On my daughter’s bedroom wall, there is a list. I like to have a can-do attitude about things, so instead of having a list of the chores that she must do, there’s a list of things that she’s able to do. It includes items like “brush teeth and comb hair,” “pick out clothes,” and “make bed”. My daughter can also set the table for dinner, and apparently she can remove everything from her school bag and sort it, although this skill seems to be one we need to work on!
While I like to think of my daughter as a relatively capable person, I was curious to see what 6 year old children were expected to do in different eras. Here’s a list of some of the chores that a colonial era child might have done.
Kids in the colonial era would have done many of the same chores as children today. They may have helped wash the laundry, for instance. However, in those days washing the laundry likely meant finding water, moving the laundry around in the wash, and hanging it out on the line to dry.
Helping make dinner would involve a lot more too. The children would have been responsible for gathering vegetables from the garden or gathering eggs from the chickens.
How about home heating? Although we may fantasize about using our kids’ energy to power the home, in colonial times the children would need to help by bringing firewood into the house.
A lot of the home skills that children used to do are now hobbies for adults. Children would learn how to darn socks or card wool so that they could mend items of clothing. They would help the adults with these tasks so that they could do them as an adult.
While we might listen to our kids complain about having to do simple bathroom tasks like handwashing, kids in the colonial era certainly have one up on our kids. Since indoor plumbing was a rarity, the children got to empty the evening’s chamber pots!
Do you think that your kids would be up to the challenge?
Image Credit: Stock Exchange