Easy fix @maya54 when that subject comes up…don’t mention the laundry.
Just say…“we are enjoying having our kids at home”. Then change the subject…or walk away.
In our household, it was long the custom that everyone who was old enough to know how did his or her own laundry – mostly because if you do that, you don’t have to sort the clean clothes afterward.
We are poster children for laziness.
My son has done my laundry since middle school. I avoid our basement as much as possible. However, I do all sorts of other things or him. Whatever works in your situation is the perfect thing. If any of the principals are unhappy, then reassess.
So timely, my son says I’m a “spartan mom” bc I make him do his own! He says every other returning college kids parents do it. And he checked EVERYONE!!
Lol.
We have a clothes chute in our old house. It would be weird to pick through the baskets at the bottom of the chute and only wash “your” clothes.
So, in our family, whomever is doing laundry, just tosses in a load, based on lights or darks or bedding/towels.
I don’t fold or put away anyone’s clothes but my own. We each have our own basket near the dryer, so whenever someone is unloading the dryer (admittedly usually me), I just toss each clothing item into the proper basket.
As a result, most of the clothes never even make it back up to the closets or drawers in the rooms! Everyone seems to go down and pull out what they need, on a daily basis.
I vote for doing what works for your own family and try to ignore the judgemental peanut gallery.
I’m probably the odd (wo)man out…my D (now an adult) has been doing her own laundry since she was 12. When she comes home to visit (or when I get a chance to visit her) she even offers to toss my stuff in with hers. We fold and put away our own.
My boys are home and have been doing their own laundry. It never even came up. I do cook most evenings for everyone. To each his own when it comes to divvying up household chores. My laundry is in the basement so it is nice that they do their own.
My completely incontinent mom is the main source of all my current laundry woes, and she can’t do her own. All my previous complaints about laundry pale in comparison to what this requires on a daily basis. I’d gladly trade her laundry for a few loads of sweaty boy laundry!! Lol!!
I like doing laundry and doing it for the family means fewer total loads, so if kids are home, I’ll wash their clothes.
And I don’t make lunch. Maybe there’s a correlation?
Laundry is THE easiest household chore. So I don’t mind doing everyone’s. And it saves loads.
My kids always did their own laundry, but sometimes if one comes home with a lot of laundry (like at the end of the school year) I’ll do the sheets and blankets, etc, as time allows and as I walk by the washer and dryer.
The area where my kids can’t seem to take over is dental appts. They expect me to make them, and then remind them, and then to follow up.
Your washer is designed to last for X number of spin cycles. So doing fewer loads (while not overloading the washer)by combining laundry saves your washer from premature departure to the landfill.
http://homeguides.sfgate.com/expected-lifespans-washing-machines-67293.html
The fine art of laundry takes about 5 minutes to teach.
When they need to do their own laundry, they will do it. They might ruin a few pieces of clothing in the process, but who cares?
Your family’s laundry is nobody else’s business.
Try finding other things to chat about.
We do communal laundry in our house. So everybody’s whites goes in the same load, darks in another, linens, athletics etc. Saves on time and number of loads that way. But I do find myself discussing laundry with friends. Kind of like lamenting how much laundry our households make, dryers that are suddenly on the fritz. In fact just had a laundry discussion, as in which family member makes the most laundry, with a friend this morning! Beats talking politics these days.
When my oldest turned 18 and was going to school and living at home I told him with his new adult status came adult responsibilities and I would no longer do his laundry (his room is in the basement and laundry is on the second floor of the house so his laundry was an exceptional chore) or clean his bathroom. In exchange for that he gets the freedom of an adult living on his own, within reason. That worked for us and when he would take my car in for an oil change and service I would throw in some of his laundry in exchange.
My hubby does the laundry. He is SOO extremely picky about everything I just finally threw my hands up and said fine, you do it. He even wants my clothes folded “his” way. The kids started doing their own laundry in middle school, but now they’re home if we’re shifting things around the laundry fairy will move theirs along. I have a lot of flat dry type things that I don’t want everyone just throwing in the dryer. Just now my son walked in and is getting over a migraine and told me he was hungry and didn’t know what to eat. I got up and made him peanut butter. Of course he could have done it, but I knew he didn’t feel good and just wanted something quick.
Is it weird that my daughter is coming to our stateside home from her summer internship this weekend and I encouraged her to fly home with her giant duffel bag full of dirty laundry? I will very likely happily wash it all for her too. It’s my only chance, most likely during her entire four years of undergrad, to have that “college kid comes home with all their laundry” experience. I am looking forward to it.
Best case scenario:
Teach everyone how to do laundry sometime after age 10 (picking random number).
Take turns doing the entire load - or different parts of the process (one person, throw in wash and dryer, other person in charge of folding and depositing in bedrooms).
Pros:
Less washing machine “waste” (water, soap, general abuse)
Everyone gets a break now and then! I don’t mind doing a couple of loads on the weekend because I know “other family member” is doing it mid-week. EVERYBODY WINS!!!
Note: What annoys me to NO END…when my H’s idea of folding clothes is to take care of his own - and then he takes everyone elses and lays each piece out on their bed - the ENTIRE BED is covered - not folded or stacked or anything. SOOO annoying to go up to my room and basically have to do all my own folding, rolling socks, stacking underwear, etc.
Didn’t read all replies, but I do my son’s laundry every 2 weeks.
He comes home, so I get to see him, and he does other chores for me, like vacuuming.
I feel like it’s a win-win.
When he lived on campus and didn’t have a car, he did his laundry just fine.
I WISH my older son would have had any interest in cooking in HS, but it was low on my list of things to fight about.
Somewhere along the line he got a serious GF who likes to cook, and it’s amazing what she’s been able to teach him
I do laundry once a week. When my D was in high school I stopped doing her laundry as I realized I was washing clean clothes. If she tried on something and decided not to wear it, it went on the floor or in the laundry basket. She eventually learned that if she wanted her clothes washed that needed to stop.
When my S came home from college I quickly realized he was not going to do his laundry in a timely manor to avoid odors. I made him a deal I would do his laundry for $20 a week. He gladly paid. I would have done it for nothing but threw it out there. I hated the smell.
When my oldest moved home I did her laundry with ours. We live in a drought area and it was wasteful to wash small loads.
To be honest for many years I had a cleaning woman who did all the laundry. I would come home and it would be laid out on each bed. My present house cleaner washes sheets and towels but doesn’t do our personal laundry.