If you spend every waking moment with your child then at what point does the child get to be on their own to explore their own imagination?
Do you throw the laundry aside if your child sees you folding it? Do you stop preparing the family meals because your child just made eye contact? Can't leave the room to answer the front door because I'm engaged in a game of blink with my 1yr old!
Little kids just have a burning desire to be interacting with you, and with the stuff you're interacting with. Don't drop everything, just be flexible (and sometimes creative) and involve them.
Kids love helping to fold laundry.
Well, first they "help fold laundry", then later they actually help fold it (then they lose interest, but by that time they don't have quite the same keen hunger for interaction!).
My daughter learned how to safely use knives before she was 3 because she was really, really motivated to get it right so she could be involved in meal prep.
For the younger ones, you can put them in a sling and (selectively) let them grab stuff while you're doing whatever.
The trick is to let them be as involved as they want to be -- it gradually tapers off as they master the basic stuff you do around the house, and the terrain inside their own heads gets more interesting.
A 1-year-old is a sponge, though, more than an independent thinking person. They're not going to develop their imagination much if you stick them in a room by themselves; they're mostly going to cry for you to come back, because at that age they're sucking up torrents of information about "what people do" by watching you and trying to get involved, and that all stops when they're by themselves.
I'm totally in favor of letting kids get bored (and encouraging imaginative play... we have very limited electronic entertainment in the house), but that's when they're a bit older.
Do you throw the laundry aside if your child sees you folding it? Do you stop preparing the family meals because your child just made eye contact? Can't leave the room to answer the front door because I'm engaged in a game of blink with my 1yr old!