We Need to Teach Basic Housekeeping to Our Kids

On my first weekend at college, a quarter century ago now, I dutifully packed my laundry basket, bottle of detergent, and quarters for the machines, and descended into the basement of the building next-door to mine to do laundry. As I was starting a load, I overheard a conversation between two guys in the laundry room. They were, it appears, highly confused about what exactly they needed to do. They understood the basics—that these machines would receive their dirty clothes and, after some time, render them clean. But the process of getting from point A to point B was a bit opaque for these gentlemen. In fact, they were unclear as to what point A even was. 

A decade or so later, when I was teaching at a state university in the South, I came to learn that a graduating senior in one of my classes had never learned to cook. She was able to operate a microwave to warm up frozen dinners, but that was the extent of her culinary competence. At least she knew how to do laundry. Since then, I have come across many other students like her. “So, what do you eat?” I sometimes ask these foundlings who may have been raised by wolves. 

In another instance, a friend who shared an apartment sublet during a summer college internship, was shocked to discover his roommate’s nonchalance when it came to basic cleaning and maintenance. Upon finishing a chip bag, the young man would discard it on the floor. Fast food containers filled every available surface. Roaches roamed, grazing freely on the wondrous bounty made available to them. I presume the owners were not amused by the state of affairs at summer’s end. 

All of these examples are extreme, to be sure. And yet, clearly something is afoot. A number of adults now do not possess certain essential skills because no one ever bothered to teach them. Over a generation ago now, schools ditched such seemingly frivolous subjects as home economics or shop class, converting that time instead to more test-prep-relevant subjects. This is partly to blame. But then, even when Home Ec. was available, it did not necessarily teach such skills as laundry or home cleaning. And so, while one of the above anecdotes reveals a shortcoming that in previous generations might have been remedied at school during cooking class, the bigger picture is of failings at home. At some point over the recent decades, a rising number of parents stopped teaching kids at home how to cook, clean, and do laundry—basic housekeeping, in a nutshell. 

Several studies back up my anecdotal observations. National Institute of Health has been concerned about college students’ inability to cook for themselves. As for cleaning, in a 2023 study, the American Cleaning Institute noted:

• Nearly 3 in 4 college parents (74%) admit their kids are not completely prepared to clean on their own. Kids surveyed don’t disagree with parents about cleaning preparedness either. In fact, according to ACI’s 2022 survey of college students, 72% feel less than completely prepared to navigate the responsibility of cleaning on their own.
• 64% of parents surveyed this summer expressed at least some concern that their college kids don’t know how to use cleaning products effectively.
• While the biggest obstacles parents cite for college kids’ cleanliness are lack of motivation (56%) and lack of time (46%), more than 1 in 4 parents (26%) worry their kids do not have the proper cleaning supplies or know-how. This lack of knowledge shows a greater need for a cleaning education.

I find the report rather funny. Here are parents of college-aged kids, rightly worried that their kids can’t clean. But where and how did this failing come about? Now that’s an awkward question! 

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.

As I consider the essential life skills that I want my kids to master before they leave home, I am convinced that the trifecta of cooking, cleaning, and laundry is absolutely essential. And the responsibility for teaching these skills falls, it is important to say, on me and my husband as parents. In other words, it is our parental failure if our kids manage to leave at age 18 without knowledge of practical housekeeping. 

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. Centuries of health crises and the discovery of germs and particular diseases have taught us that, yes, roaches and rodents are commensal species. And no, we do not want to encourage their commensality, because neither Bubonic Plague nor salmonella are particularly pleasant. Adults who do not possess basic skills of cooking and cleaning for themselves ultimately bear the cost of their shortcomings, whether is to their health or finances. 

To teach kids these skills is surprisingly simple—but as with so much else about parenting, it takes consistency over the course of weeks, months, years. My husband, who himself grew up with a chores system, is in charge of keeping track of the chores in our own home and pays the kids for their work. He also took the time initially to teach each child how to clean various surfaces and how to use different cleaning products. As a side note, not all parents are comfortable with paying for chores, but we have found it to be a highly effective motivator. In case you are wondering, the going rate at our home is $1 for vacuuming and $.50 per bathroom and for dusting. Unloading the dishwasher is unpaid, but the kids somehow always do it. (They also help a little with laundry and cooking, but do not carry out these tasks start-to-finish—yet.)

So, approximately once a week, but also whenever we have company coming over, the kids clean the house. In addition, I usually sweep the kitchen multiple times per day (for reasons other parents can readily understand), and my husband periodically does extra deep cleaning—because the quality of work from a 9-year-old and a 6-year-old is not at adult level. But by the time they leave home, it will be. 

As we consider the decline in marriage and birthrates in our society, I suspect that the lack of such basic housekeeping skills is an understudied factor. Is it any wonder that people who can’t take care of themselves day-to-day are terrified of marriage and children? 

The investment of our time, consistency, and some quarters right now will pay off richly, not only as the kids get older and better at these tasks but also by setting them up for taking care of themselves and their homes in adulthood. Besides, as I look at each of my children, I remember that I am raising someone’s future spouse and, Deo volente, parent. I hope my children will possess the basic housekeeping skills to be good spouses and parents, modeling for their own kids in turn the joy of taking care of their home and the people in it.  

Nadya Williams is a homeschooling mother, Books Editor for Mere Orthodoxy, and the author of Cultural Christians in the Early Church, and Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic: Ancient Christianity and the Recovery of Human Dignity.