This article tries to analyse the evolution over the past 40 years of children's domestic work and its representations in urban Cote d'Ivoire, and, particularly, how these practices evolved from family work linked to educational processes, into the kind of wage work that exists today. Listening to the children themselves, the aim is to find out how the petites bonnes (young maids) perceive their situation as workers, how they make it their own and how they see their future.