I get a lot of judgment/ flack from people when it comes up that I still do my college age kids laundry. The clear message I get us that I am too indulgent and my children are doomed to spend their adult lives living in sloth since they are so indulged. ( they don’t do laundry at school either thanks to an indulgent grandma paying for laundry service. Both kids managed just fine when doing their own laundry abroad)
Yet when I mention that I stopped making their lunches when they were 7 and stopped cooking them dinner when they went to college ( when they are home on breaks cooking us their responsibility) I often get shocked expressions ( about the age 7 thing) and admissions that they are still making their home from college kids lunch. I think it’s interesting how many peoole seem to think it’s important that their kids for their own laundry but not that they cook. You can teach a kid everything there is to know about laundry in 15 minutes tops. Can’t say the same for cooking. But I see that for many laundry is a line in the sand.
My bottom line is that it’s easy for me to do their laundry but meal planning prep and cooking not so much.
Our daughter is on her own when it comes to laundry and most meals. I am trying to lose weight and if I have to cook big meals I have a hard time. She adds items to the grocery list and I do the shopping, but that’s it. I figure she’s an adult now so she can handle it.
The laundry is on them at my house. They do it at college anyway, and they know when they need it done. Dinner is mostly me, but they lend a hand and hang out in the kitchen. Since we eat together for dinner most of the time when they are home, it seems odd to leave them to prep something on their own.
But it sounds like it works for you guys, so that is all good.
Our daughter is on her own when it comes to laundry and most meals. I am trying to lose weight and if I have to cook big meals I have a hard time. She adds items to the grocery list and I do the shopping, but that’s it. I figure she’s an adult now so she can handle it.
There are always those who KNOW without a shadow of a doubt that they are doing things right and you are doing things wrong.
THEY knew how to stop those tantrums when your son was 2, THEY knew when you should have started potty training, THEY knew your daughter should have taken the violin instead of playing piano.
Ignore!!! Ignore!!! Ignore!!!
You know your kids, you know how your family best functions. The busybodies, online and in real life, should tend to their own business and keep their noses out of yours.
And if they insist, it’s probably a sign that you’re giving them too much ammunition. Don’t tell them things; instead, ask how they do things. They’ll be only too happy to regale you with the RIGHT way of raising kids.
We live on a septic. The fewer shocks it experiences the better. The rule was that everyone deposited their laundry in hampers, and I did 5 loads a week: whites, hand washes, darks, light colors, and a couple of loads of towels. Did it break my back to throw a load into my Miele? No. I never felt like pioneering it out.
My daughter’s been doing the family’s laundry for several years. I hope I remember how when she goes off to college! Never really thought of it as a “line in the sand” though. And both DDs make their own lunches when they’re off school, so that’s never been an issue either - again, not a “teaching” thing, there just wasn’t anyone else home to make lunch.
When my kids are home I tend to do laundry for whoever is here - at least sometimes. I prefer to separate clothes and wash underwear/socks separately at the very least. That means no full loads for just the H and me, so adding in D’s clothes not a big deal. However if she doesn’t bring stuff down on the days I do laundry, I don’t go looking for it. Kids at home get one chance to add their stuff in!
I also cook for whoever is here, but don’t like to cook. I don’t plan around them. If they aren’t here when I have supper ready, they can heat up later or make their own. My more adventurous eater is home for the summer, so we’ve had fun trying new stuff together.
OP I also didn’t pack kids lunches when they were school age. I was willing to pay for lunch. If they didn’t like what school was serving they could pack their own.
It would depend. My kids never brought home bags of dirty laindry when they were in college. I think if they had, I would have pointed them to the washer/dryer which they both used in HS.
OTOH…when they are here…if I’m doing laundry, I will ask if either of them wants to toss something in the load. Usually they don’t have too much to add and it fills the load I’m doing.
If you like doing laundry for your college age kids…then do it. Really it’s no one else’s business.
“How do people even know you are doing your kid’s laundry?”
Because it will come up in conversation. Like, when someone said something about how her fridge is emptying almost every day with her 3 athlete boys home, I said that “well our biggest change is that I’m doing laundry every day and when its just hubby and me its once a week!”
And then I get the “you still do your kids laundry”? I defintietly get the vibe that for some reason people seem to think that doing laundry for your kids is more indulgent than cooking for them. It’s not that there judgment is bothering me (Id don’t care). It’s that I find it curious that its laundry that’s the line in the sand, so to speak.
The longer we’ve lived in the United States, the more I realize how my understanding of these things is different from a the typical American way of doing these kinds of things… You’d think I should get more used to it but nope, it hasn’t happened and I doubt at this stage it ever will… We never enforced the ‘clan your room, do your laundry’ type of setup. My son would vacuum the living room and I’d vacuum his room while my husband does the bedrooms, all laundry is combined and whoever has more time would do it… I grew up with women (mom and grandma) who loved to cook and even though I came to it later in life than they did (in my 30s), I love making lunches and dinners for both my husband and my son, I don’t think it matters how old your child is. To me, that’s what being a mom and a wife is, well part of it… I think a lot of it has to do with the cultural norms one grows up with and we either embrace it for ourselves or we don’t.
Like someone else said, nobody should feel pressured to do things just because someone else feels they should and on the other hand, nobody should feel they have to stop doing things because the society decides it’s not right… Whatever works for each family…
My MIL thought it was time for my children to learn to do their own laundry pretty young. I will take it out of the dryer on school nights and lay it flat for them to hang if they get it dried before I settle in for the night, otherwise they do it.
The funniest thing is that that same MIL does DH’s laundry and puts it away. 3-4 loads a week. He wears ridiculous layers at the gym and I stopped doing the soggy, stinky, heavy mess more than 30 yrs ago. LOL! I figure she likes the purposefulness of it, he doesn’t mind, and it has nothing to do with me.
My son has been out of college for two years but when he comes home to visit I always offer to do his laundry for him. His building only has two washer/dryers in the basement and are coin operated. So, when he knows he is coming for a visit he doesn’t do laundry before he comes.
I like being able to do something for him.
He is moving at the end of the month and apt has its own washer/dryer so I doubt he’ll be bringing his laundry home after he moves.
I started doing all my own laundry in HS after a girl had just given me an expensive all wool Pendleton shirt and my mother threw it in with the rest of the wash she was doing in hot water. It shrunk down to a perfect size . . . . . . . for an 8 year old. Never let her touch my laundry again after that, and maybe that was her plan.
