Still, you can Tom Sawyer your children into pitching in with tasks at home too if you tap into your kids' particular passions: the dirt of the garden; the wet of the sink; the joy of dumping (beans into a pot, weeds into a wheelbarrow) or sorting (dirty laundry or clean silverware); the soothing pleasure of repetition (sweeping, slicing, dusting). Not to mention the happy imagining that every recipe begins: "Take one stick of softened butter and poke your thumb into it, then plunge your hand into the flour canister before bending down to tickle the cat." The path to independence is neither straight nor especially tidy.

The philosophy that a child's independence can and should be fostered may be most distinctly realized in Montessori schools, but obviously it's not unique to them. It happens in countless classrooms, including at our local Waldorf school, where the overarching pedagogy differs and the children are more likely to sport woolen leggings and names like Aura or Winter. Here I watch two small kids washing dishes with much laughter and play. When they experiment with splish-splashing broad puddles onto the floor, a passing teacher simply hands them a dry dish towel — I make a mental note, here, of the absence of an exasperated sigh — and they wipe it up. Despite such diversions and giggling, what do you know? The dishes get washed. Not that the word sterile leaps to mind. Not that the teachers aren't grateful they get to go home and pull clean wine glasses from the dishwasher before opening a nice chilled chardonnay. Not that children's joy precisely translates into cleanliness. But the dishes are clean enough.