The Collapse of Parenting: How We Hurt Our Kids When We Treat Them Like Grown-Ups

by Leonard Sax

Some parents, especially affluent parents, have told me that they are happy to hire a housekeeper or a landscaping service, or both. They would rather have their child devote their time to schoolwork or extracurricular activities rather than household chores. I think those parents are making a mistake. You can hire a landscape service, I suppose, if you must and if you can afford it, but you must still require your child to do some household chores. By exempting your child from all chores, as many affluent American families now do, you are sending the message, “Your time is too valuable to be spent on menial tasks,” which easily morphs into the unintended message “You are too important to do menial tasks.” And