Do Your Own Laundry!

Parents often tell their young children, “One day you are going to have to do your own laundry and I will no longer do it for you.” Or “One day I am not going to pick you up at your friend’s house and you are going to have to get home on your own.” Or “One day you are going to have to learn how to cook for yourself (and then you can complain to yourself about dinner).”

Hidden in such statements is the notion that as children grow older, they need to gain more independence and assume even greater responsibility. Parents are not intended to keep doing things for them. Rather, our children are supposed to learn how to do more and more things for themselves.

Likewise, God instructs the Israelites: “You shall not act at all as we now act here, each of us as we please, because you have not yet come to the allotted haven that Adonai your God is giving you.” (Deuteronomy 12)

The wilderness experience in the Sinai desert is akin to childhood. The Israelites had to learn how to do things for themselves so that when they finally arrive in the Promised Land, they will be able to build a nation for themselves. And yet, the Bible is a record of the Israelites’ failure to live up to this promise. The people get to the land, but do not in a sense ever grow up. In fact, almost as soon as they arrive and achieve victory over the land’s inhabitants, they are defeated.

Read the Book of Judges as but one example. “Then the Israelites did what was offensive to God and God delivered them into the hands of the Midianites for seven years.” (Judges 6). And the parent retorts, “I told you I was not going to do that for you anymore. That is why you don’t have any clean underwear. You are going to have to do the laundry yourself!”

The question remains. How do we teach responsibility? Gaining a driver’s license is not the same as being a capable driver. Reading the owner’s manual (or watching the YouTube video) is not the same as doing the laundry yourself. Ordering from Door Dash is not the same as knowing how to cook.

Responsibility is taught bit by bit. So, start at a young age.

The parent offers, “Help me prepare dinner tonight. Wash the lettuce. Peel the carrots.” Help me do the laundry. “Separate the whites from the colors.”

Teaching independence and responsibility is a long, arduous, and perhaps never-ending, process. The Bible suggests this task is never completed. The lesson is never fully realized. Our sacred text is a record of the people learning, and forgetting, and then relearning responsibility.

We may arrive at the Promised Land, but we never fully learn how to do it all for ourselves. Then again, as soon as we learn how to do it ourselves, we often become blinded by our successes, and forget how to do things on our own.

Parents, take comfort in the Bible’s stories. Even God is an imperfect parent.

Gain strength from God’s example.

Keep at it. Bit by bit.

Never lose faith in the lesson’s importance.