There was an article in the ST about this very subject today, hang on
April 18, 2004
Parenting: Hey kids, it doesn't have to be a chore
Most children would balk at the idea of doing some housework, says Margarette Driscoll, but it can help them as well as their parents
Alisa Zhiteneva is a 15-year-old north London schoolgirl studying for 12 GSCEs. Like her classmates, she knows her French verbs and the rudiments of classical civilisation, but she also possesses skills that many of her contemporaries lack. She knows one end of a vacuum cleaner from another and regularly dusts and cleans.
In the Zhiteneva household, it is a given that everyone has their jobs to do, from doing the washing up to emptying the bins. ?As a young child I was told ?Alisa, wipe the table? or ?Alisa, help unpack the shopping? and after a while these things become a habit,? she says.
?It?s not so much that it?s expected, it seems natural. I actually like washing up. Doing something completely mechanical gives you time to think, which you don?t get if you?re quickly loading a dishwasher. It?s like a train journey; on a long journey you can read a book. On a short one you can?t.?
In case you were wondering, the answer is no: Alisa is not available for adoption, though she certainly sounds like the daughter many of us would like to have. Who hasn?t struggled up the stairs under a mountain of ironed washing while the kids chill out in front of a video?
My two daughters, aged 11 and 8, do precious little around the house and a straw poll of friends and mothers around the office reveals a generation of children who are similarly bone idle. Is it our fault, or theirs?
After all, many over-thirties were brought up to help out with domestic chores and have even found a sense of satisfaction in doing them. Witness Kylie Minogue, the pop star, who earlier this month revealed that she loves to pull on her Marigolds and give her cupboards a good scrub.
Yet, in Britain, we now spend some £4 billion a year on domestic help. Nannies and cleaners are the fastest-growing sector of our economy: working mothers spend 90% of their salaries on keeping the household running. Of an average £864 after tax, £808 goes on childcare and domestic help, including £26 a month on someone to do the ironing, £46 on a gardener and £9 on window cleaners.
Much of the work they do was once done by children. Older friends fondly recall laying the table every night for the family meal, but that presupposes a world in which the family always eats together. Today?s frenetic pace of life means that children and parents eat separately (with the nanny preparing the table for the children) and that working mothers ? like me ? often end up doing housework after 10pm, when the children are in bed and not around either to help or interrupt.
If you lead a busy life, it often seems easier ? and quicker ? to tidy the toys yourself rather than nag at the children to pick them up. But are you doing your children a disservice by giving them an easy life?
?As a parent, you have two jobs,? says Linda Blair, a clinical psychologist working with families at Bath University. ?First, you have to give self-confidence to your children by saying ?I love you?. Second, you have to make yourself redundant.
?As a society, we?re not attending enough to making our children independent. Once, we needed our children to keep us in old age so it was vital to teach them practical skills. Now we have fewer children, later in life and see them as precious and over-protect them.
?Imagine yourself starting out in your first flat, aged 20. Think of all the things you need to know: that?s what you should be teaching your children, and the best way to do it is through giving them practical tasks. They may not like it, but that?s all part of growing up. If they don?t hate you, they?ll never go.?
An American newspaper recently published a guide to the kind of tasks children can perform at various ages. At three, they should be able to clear their toys away into a box. At 14-17 they should be cleaning the shower and toilet and mowing the lawn.
Whether they should be paid for what they do is a moot point. Yes, says Blair: ?Don?t feel guilty ? bribe them. It?s only what they?ll find in the world of work and actually working for what they get will help teach them the value of money.?
But many parents and experts feel differently. My 13-year-old godson is expected to bring his dirty washing downstairs and keep his room tidy but his mother insists his £5-a-week pocket money is ?for nothing, a gift . . . I don?t want him linking the two and thinking he must be paid for every little bit of help he gives?.
Paying children for help is also an approach that leaves psychologist and author Dr Richard Woolfson ?stony cold?. ?The family is not a market economy,? he says. ?I don?t like the idea of a child saying ?I?ll do this or that if you give me 20p but if you don?t give me 20p I?ll sit on my backside and watch you struggle?.?
One of the first questions he asks a family coming to him for help is whether their child helps around the house. ?Usually, the parents just laugh,? he says. ?By and large we don?t expect children to take part, and that?s a shame.?
Woolfson says you should start children on household tasks before the age of 12 ? ?when mum and dad?s approval still matters? ? choosing tasks they can easily complete. ?It will give the child a sense of satisfaction and it says ?I am an active member of the family and helping out?.?
Zhiteneva, who is of Russian descent, does not have a set list of tasks but pitches in with everything, including looking after her younger brother Andrey, 6. ?I do homework with him and play with him to keep him from under my parents? feet,? she says. ?I sometimes cook a roast dinner for the family and if Mum goes to Russia to visit family, I am left as the housewife to run everything.?
She admits it can sometimes be annoying, if she is in the middle of doing homework, to be told to unpack the shopping, but Alisa?s father Andryey, an engineer, says it was a conscious decision to get her involved. ?It?s not only about running the household but about sharing our lives with its ups and downs,? he says.
?Life is about sharing pleasures and responsibilities. I want her to learn that growing up is not just about going shopping and enjoying holidays and choosing food in restaurants. As she takes on more responsibilities, so she gets more rights. We ask her opinion and treat her as an equal and she is shining, in every respect.?