It is never too early to teach my toddler to help me with household chores. Not only will doing household chores teach him responsibility, it will also give him pride for doing something himself and will make him realize that being part of a family means a share in the work load. Because toddlers naturally love to help their parents, this is really the perfect opportunity to let him help me around the house.
Here are the chores Z does at age 3. We fix the bed every morning, I fold the blanket while he arranges the pillows. I encourage him to eat neatly, that means no spilled rice or food on the floor. If he does spill something, I ask him to get his small broom and dust pan and he sweeps it and throws it to the trash can by himself. Z can also wash our cups on his own. Using a chair so he so he can reach the faucet, I sometimes let him wash our plastic cups. I only give him this chore once is a while though because S thinks he's too young for this one although in my mind I disagree. hehe When his friends come over, I let him play to their hearts content, even to the point of them bringing out all of Z's toys. At the end of the playing session, I'll remind my son to clean it up and he'll start putting all this toys in the right place all by himself. I don't even supervise him doing this, before I had to when I noticed he misplaced some of his toys, but now he remembers by heart where to put each toy. When he's done he'll come to me and proudly say he's room is as tidy as ever. I'll inspect it and sure enough, there are no more misplaced toys. I'll then congratulate him for a job well done.

This is one of the reasons why I changed my mind in getting a helper around the house. I realized that having a helper would limit Z's exposure to household chores. If I wanted to train Z to become a responsible person then we just have to make this sacrifice so we have no choice but do chores together. It may be hard at first but when you see the end result, it will be all worth it.