Children Do the Housework

Children can be made responsible for household chores in place of their parents.

Sometimes, they're orphans who are forced to raise themselves. Other times, they do have at least one parent who works long hours and has no time to properly take care of the children, much less the house. It can also be that the parent is ill, neglectful or just a slob who can't clean or cook to save their life.

This is common for Minor Living Alone or Promotion to Parent. It can also happen during a Sick Episode or Injured Limb Episode where the parents aren't physically capable to do the chores like usual and the children must temporarily take over responsibility of the house. Often a reason why Kids Hate Chores.

Compare Cinderella Plot (in which the chores act as part of the stepfamily's abuse) and Adopt-a-Servant (when the child is adopted and raised for the specific purpose of being a household servant).

Note that this trope usually involves the children doing most or all of the household work, as distinguished from being assigned a moderate share of chores to assist their parents and/or teach them useful skills and habits.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• In Akazukin Chacha, Dorothy is an ever-so-slightly Wicked Stepmother to Shiine and makes him do her cleaning and cooking. By the time the series takes place, he's grown to like it.
• Ayakashi Triangle:
  • Matsuri has long lived with just his grandfather Seigen, doing all the chores because Seigen is too elderly. This leads to a joke where Shirogane treats Matsuri making breakfast as a sign turning Matsuri into a girl made him more feminine, but Matsuri angrily insists he already did that as a boy. After Rochka is Adopted to the House, she's shown helping Matsuri with some chores—Une doesn't, presumably because she has no hands.
  • As Suzu's parents often work late at the family's restaurant, she and her younger brother Ritta often make dinner.
• Bleach: Yuzu Kurosaki's mother died when Yuzu was only four years old. Yuzu decided to take over housework duties (cleaning, cooking, etc.) for the Kurosaki household, and is still doing so seven years later when the series starts.
• Fuyumi Yanagi from Blood Lad did the chores, mainly cooking, for herself and her father at home. Her mother was never around because of a freaky incident where she fused with a doppelgänger.
• Cardcaptor Sakura: Sakura Kinomoto's mother died when she was three years old and her father works as a professor at a university. While their father can cook, Sakura and her older brother Touya are both also responsible around the house, doing chores and taking turns cooking dinner to not let their father overwork himself.
• In The Case Study of Vanitas, two orphaned human boys got adopted by the vampire known as Vanitas, later renamed Luna. To the concern of the boys, Luna sucked at cooking and cleaning. The older boy happened to be very good at both things, so Luna left those responsibilities to him.
• A variation occurs in Fate/kaleid liner PRISMA☆ILLYA, where teen Shirou is apparently in competition with Sella to do the housework, even though Sella is actually the family maid and would prefer that Shirou not steal her work. This character trait is a holdover from the original Fate/stay night, where Shirou does all his own housework because he's the only one living in his house.
• Fruits Basket:
  • Tohru Honda was raised by her young and widowed mother Kyoko. Since Kyoko needed to work all day to support them both, Tohru did the cooking, cleaning and laundry at their apartment. After Kyoko dies in a traffic accident, Tohru's experience at housekeeping is very useful when she moves in with the Sohmas since none of her male housemates are good at it.
  • Kyo learned how to cook because his adoptive father Kazuma is a Lethal Chef.
• Good Luck Girl!: The five Tsuwabuki siblings were abandoned by their parents. The eldest daughter, Rika, is in charge of the domestic tasks such as cleaning, cooking and laundry while her older brother Keita works multiple jobs to earn money for the family.
• Nitta from Hinamatsuri is good at housework because his mother and sister made him take care of all the household chores after his father died. They try to do the same to Nitta's adoptive daughter Hina, but she is as much of a slob as them so she still lets Nitta do everything around the house.
• Horimiya: Hori's parents both work long hours, which often leaves her with no time for a social life outside of school since she has to do the housework and take care of her little brother. She mostly keeps this side of herself a secret from her classmates, with only Miyamura knowing the truth.
• In Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple, Miu is a teenage girl who lives at her grandfather's dojo. There, she's the one who does all the cooking, cleaning, laundry and manages the finances because the adults at the dojo are only good at martial arts.
• In Negima! Magister Negi Magi, Yuuna Akashi makes breakfast for her father at home because her mother is dead and her father only knows how to make instant food.
• In Ouran High School Host Club, because her mother Kotoko is dead and her father Ryouji/Ranka works long hours, Haruhi Fujioka does most of the work at home, cleaning and cooking for Ryouji and otherwise trying to take care of him, even telling him not to overwork himself for her.
• Ranma ½: The eldest of Soun Tendou's daughters, Kasumi, assumed the maternal role in her family after her mother died. Therefore, she handles most of the housework. The youngest daughter, Akane, looks up to Kasumi for her abilities in cooking and cleaning.
• Sasami of Tenchi Muyo! is an 8-year-old who spent 700 years in suspended animation. She cooks and cleans for the household because Katsuhito, the closest thing to an adult there, lives in the shrine instead of in the house.
• Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun: Kou does all the housework at the Minamoto household, despite being a middle school student. This is because his mother died when he was very young, his father and older brother work as exorcists 24/7, and his little sister is only five years old.
• To Love Ru: Mikan Yuuki, Rito's younger sister, is the one who often does chores like cooking and cleaning inside their house, as their parents either live somewhere else or are out of the house for long periods of time. This also helps to establish her as someone who is mature for her young age.
• Masane, the protagonist from Witchblade, is an unemployed single mother and constant slacker who often wakes up late, with her six-year-old daughter Rihoko usually seen performing domestic tasks like cleaning, washing, and making breakfast.

