by Tricia Muller

Created on: December 05, 2009

Should children be taught to wash and iron their own clothing? This is like asking if children should be taught to clean the house. Why would a child need to know this? Isn't this a parents responsibility? I see so many children today that are not only responsible for keeping their own room clean and maybe one chore, but they also are responsible for the laundry, the dishes, emptying the garbage, starting dinner, and taking care of the family pets! What do their parents do? Pretty much nothing. Parents today seem to think that since they bring home a paycheck their children should be their maids.

While I agree that children need a chore, and cleaning their own room certainly should be all on them, why should a child be responsible for the housework? Between school, homework, chores and extracurricular activities when does a child get to be a child? It's true that a child needs to learn responsibility, but apparently, so do parents. Did you give birth just to have a slave in a few years? I understand that it is hard for a parent, or parents, to work full time, raise kids, and keep a clean home, but that doesn't change the fact that it IS an adults responsibility. People seem to lose site of the fact that children are not shorter adults. Why does a ten year old need to behave like an adult? Worse, why should a six year old?

Washing and ironing clothes is a job for an adult. At the least it is something that a child should not have to learn until they are in their mid-teens. At the point it is necessary for a child to start learning how to care for themselves as they will be an adult in a few short years. Parents need to remember that a teen is still a child, regardless of the fact that they think they know everything.

On a personal note, my children had nothing to do before the age of ten except pick up after themselves (toys, mostly) and help clean their rooms. At the age of ten they took on the responsibility of cleaning their rooms by themselves, putting away their own, already folded and ironed, laundry, and one chore. That chore was designated by their size and maturity level. My oldest daughter, who is now 21, is a responsible, hard working adult, who cherishes family values and believes people should be responsible for themselves and their own actions. I believe this is partly due to the fact that she was allowed to be a child while she was one, and expected to help out according to her level of maturity only.

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