The idea for this blog came to me on a helper-less Sunday when the dishes seemed to multiply faster than my patience fractioned. My husband sat playing cards with the kids and kept calling me to play, as if the dishes would wash themselves. My little one left their game, ran to me, unfolded the height-gaining stool and had the time of her life "helping Mummy".
Close your eyes and picture a child at play 200 years ago. What do you see? A playroom with the child surrounded by toys? Or a 5-year-old standing on a stool beside their mother, "playing" with a small batch of bread dough. Or a 7-year-old trailing their father to the barn, carrying a bucket half their size, feeling proud at being trusted with real work?
Here's my theory: we've fundamentally misunderstood what play actually is. Play didn't originally mean ESCAPE FROM REALITY. It meant ENGAGEMENT WITH REALITY, but with added smiles (sometimes through clenched teeth), patience (loads!), and human connection.
In the past, "playing with your child" meant inviting them into your world. The work of running a household or a farm: kneading bread, mending fences, gathering eggs, sorting seeds, churning butter. Each activity developed different fine and gross motor skills and taught simple problem-solving.
And children are natural mimics. They want to do what the adults around them are doing. They crave competence and contribution. "Can you count how many potatoes we've picked?" was a game. And the crucial difference is that IT MATTERED. The child knew they were helping, they were needed, and they grew into capable human beings.
Then everything changed.
"Work" moved outside the home and became more specialised and less child-accessible. Rewards became monetary, and foundational work was outsourced. We created a separate category called "children's activities." Play became its own industry (monetised, I will add for emphasis). First came structured games like Monopoly, Checkers, and card games. These had rules, winners, losers, and definite endpoints. They served a purpose: teaching strategy, patience, and social skills.
But notice what was lost: the work wasn't real anymore. You were moving fake money around a board, not learning to actually manage household resources. Then games became even more abstract. Uno, video games, and now Roblox. Each iteration requires less human intervention and physical skill. A child can play for hours without a single adult interaction, without developing any practical capability, without producing anything tangible.
What have we normalised? The idea that children need to be entertained and diverted, kept busy with activities designed specifically for them, in spaces designed specifically for them, consuming content designed specifically for them.
Now, before you accuse me of being some productivity-obsessed taskmaster who wants to turn childhood into a joyless grind (perhaps I am and this write-up is me trying to justify it), I want you to think about it. This is about recognising that humans of all ages need to feel useful. We need to build real skills, solve real problems, and contribute to something that matters. Children aren't exempt from this need.
When we involve kids in real work like cooking an actual meal, or organising an actual closet, or planting an actual garden, we're not stealing their childhood. We're giving them something video games don't: the satisfaction of competence, the joy of working alongside someone they love, and the knowledge that they're capable.
When children grow up experiencing meaningful work as fun collaboration, they become adults who can find satisfaction in daily tasks, who can use their hands to solve practical problems, and who can work with others towards common goals.
But here's the uncomfortable truth: when adults are outsourcing everything (cooking, cleaning, home repairs, yard work) and when housework and groundwork are considered backward rather than foundational, and we're so far removed from any semblance of self-sufficiency... how exactly are we the adults in the game of life?
But that's a topic for another blog post.