I’ve Ended Up With An Overgrown Man Baby Coz My In-Laws Didn’t Teach Their Kids To Do Their Own Chores!

There would be tea cups, snack plates, and glasses lying all around the house because it’s the “maid’s responsibility” and NOW MINE to clean up after them.

Today I saw our domestic help spreading the innerwear of my 35-year old sister-in-law on the clothes line and a thought came to mind. Shouldn’t some basic life skills be a part of our daily routine rather than putting it on the maid? I mean washing inners of someone else can be disgusting even if it is put in the washing machine. My husband too behaves the same way, and I find it very disgusting.

My mom taught me how to clean my inners when I was just 10 years old and here 30+ aged people cannot do it? In fact I pointed it out that here at home it’s ok, but what if they have to go somewhere for office work, how will they manage?

This is just one instance of such things. Growing up, parents try to give their kids a good life, but does that mean making them inefficient and useless? It’s every parents’ responsibility to teach their kids basic life skills.

8 things everyone must learn growing up!

1.  Children should know to keep things at designated places rather than throwing them around, so that they can find it themselves rather than depending on their moms. And later, their wives. I mean things such as their toothbrush, towel, shaving kit etc.
2. Taking baths, intimate cleaning and washing their innerwear on their own.
3. Teenagers should learn how to use a gas/induction/microwave (whichever they feel comfortable with), to make basic dishes irrespective of their gender.
4. As the kids grow, give them some responsibilities about housework, like my mom used to make us responsible for filling the water filter, the water bottles; my brother would clean the table after we had food, then stacking the utensils after they have dried in the rack.
5. Cleaning up after themselves, its really important. Here I see everyone in my husband’s family leaving fruit peels all around the house which shrivel and dry up, but they would never throw it in the dustbin. And I actually vomited the first few times – my husband will trim his beard and leave the hair on the table itself. There would be tea cups, snack plates and glasses lying all around the house because it’s the “maid’s responsibility” and NOW MINE to clean up after them.
6. Arranging their cupboards. This, I have seen, is almost a genetic defect that runs in this family. When I had newly come I saw that one of the sofas in the house was always loaded with clothes, later I came to know that they don’t fold clothes at all, the maid dumps the fresh clothes from the cloth line on the sofa and they just pick it from there and wear it, in last 5 years never saw anyone folding clothes and when I started doing it, I became responsible for everyone’s clothes.
7. Changing their own bedsheets. Maybe younger kids cannot do this, but if your kid plans on moving to a residential school or college away from home, this is important.
8. Keeping their plates and other utensils in the sink and as they grow up to clean them as well.

Please don’t think that I am complaining just for the sake of it. Inculcating such habits early in life will help with your child’s physical, mental and emotional growth. I am seeing it practically, how bad things get. My husband and his siblings fall sick a lot due to staying in such a place, and I have a dust allergy, and if I don’t clean then I also end up taking medications.

I have taken an oath to teach my kids how to take responsibilities from the right age, and I am just requesting other parents to also try the same. Just think of it like this. After you are gone, who would do all this for your kids? You cannot depend of domestic help to take care of everything, and if you think that you can just find a ‘suitable bride’ who will do everything, that’s just plain wrong, other than the fact that in today’s time when both men and women are working, no one would like to take responsibility of 30-35 year old untrained kids who are just potty-trained.

SORRY about my harsh words, but that is how it really feels like. Written by a fed-up wife, worried-for-my-babies’-future mom, and my in-laws’ current baby sitter.

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