Mom Gives Ten-Month-Old Son Household Chores To Show Babies "Are Capable"
She says he loves helping out.
One mom’s unique approach has garnered quite a response from the internet after she shared a video of her ten-month-old son helping with laundry and other household chores.
TikTok mom, Sophie Zee, wrote in text overlay on the video: “POV: you're 10-months-old but your mom is trained in child development, so you already know about basic chores and associate them with playtime and fun, and you enjoy helping out and doing them.”
In the video’s caption, she elaborated and wrote, “Let your baby & kids watch/help with your daily chores. Even if it takes a bit longer or is a bit messier. It’s so important for their development and they enjoy it!”
Zee’s video was met with a mixed response, including some TikTok users who couldn’t believe she was having an infant do chores.
“Having a baby do the laundry is wild 😂,” one user wrote.
The OP replied, “He loves it lol”
“It really doesn’t matter what he helps with at 1 year old. when they are 4, they can actually be helpful and learn too,” another said.
“It’s actually good for them to watch and play/help if they want 🥰 it sets the building blocks for the future! doesn’t mean if you didn’t do it as a baby, it’ll be a problem for the future tho 🫶,” Zee said in response.
Despite the questioning from some, others admired Zee’s proactive nature to teach her son how to help around the house at a young age.
“beginning with the end in mind = setting up for success,” another said.
“ECD teacher here too. Best to train them from young 🥰 love it,” one user noted.
As for Zee, she told Newsweek that her background in child development was the catalyst for her independence-building with her son.
“I'm a dedicated mother with expertise in child development, but I'm currently focused on caring for my 1-year-old son full-time,” she said. “I've worked as a school psychologist and as a labor and postpartum doula [support giver], generally I'm passionate about supporting parents, and so I create content and resources on motherhood and child development.”
"Sometimes my 10-month-old son engages in various daily tasks and chores around our home. I made that video to demonstrate how even young children, like babies, are capable of participating in everyday activities.”
Though the age of Zee’s son might throw some off, she actually might be getting a head start on her child’s future.
In the findings of an 85-year-old study from researchers at Harvard University, people who did more chores at a younger age often had more professional success and happiness later in life.
Formerly called the Grant study, the Harvard Study of Adult Development at Massachusetts General Hospital is the longest longitudinal study in history, Dr. Robert Waldinger, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the study, told TODAY.com.
Researchers have followed a group of men since the late 1930s — one-third bring Harvard grads and two-thirds from the inner city of Boston. They wanted to understand which aspects of childhood can predict health and success in adulthood.
“What they were looking at is how did these kids stay out of trouble and stay on good developmental paths,” Waldinger said, adding that in the evaluations of subjects’ homes, researchers looked at if the kids participated in chores regularly.
“It gives children a sense of community, so you are pitching into the family because your participation matters,” said Waldinger. “We know concern for others and focus beyond the self are good developmental principles, and that the people who are more self-centered are usually less happy.”
