It's not being a bad parent to get your teenager to do housework, says Rachel Moore.

Good parenting isn't doing everything for our children, protecting and pampering them by taking away all responsibility.

The beauty of hindsight for parents who saved their children from doing their bit for drudgery of household chores, misguidingly believing it would mean an idyllic responsibility-free childhood, now admit they got it wrong.

Seeing the perplexed face of a 24-year-old who had no idea what the grubby layer of dust coating his surfaces was and what to do with it was all a friend needed to realise she hadn't done a great job in preparing her 6ft-odd son for the real world.

Three quarters of six- to 17-year-olds do no household chores. They grow up thinking the bin fairies empty the rubbish and hoovering is someone else's job.

There's a generation of big babies out there who have no idea what bleach is for, have never used a vacuum cleaner and believe bathrooms are self cleaning.

Parents, we reap what we sow. Our job is to prepare our children for real life, not one of pampered princes and princesses.

Draw up a chore rota now.