Woman living at parents' home with her daughter argues with brother because he doesn’t do any housework: ‘My daughter, who had absolutely nothing to do with this distraction is now inconvenienced because a grown adult refuses to clean his room’

Author image for Olivia Arocena
Olivia Arocena • Writer and Editor
Sep 12, 2026 8:00 AM EDT

I don't want to be prejudiced, but brothers are complicated, to say the least, when it comes to household chores

I know this story is complicated, and the sister who has a daughter could be living outside her mother's home, but I feel like that's the easiest way out of the equation.

Sometimes, mothers don't know what to do about their son's untidiness, and they decide to make it anyone else's problem. I get it; it's not on purpose, and most of the time, it's not even a conscious decision.

They want to solve an urgent matter, and they will do what's easiest for everybody. And when somebody never cooperates, it's easier to stop trying to make them change and work with those who do.

The problem is that this way of solving things can't be sustained forever. At some point, something has to occur that forces a person to learn to do their chores. And if you don't learn that when you're young and living at home, life will teach it to you the minute you get out.

But what happens when you're still living with your mom and sister and you're making everyone's life harder? Do mothers have a tendency to forgive boys' mistakes more easily?

I know a lot of families that follow this exact dynamic. Are we going to fall into the common place of blaming the mother? Or is it the sister in the wrong here?

Are there any proven techniques that work to discipline a full-grown adult into doing what he's supposed to do? Is he a lost cause?

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  • Cheezburger Image 10662916096
    via Chris Lynch

    The lazy brother

    Model portrayal



     

  • AIO for pointing out that my adult brother refusing to clean his room somehow became my daughters problem?

    I currently live with my parents along with my daughter and my adult brother. My parents travel and work a lot, so while they're gone, i help out around the house. I clean,
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  • take care of pets, handle little projects, and generally try to contribute however I can. I genuinely don't mind doing it. I'm grateful to have a place to
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  • live, and helping maintain the house feels like the least I can do. My brother also lives at home, but unlike me, he has abosolutley no interest in helping out around the
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  • house- especially when it comes to cleaning his messy room. And when i say messy, i mean messy messy. Trash, clothes, the works. His room also has a very noticeable part (BO)
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  • that has become a recurring issue. We're hosting a family event at the house this weekend, and relatives are coming from out of town.
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  • My mom dad been understably stressed trying to get everything cleaned and ready. She's always been someone who loves hosting and wants everything to look perfect.
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  • While preparing the guest rooms, my mom bought some fairly large furniture that needed to be temporarily stored somewhere. One of the pieces fit into the guest
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  • room closet. The other piece would have fit perfectly in my brothers room.. Except she didn't want to put it in there because of the mess and the smell
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  • being transferred. Understandable since the pieces were expensive. So instead she put it in my daughters closet. The problem is that this furniture is large and
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  • blocks complete access to things my daughter uses regularly. She now has to move it whenever she needs to access part of her closest - and that's not an easy task.
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  • Here's where i get frost treated: my mom had already asked my brother to clean his room. He flat out refused and then essentially ignored the request.
    via Emotionsovereasy
  • Cheezburger Image 10662920704
    via Vitaly Gariev

    What the brother should be doing

    Picture does not depict real parties



     

  • So my daughter, who had absolutely nothing to do with this distraction is now inconvenienced because a grown adult refuses to clean his room. My daughter is visibly
    via Emotionsovereasy
  • upset (shes become a little bit of a neat freak) so my mom kept reshaping her that it was only temporary. I told my daughter to leave it alone because i didn't want her getting into an argument while she was
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  • frustrated. Then i calmly said to my mom something along the lines of: I don't think that is very fair. He was asked to clean his room and chose not to so now she's the
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  • one dealing with the consequences. That was apparently the wrong thing to say. Almost immediately, the conversation stopped being about my brother,
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  • the room or the furniture. Suddenly, i was bring told i was ungrateful and disrespectful. This isn't the fithe time this has happened. Whenever i point out behavior from my
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  • brothers that i feel is being enabled or accumulated, the conversation somehow turns into a list of things wrong with me. the original issue disappears completely
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  • I am far from perfect, and maybe i should have kept my opinion to myself. My mom was already stressed, and maybe this wasn't the hill to di on. But i can't shake the
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  • feeling that my daughter is being inconvenienced because my adult brother refused to do something incredibly basic, and i'm somehow the bad guy for pointing that out.
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  • So AIO, or is it reasonable to stand up for my daughter and be upset that an adult refusing to clean his own room resulted in everyone accommodating him instead?
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  • RevolutionaryLink919 NOR. She knows you're right but it's easier to argue with you than face and deal with the real issue which is her lazy son. Are you working towards getting your own place? Your daughter really needs that.
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  • PurplePlodder1945 NOR. Your parents seem happy to let your lazy assed brother do as he wants, even if it inconveniences others. Any chance you can move out?
    via PurplePlodder1945
  • MiraTinsel the real issue is that your brother gets to refuse basic responsibility while everyone else gets inconvenienced to accommodate him and somehow youre the problem for pointing that out
    via MiraTinsel
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    via Kelly Sikkema

    Household chores should be for everyone

    Photo is a representation of scenes



     

  • Sometimes it's easier to move on with life and ignore certain issues that would command all of our attention to fix. Can something still be done about this -not so young- brother?

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