Sorry, wasn't commenting on the merits of parenting, authoritative styles, etc. Just trying to match OP's children's definition of "oppression" ..

* having expectations involuntarily set on your performing of activities that you would not voluntarily perform otherwise;

* punishment for failing to meet those expectations, rather than a reward for meeting those expectations

With the contradictory idea of the person setting the expectations and punishments being "objective" in a discussion.

Certainly if the request from the children is "we don't want to clean our rooms", the only truly objective response is to either:

a) incentivize them to clean their rooms with negotiated rewards and benefits, in a true market sense b) convince them through logic and rhetoric to voluntarily choose to clean their rooms; c) agree that they don't have to clean their rooms.