“Lazy Parents Raise Better Kids.” Mom’s Unconventional Parenting Style Goes Viral.

Brooke Hampton is an author and business owner from Texas. She’s also “lazy,” according to some.

Even though Brooke spends her days working on the family’s small farm, writing, and caring for her kids, she hands off a lot of household duties to her kids. Even seemingly adult tasks like managing the family’s grocery budget are delegated to her 13-year-old daughter. While it might be easy to say Brooke does this because she’s lazy, the real reason is a lot more thought-provoking than mere lethargy.

Facebook

“I’m purposefully lazy and my kids are thriving because of it,” Brooke wrote on Facebook. “I have more energy than most, I could easily handle everything for them but I don’t because I want them to learn to do it for themselves.”

Brooke goes on to say that many of her readers judge her for passing off chores like these to young kids, but she isn’t bothered by their criticism. She strongly believes that “lazy parents raise better kids.” She says she’s working to raise kids who won’t need her someday, and she’s got a point.  In the end, isn’t that what all parents are supposed to do?

“Children that are treated like they are capable become capable,” Brooke posits. Her theory is that from the time your kids are toddlers, they should be encouraged to help out with all sorts of tasks at home… even if their “help” makes the job much harder for mom and dad!

Facebook

“It takes patience and determination to be a lazy parent. Because the way they do it won’t be perfect (at first), they’ll make ungodly messes, it will be crooked and mismatched, things will break, and it will likely take 4 times longer than if you just did it yourself. And it’s hard to watch them struggle, we love them and we want to make life easy for them. But life isn’t easy.”

She’s absolutely right. As a parent, how often have we just done something ourselves because it’s easier than watching them make a mess of it? But don’t we all learn more from failure (and making messes) than we do from success?

Facebook

“The struggle is real, but you simply need to get over it because raising capable adults doesn’t start at age 16 when they can’t do anything for themselves, it start at age 3 when they need you to back off and let them make a tsunami in your dish room.”

Brooke definitely has a point here! Maybe raising responsible humans means giving them responsibilities at an early age. Even though it’s hard for us to back off and let them figure things out on their own, we’re actually giving them the skills they’ll need to solve their own problems when they’re older.

What do you think of Brooke’s “lazy parenting?”

Let us know in the comments, and share to keep the conversation going.