own laundry when I was a teenager. My mom taught school so I went home to an empty house after elementary school, or to my older siblings but they got jobs and were often out.

That's just the way it was.

We've tried to teach our kids to be independent and capable, but we definitely do more for them than my parents did for me. My teens are learning to do their own laundry. We stopped making lunches for any of the kids not in elementary school. There's probably a good middle ground in their somewhere.