Defiant daughter needs mom to do her job as a parent

Dear Carolyn: We have two indoor house cats. My eighth-grade daughter is supposed to be responsible for sweeping and scooping their litter box but does a poor job. The box is in the laundry room, where I smell and step all over scattered litter. Half the time, the litter appears untouched despite my constant pleas.

I’m sick of constantly reminding and chiding her about it. I secretly want the cats gone, as the litter stinks and the cats shed a lot. I also hate my clean laundry being near filthy cat litter. She just laughs and says I’m too picky. What can I do? — C.

You can please, please be the parent. Please.

As the adult and head or co-head of the household, you decide how “picky” you are. Right now, by letting your daughter blow off her chores and laugh at you, you’re choosing to take orders from a middleschooler and, quite possibly, eventually launch an entitled and disrespectful person into the citizenry.

Please, I beg you, don’t.

The older she gets, the less effective these measures will be, so apply them now:

Presumably your daughter has friends? Hobbies? A phone? A favorite restaurant? Presumably you take her back to school on a Friday or Saturday for a game or a dance? Presumably she wants you to buy her things beyond basic sustenance?

These are privileges — and access to every single one of them needs to be.

Households are microcommunities, and communities run on the respectful participation of every capable person. This is the social contract we would all appreciate your teaching her now, while you can, with the simple expectation of a fair contribution (chores, respect for shared spaces, etc.).

Eventually we do most of this out of consideration for others, on an honor system. But the parent/guardian hierarchy is essential at the teaching stage, using age-appropriate expectations and consequences to establish the baseline causeand-effect connections. (As in: If you don’t behave nicely, you won’t have nice things.)

Plus, it can’t hurt to prepare her for laws, bylaws and bosses — and the citations/ fines/pink slips they can slap her with when she decides they’re being “too picky.”

If her entitlement has already ripened to the point of defiance and she laughs her way out the door to do whatever she wants, you should talk to a good family therapist for serious remedial action.

When — not if — she pushes back against the new sheriff, make one clear statement: “You’re not a little kid anymore. You’re old enough to be more accountable.” It can be our secret that she’s been old enough for years.

Write to Carolyn — whose column appears on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays — at tellme@washpost.com.