the garage, tidying the shed, keep my own room tidy, keeping the stuff in my stuff in the garage or sheds tidy, uh, doing the washing up. That was a big thing to find my brother who's gonna wash, who's gonna wipe. So all these things were done like for free. So sometimes my dad would throw me a couple of quid when I washed his car if I'd done like a proper, good job, like not just washed it but like waxed it and proper, proper, valid inside and out. Sometimes he'd give me a couple of quid, like to go to the shop and get like some sweets and stuff. But I think the way that like we worked it was just if you're good all the time, you get the benefit of that, and this fiver on a saturday was just something that it was like an award at the end of the week.

Stephen: 18:28

I used to go to the cinema and I was at my mom's hair. My mom does hair all day. So she used to literally say to me, like in the morning I used to leave by half time, 10 o'clock, go out to my mate neil's house, and then I'd pretty much be out all day, like all day. She used to say let's literally be bad for tea. So let me, mum and dad, have all that time alone, because my brother was like I was going to say he's always been five years older than me, which is a stupid thing to say, but my brother's five years older than me, so he was normally out anyway with his own mates and then obviously when he went to college and uni and stuff he was always in bed. He's one of them people that does love to sleep in bed for quite a long time, but yeah.

Stephen: 19:07

I just I don't. I wonder if kids still do chores like that. Everything's forced, I just feel. I just feel, and maybe it's misplaced, but I just feel that kids don't seem to be pushed into chores. They seem to be more pushed into activities like going to sports, doing like football, football academies, doing like martial arts and having multiple, multiple, multiple things to do in the calendar, social calendar of going, go and do sports, go and do this, rather than maybe learning some life skills and washing a car, cooking and stuff like that. I'm going to do another podcast thing on cooking because my mom really was really amazing on that, um, but yeah, I don't know, maybe I'm just making massive assumptions.

Stephen: 19:55

Let me know what you think about that. Do you think kids are spoiled nowadays? Do you think they they don't earn their kind of real big treats like these ipads and phones? I mean, kids just don't have ipads, they have phones now, don't they like? I mean, I know that's a thing in society now, and when I was a kid, like I got my first phone when I was 16, and it was, of the day, a very, very basic. It could phone people and text and that was pretty much it and it could do horoscopes, for some unknown reason, but it made me really popular with the girls because they used to like to gather around me and read the horoscopes, which was kind of nice for me.

Stephen: 20:32

Not that I ever went out with any of them, because high school yeah. So, yeah, let me know what you think. Are you younger than me and do you think I'm talking crap? Do you think that you know me? Getting a five pound equivalent of a tenner just under a tenner today is more than what you got like recently in the recent, in the recent history of the world. Um, and what sort of presents do you get so like?

Stephen: 20:55

you know, game gear was like a nice treat. Generally it was a football shirt and football shirts were about 30 quid back in the day. So probably equivalent to what? 50 quid now, 60 quid now? Um, I don't know what is that. 30 quid show amount. Oh there we are. 19 say 95, yeah, so about double the amount in 95. So about 60 quid in 95, 30 quid. So, yeah, that's quite a lot still, isn't it? I suppose I suppose that is quite a lot. Um, I suppose you always look back and think you were worse off than you were and I look back and think I actually look back and think I was worse than I was. I had quite a nice childhood and I was looked after well and sometimes I thought I was hard done by, but whenever I went to my room I was thinking you're not that hard done by I could have been a lot worse.

Stephen: 21:50

I think I've always looked at the thing of and I've always had this. I look around this room now and I think I would love this and I would love that and I'd love this and I'd love it to look like this. I'd love this redesign. I'd love to live in a different house, but I'm so lucky really and I think you know you'm so lucky really and I think you know we just got to be grateful what you've got and as a kid it's hard to see.

Stephen: 22:10

Yeah, so let me know your thoughts about pocket money and chores and earning money and expensive gifts. And I might come back to this at some point with a more clear mindset and really delve into it, because I think it's a thing to have. And I might speak to some of my friends that have got kids and ask them it, because I think, uh, I think it's, I think it's, I think it's in like it's a thing to have. And I speak to some of my friends that've got kids and ask them how much money they give their kids and do they give them money kids?

Stephen: 22:32

money kids give their kids money and do they have to earn it? Uh, because I know for a fact that if I was naughty, it lasted in my parents mind and I got bugger all, even after a couple of weeks. And if I was like dad, can I have that? And he was like nope, and there was no backing down. There was no backing down. Um, yeah, I'm gonna leave it there. I'm gonna leave it there. So, thank you very much for listening. Uh, love to hear your take on on chores, pocket money and general expensive gift giving today and uh, see if you think your thoughts are lying on mine. Um, thank you very much for listening. Uh, you've been listening to infinite brattle and I've been steven and uh, until next time.

Stephen: 23:08

I'll speak to you soon you've been listening to infinite brattle, thanks for listening. If you like this episode, go back and listen to some others and please continue to listening. Your support is much appreciated. Please like, share, comment and subscribe, and I'll speak to you all again soon. Take care.