Cleaning With Kids

From the Vintage Homeschool Moms show with Felice Gerwitz

A little house that taught me a lot

Our first home was about 1,200 square feet. My mother sweetly called it a dollhouse — her positive spin on tiny bedrooms. It turned out to be the perfect place to learn how to clean and clean well. There simply wasn’t room for junk to pile up. I’m a big fan of shelving, so I had my husband put shelves up in the living room and down the hall, and that helped tremendously. The real lesson took me years to absorb: you need a place for everything. Back then, when company was coming, we’d just dump everything into the spare bedroom and shut the door. That is not a system.

When we moved into our current home, we jumped from 1,200 to 2,800 square feet. I looked at all that cabinet space under the bathroom sinks and thought, I will never fill this up. Of course I did. More room actually made the house junkier, because there was always somewhere to set things down. Around that time I started a publishing business, which gave me the perfect excuse to finally hire a cleaning lady. It freed me to work — but I still kept the family picking up, and my kids still had chores.

When everyone pitches in

Years later we added on again so my father could move in with us. By then the house had grown to seven bedrooms, five bathrooms, and two stories — far too much to pay someone else to clean. So my husband sat down and divided up the work. I’d been married to this man for many years and couldn’t recall him ever volunteering to clean, so I was curious what he had in mind. “I’ll do all the floors,” he said — and if you knew how much tile we have, you’d know that’s no small offer.

Going room by room, we discovered something useful: every room can be divided into age-appropriate jobs. There are things the little ones can do, things the older kids handle, and things that belong to Mom and Dad. Over time everyone settled into the tasks they actually enjoy, and it’s remarkable how that works out. One of my daughters loves to pop in her earplugs and run the floors — that’s her thing. The boys are happiest on the lawn mower, weed-eating, and taking care of the pool. One liked setting the table, another emptying the dishwasher. Nobody likes dishes — except my husband, who actually enjoys them. And we all love to cook. The point is, when people get to lean into what they like, the work stops feeling like a battle.

Do’s and don’ts for little ones

The big “don’t” is harsh chemicals. We’re serious about non-toxic in our house, so I don’t buy many cleaners — most we make ourselves or buy from gentler companies. I do keep some bleach, but I never hand bleach or ammonia to a child; those are far too harsh. For years we made our own mild homemade window cleaner, and the kids loved it, because what kids really love is a spray bottle. Honestly, you can fill one with plain water and they’ll be just as thrilled.

Good jobs for little ones: dusting with a cloth, sweeping with a smaller adjustable handle, and using one of those lightweight battery-powered swivel sweepers. Ours started out costing around $99 when they first appeared and now go for about $15. They don’t last forever, but they’re perfect for small hands, and during the years we had them our floors were spotless because everyone wanted a turn. Heavier vacuums are usually too much for a little one, but a vacuum wand can work.

Why ask kids to clean at all — especially someone like me, who avoided it for years? Because it builds genuine character. Even when we could afford help, I never let the cleaning lady do my children’s rooms top to bottom. The kids still straightened their rooms, stripped their own sheets, put away their clothes, and helped fold laundry. I didn’t want them to feel entitled. And I always kept the little ones nearby while they worked — in the same room or close enough that I could keep an eye on them.

Room by room

Bathrooms.

My braver daughter lets her kids clean the toilet under close supervision; I never have. She still laughs about the day one of her children proudly dragged a dripping toilet brush through the house to show her — doubling the work, since now the floors needed sanitizing too. My rule was simple: Mom does the toilet, tub, tile, and showers. The kids handle floors, faucets, sink bowls, and mirrors. My favorite trick for little ones is a magic eraser on the baseboards and doors — the spots I always neglected because I hated bending down. Our big white baseboards show every fingerprint, and those erasers clean them beautifully. Long-handled scrub brushes on the sinks are another winner; kids love to scrub.

Bedrooms.

The children help strip their sheets, and with supervision they love loading the washer — though I always say, “only Mommy does the soap.” We dust weekly and de-junk as we go. If a stray Lego or little toy turns up, I ask them to put it back where it belongs before it gets broken. I keep dresser tops clear, and we tackle just one or two drawers a week. Do that consistently and the whole dresser stays organized — and because the kids helped, they keep it neater.

Every few months we pull the beds from the wall to vacuum behind them, and once a year, usually in summer, we do the heavy lifting: everything comes off the shelves, gets dusted well, and goes back. It’s a process, not an overnight project. Right now we’re in the middle of converting our schoolroom for high school, swapping out two wobbly desks we’d tightened and repaired for fifteen years — and even mid-project, the tidied-up space is finally giving me that good feeling my mother-in-law described.

Kitchen.

A magic eraser is wonderful here too, depending on your appliances. We have all stainless now, and while I love the look, I found the old white porcelain easier to clean — and stainless products tend to be harsher, so I only let the older kids use them. I always teach the same spraying habit: spray into the cloth, or stand back so you don’t catch the overspray in your face. With little ones, I clean and they buff afterward. They love the gadgets, so I tease my grandkids when they walk in — “We’re going to clean!” — and they cheer.

We too often skip letting little ones help because we assume it’ll be more work, but my mother-in-law eventually went from wishing the kids would get out of the way to wondering how she’d ever manage without their help. That’s exactly wh...