Fan Works

• In The Fairly Oddparents fanfic Never Had a Friend Like Me, Amanda often cleans the house while her parents are away and can prepare basic meals for herself despite only being 8.
• In Kill la Kill AU, a six-year-old Ragyo learned how to cook and pretty much take care of herself because her mother was neglectful.

Films — Animation

• The Boy and the Beast: Ren/Kyuta does the cooking, cleaning and laundry for his martial arts teacher/adoptive father Kumatetsu. Before he was adopted, Kumatetsu's house was a mess and he can only cook rice mixed with raw eggs, which Ren/Kyuta hates.
• In Kubo and the Two Strings, Kubo's mother is physically weak and unresponsive during daytime. Therefore, Kubo cooks their rice every day and even hand-feeds his mother when she can't move.

Films — Live Action

• Matilda: Matilda Wormwood is shown teaching herself how to cook by the age of 5, since her parents forget about her and leave her alone for most of the day.

Literature

• Animorphs: Due to his dad's deep depression since the death of his wife, Marco has had to do the chores and shopping for a while when the series begins.
• Bridge of Clay: The Dunbar brothers basically raise themselves, since their mother died of cancer and then their father left them, which also means that they need to do all the household chores themselves.
• Discworld: It is said that Nanny Ogg has not done a lick of housework since her first daughter was old enough to hold a duster.
• In the children's series The English Roses, the main characters are stunned when they discover their classmate Binah does all the cooking and cleaning at home. This is because her family is lower-income, and her father works around the clock to put food on the table. By the time he gets home, he's exhausted. Without a mother, siblings, or other relatives to help out, all the housework falls to Binah. Her father obviously feels bad about it, but she takes it with good grace.
• In Harriet the Spy, Harriet's friend, Sport, lives with his single father who is an unemployed, struggling writer. The guy doesn't seem to be able to take care of himself, causing Sport to try and keep house and look after him until he finally does get a job.
• In Heralds Of Rhimn, Courtfather Snow has a lot on his plate, so it’s implied that Gildhe and the older Frostbiter kids did a majority of the chores around the Frostbitten Manor.
• His Dark Materials: Will Parry learned how to cook, clean, and do shopping in order to take care of his mentally ill mother ever since his father went missing when he was very young.
• Katniss Everdeen of The Hunger Games had to pretty much take care of her household after her father died in a mining accident and her mother subsequently fell into depression.
• Oliver Twist: In Mrs. Mann's "baby farm", all housework is (illegally) done by the kids, whereas Mrs. Mann doesn't do anything and receives compensation for taking in the children.
• Ryuuji from Toradora! learned to be self-sufficient and how to cook, clean and sew since his father died when he was young (actually he abandoned Ryuuji's mother while she was pregnant) and his Womanchild mother works late at night at a hostess club and sleeps most of the day, leaving him to do the household chores.

