Teaching Children to Keep House Is Part of Parenting
Keeping house is the task of everyone, including the children. Good (and deliberate) parenting does not forget this, as children need these skills for when they start to live in homes of their own.
CARE
Nicole Lasam
6/11/20254 min read
Housekeeping is part of living in the house, so it’s one important thing for parents to teach their children. Housekeeping encompasses merely cleaning up. It also includes cooking one’s own (healthy) food, doing the laundry, and creating a hygienic and beautiful place that you would keep wanting to come home to.
In the Philippines, it’s normal to have househelpers, but that doesn’t mean one shouldn’t learn how to clean. My maternal grandmother, who taught my mother how to clean, used to tell her that even if you had an “army of maids,” you would still need to learn to clean the house because you would be their “directress,” or the one who checked on the work being done. “How can you do that if you don’t know how to clean?” she used to say. It’s because of that that my mom gave my lola the moniker “Queen of the maids,” and my own yaya—who was a member of that “army” of her maids—would regale me with stories of my grandmother finding dust in every corner. Only the cleanest of spaces would do.
Recently, I read a story written by homeschooling mom Nadya Williams for the Institute for Family Studies entitled, “We Need to Teach Basic Housekeeping to Our Kids.” In it, she writes that many young adults these days leave home for college with no knowledge of housekeeping. As examples, some live on microwave dinners, while others live in dirty spaces that invite roaches and rats to stay. She brings up a study that notes how some parents, on the thought that their children will be leaving for college, worry that they don’t know how to 1) keep house, 2) cook food, and 3) do the laundry. But whose fault would that be?
The trio of life-basics
Parents need to teach their children how to do these basic things so that they can live in a fresh and healthy environment no matter their would-be status in life: whether they command an army of maids or take on the role solo; stay single or get married; live an urban life within the city or a rural one out in the country; and stay in the land they grew up in or go abroad. In tackling the why of it, Williams puts it succinctly:
“These basic skills are essential for health, both physical and mental. Therefore, they are foundational for human flourishing. At a practical level, all adults must know how to feed and clothe their bodies, safely and effectively. They also need to know how to maintain basic health standards at home.”-Nadya Williams, Institute for Family Studies
How can we, as parents, ensure that our children grow up to be upstanding members of society if we can’t even teach them the basics of how to flourish in their own homes? So, even if they are still little, teach them to pick up their toys after playing, help themselves to food and drink (and clean up after), sweep the floor, keep their own corner of their room tidy, and wash their hands. As they grow older and become more nimble, they can take on more challenging duties like clearing the table, washing the plates, hanging up the clothes to dry.
Sometimes I watch how some influencer moms on YouTube do it. I admire how this mom, Olivia Owens, gets it done, even at 2 weeks postpartum. She has taught her older children (she has eight!) to take on some of the cleaning tasks and motivates them with a checklist that they can update themselves. What’s wonderful about assigning chores to the littles is you teach them the practical thing (how to do the actual task correctly) and—as an added effect—help them to form virtues (like responsibility and diligence) along the way.
In other words, many wonderful things can be instilled in allowing the children to take part in making the home a pleasant space that everyone wants to come home to. It’s true that as they are still learning, they can break some glasses, sweep inefficiently, or even make their bed all wrong, but all of us need to start somewhere. So, do teach them as early as they’re eager (in a Montessori classroom, two- and three-year-olds already can sweep the floor and do the dusting!), and continue accepting their help as long as they’re interested. And for those who aren’t interested, give them a motivation to do even just a simple task as wiping the table with a clean, wet, rag after the plates, cutlery, and glasses have been cleared out after the mealtime. Our motivation for that one? If the table is clear and clean, I say, then we can draw some art together. Another motivation is: they can have a dancing space if they clear out the toys from the floor.
If at this stage they’re doing the work a little shabbier than you want, then allow them to finish and just add supplementary help later. Practice makes perfect, after all—and with constant encouragement, and showing them trust in their abilities to accomplish the task, by the time they go to college, get married, or move out to live on their own, they will be equipped with the basics they need to flourish—and you can rest assured that they can take care of themselves physically and mentally, wherever their dreams inspire them to go.