Clean House Up with Children

Role of Annual Customary Housecleaning in Training Children

By: Dr. Farkhondeh Mofidi

Annual customary house cleaning is an old and beautiful Iranian tradition which is somehow the case in other countries and people welcome the New Year or any other special ceremony through cleaning their house up. Meanwhile, as our great Prophet says “Cleanliness Is next To Godliness”, the cleanliness has always enjoyed a special position in our lives as Muslims. Traditionally, all members of a family including children and even neighbors and relatives used to participate in performing the annual cleaning tasks and people gave each other a hand to clean the thoroughfares, roofs, basements, home appliances, etc. Customarily, prettification of houses, shops, streets, Bazaars and neighborhoods usually was associated with a public enthusiasm. Dusting and decontaminating was not only limited to the physical places, but people tried to purify their souls through reconciling and intensifying their friendships in such days when everywhere were clean. But today the main problem is that new technologies and employment of all family members in tandem with the changed traditional household structure into modern the forms have changed the public activities and have replaced the traditional beautiful group and social customs with estrangement and individual activities. Hence, today many families prefer to recruit professional cleaners and workers for cleaning their houses on the threshold of the New Year. It seems that they think that there is not enough time for performing such shared activities like the old days. Certainly, a deep pondering on our ancestors’ intention makes it clear that they had always tried to take advantage of the social life practices and skills to make more relationships, friendships, cooperation, coordination with other people, because they believed that such activities were useful to meet their both social and individual needs. The modern life, which is specified with the welfare-seeking desire and neglecting the social participation components, deprives us of the opportunity to transfer our beautiful traditional and family-based customs to the coming generations and out children are dispossessed of social living benefits and enjoyment of the social and family activities. How well it would be if we specify some time for cleaning our house with our children before this New Year.

Role of Children and Parents in the Annual Customary Housecleaning

Family is a social institution that follows all rules of a social organization, as all family members share in its activities and advantages. Children, particularly little ones, learn the rules from their parents through benchmarking, imitating and resembling them. Acts, insights and beliefs of parents can play decisive roles in the training fate of the children. Thus, children will be trained successfully if their parents fulfill their social and individual duties and commitments very well. For cleaning the house, for instance, it is necessary to keep our kids in touch with the works and consider some duties, even trivial, for them; it helps them to learn that all activities of house and family are done through cooperation and coordination. Some parents keep their children away of such activities; hence they will be deprived of the enjoyment achieved in the end of the process and feel no sense of responsibility for keeping the house clean. It is necessary to invite them to participate in conducting works which it in turn lets them to enjoy decision making and performing affairs experiences. Any discrimination between girls and boys in conducting these affairs would be detrimental. Asking their idea about internal affairs of the house will prepare them for some more serious roles in the future. Certainly, using such method our children will be in the lessons and skills necessary for better living.