Hoe, Rack, Cutlass, etc. were never words unfamiliar to me, for I was made accustomed to such terms as part of my school curriculum. From Grade Three onwards in my school in Nigeria, I had to maintain a small portion of land that was supposed to be my ‘farm’, to grow groundnut, maize and some seasonal flowers (an aid in understanding the concept of pollination). Even at the International Schools, we were made to sweep the classrooms and dust the chairs —something that I hated doing, but was compulsory, as we were marked on all such activities, and above all, on our attitude towards the laborious work!

I vividly remember that every Saturday, “Sanitation Day” was observed in all the towns of our state. For me it was a day full of activity as since morning, my parents, along with the servants, would be busy clearing all the idle land around the house. As a child, I was always asked to weed the garden. I can still recall the pleasure I got removing all the weeds and then by raking and collecting the dried leaves and unnecessary plants into a sack, waiting in excitement for the government team to visit. No one could plan a picnic or a day out on Sanitation Day, as one did not know exactly when the inspection team would arrive. If any part of the land was found dissatisfactory, a heavy fine was charged then and there.

The locals enthusiastically participated in Sanitation Day, and their quarters were also equally carefully scrutinised. During Sanitation Day, the teams also thoroughly checked the health status of the people of that area.

On return to Pakistan, I was shocked to see that there was actually somebody employed to sweep our classroom and clean our desks every morning. The students had never dusted their chairs! There was absolutely no concept of students sweeping the classrooms…

I revelled in that pampered environment and graduated.

In Pakistan, on occasions like Earth Day and Environment Day we would discuss the greenhouse effect, problems in preserving the ozone layer, the global water crisis, etc. at school. But never was I exposed to the attitude of people and institutions — government and others — towards these issues, which is the backbone of the matter. It’s the awareness and concern about sanitation that matters. And most of all, we need to instil dignity of labour by training our children to take pride in keeping at least their immediate surroundings clean.

In our homes, we hire help for all such work. If our child throws something on the floor, without a second thought, we call the maid to sweep the place. If the gardener doesn’t turn up for a couple of days, we ask another maid to tidy up the lawn. But even the thought of doing such things on our own — or perhaps telling our children to — never occurs to us.

The afore-mentioned African country may not be among the developed nations of the world, but I believe the education pattern they follow is better than or at least equal to other advanced countries, because they instil the concept of ‘Dignity of Labour’ in the younger generation.

At times, I find it extremely unacceptable to see students act so indifferent towards the cleanliness of their institution. In our educational institutions cleaning is seen as the sole responsibility of the janitorial staff (ayaahs and babas to most of us). The students do not even bother to throw the litter in the dustbins. If a hall is dirty, it stays that way until the janitors get round to doing something about it — far be it for a student to ‘deign’ to perform such a menial task.

At home, we pamper our children to the extent that they have no concept of cleaning their rooms or washing their own bathrooms. Interestingly, upon return from vacation in the United States, the first thing my nieces and nephews told me about their trip was not a tale of skyscrapers and the like, but, in still-astonished tones, that they actually, to their horror, had to clean their washrooms themselves, and that their mother had to wash all the dishes herself, since there was no domestic help available.

This is in fact an alarming attitude.

I fail to understand, why do we fail to instil in the next generation pride in doing things for themselves? Why are we making them so immensely dependent on domestic help? How can we expect them to be responsible when we do not even teach them to do their own chores? How can we expect them to be good managers in the future when they were never initiated into the actual work process in the first place?

Sanitation Day need not be exercised… There is, however, a necessity to inculcate in our children the concept that doing our own work is not belittling, it’s being responsible. Why be dependent on domestic help when we can rely on ourselves to keep our house clean and get the food ready on the table?

Let’s be proactive — do our own spring cleaning, take the pain of recycling unwanted items, pick up the litter getting in our way when walking down the street instead of simply kicking it aside… I am sure the satisfaction from being a responsible citizen and doing things ourself is well worth the effort.