Live Action Television

• In one episode of Clarissa Explains It All, both of the parents come down with the flu, leaving Clarissa and Ferguson in charge of the usual tasks. Clarissa has a sense of what needs to be done, but Ferguson is still Ferguson and completely ignores the shopping list she gives him (buying tons of chocolate instead of household staples). Complicating matters, a blizzard freezes the pipes, so they have no running water and have to melt snow in order to cook and clean. By the end of the episode, both kids have come down with the flu, but the parents have recovered and are getting things back to the status quo.

Music

• Songdrops: In "The Mother's Day Song" and "The Father's Day Song", a young boy tries to do the chores as a surprise for his parent, but unfortunately, he fails miserably — he washes their clothes in the dishwasher, vacuums without the power, uses the shower to clean their iPad, forgets to turn the hose off after watering the houseplants, uses olive oil to clean the car, and breaks the stove trying to make breakfast.
• This is the background of Tracy Chapman's song "Fast Car." The song is from the point of view of a young woman whose mother walked out on her and her alcoholic father. He claims he's too old to work, so his daughter dropped out of high school because "somebody's got to take care of him." She does all the household chores and also holds down a job, and by the time of the song she's completely fed up and wants to move out with her new boyfriend.

Theatre

• Annie: Annie and the orphans do all the housework in the orphanage, since Miss Hannigan hates having to care for them, using cleaning as a punishment for any slight misdemeanor, as shown in "It's A Hard-Knock Life". Annie is so used to he treatment that her first thought upon entering the Warbucks mansion is where she'll start polishing.

Video Games

• Persona 4: Nanako Dojima tends to do quite a few chores at home while her single father is out doing police work, such as cooking breakfast (though mainly just eggs and toast) and the laundry.
• Tales of Xillia 2: Ludger Kresnik has been doing all the cooking and cleaning for himself and his older brother, Julius, since he was seven years old, because Julius is woefully incompetent at it. Before that, though, Julius simply ordered food delivery and hired cleaning services.

Visual Novels

• Higurashi: When They Cry:
  • Rena Ryuugu took up the household chores to take care of her depressed father ever since her mother ran off with another man.
  • Satoko and Rika are the youngest members of the main group, but also the most self-sufficient. Due to both of them losing their parents, they live together at their own house where they do all the chores themselves.

Western Animation

• Animaniacs: In "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock", Skippy Squirrel takes care of his aunt Slappy after she gets driven insane from watching too many talk shows, forcing him to take care of all the housework. This leaves him exhausted to the point of falling Asleep in Class, which causes his teacher to worry about him.
• Arthur: In "Is There a Doctor in the House?", Mr. and Mrs. Read both catch colds, meaning that Arthur and D.W. have to do the chores and take care of their baby sister Kate.
• The Flumps: In the episode "Something Different", Mother Flump talks about her Aunt Myrtle, who never did any work. Her children did it for her.
• Subverted in an episode of The Proud Family where Trudy doesn't understand why Penny said she's been doing chores all day when she was only asked to clean her room. Penny then rattles off a list of stuff she did, including changing the oil in the car, that we quickly find out were things Trudy asked Oscar to do. And even after Oscar tricked Penny into doing everything around the house he was supposed to do, he had the nerve to only give her five dollars as an allowance.
• The Simpsons: In "Little Big Mom", Lisa does all the housework because her mother Marge's leg is broken and her father Homer is too lazy to do the work.