<p>Why do some parents still do their COLLEGE STUDENTS’ laundry? I don’t understand. I knew a boy who essentially went home just so his mom could do his laundry.</p>
<p>Because I choose to when they’re home. I have found that they are not home all that much and though they are all perfectly capable of doing their own laundry, I like to help out when they’re home. If they need it done when it’s not convenient for me, they do it themselves. BTW, I cook for them when they’re home too, and stock up on all their favorite foods, beverages and snacks. Just doing my mom thing I guess.</p>
<p>It saves water and energy, for one. I just toss their stuff in with the rest of the family laundry. They get to fold and put it away. (Or, more accurately, they get to stuff their clean laundry into their dressers – either way, I just sort and wash it. After that, it’s their problem.)</p>
<p>what washdad said- i never have a full load, and neither do they- once you sort it it just makes sense to do fullloads instead of a lot of small loads</p>
<p>I don’t mind doing laundry- my mom lives with us, and its in her area, so she switches it- its mutual task</p>
<p>I’m with everyone else. It’s cheaper and easier to do all the laundry together than have the laundry machine running constantly with everyone’s individual loads. If all of the kids in my family are home, we have 8 people in the house–the laundry machine would never stop!</p>
<p>I would defer to WashDad about process for laundry, given his screen name.</p>
<p>I think the OP may be referring to those kids who specifically save up all their laundry to bring home on breaks, rather than doing <em>any</em> of it themselves. That’s a bit different from parents washing their clothes when they happen to be home anyway.</p>
<p>It’s probably not $4 to do laundry at home, which is what it would have been at my college if I did laundry before I left. It was also during exam period when time is especially costly.</p>
<p>I only do laundry once a week and I can get by with three loads - 1 for jeans and sweatshirts, one for darks - mostly permanent press and one for whites for three of us. Once college son is home, I can fit his whites into that load but he really needs a whole load to himself anyway. </p>
<p>To each their own. I hate to do laundry but enjoy cooking and like to make and buy college son’s favorite things to eat.</p>
<p>Mine have been doing their own laundry since about age 12. One D puts no shirts in the dryer, another is picky about no fabric softener. H tried taking on the “washdad” role but shrank several of my sweaters into belly-baring length so now we all do our own. Son brings his over once a week and uses our machines since his building doesn’t have a laundry facility and he hates to stand there at the laundromat just watching his clothes go 'round.</p>
<p>I made point of ensuring that S could and did do his laundry through HS. When he’s home from college and I’m doing laundry, I’ll say “I’m about to do a load of jeans,” and he can bring his jeans to the laundry room. No problem. Otherwise, he can fend for himself. No problem, no artificial “boundaries.” It works for us.</p>
<p>If you all do your own, do you have full loads, or half loads, wasting water and electricity</p>
<p>being picky shouldn’t override thinky about the environment</p>
<p>Well, duh! Who would do a half load of laundry? Let’s assume that all of us are semi-intelligent adults…</p>
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<p>Get over it. You’d really hate me. I did my own laundry all through high school. Uniforms were almost always washed by themselves. That means there were somtimes 5 items total. Or in baseball season, I did 3 separate loads. One orange jersey, one black shirt and a pair of shorts and a pair of socks, and a white load with a single pair of pants.</p>
<p>Guess what-- we’ve survived.</p>
<p>My kids have plenty of their own dirty clothes to fill a load. If they don’t, they can ask ME for a contribution of my stuff to fill the load:) They have been doing their laundry since 9th grade. I don’t see any point in changing the practice now.</p>
<p>Okay, so the adults know about wasting water and energy… 
I cannot ever, ever imagine washing a single piece of clothing in a washer. Of course, there’s never a day where there is only one piece of clothing dirty that couldn’t be combined with something else.</p>
<p>I think the issue with laundry at college is that when you do it, you have to devote a chunk of time exclusively to that task. At home, you can be doing other things at the same time.</p>
<p>My son has often brought home dirty laundry from college. When he gets home, he washes it himself to avoid having to sort his items from those belonging to other family members after the load is finished. The advantage of bringing it home is that he can do his laundry while also eating, watching TV, using his computer, etc.</p>
<p>Well…my kids said the advantage to doing laundry at home was that it was FREE (for them).</p>
<p>Yes, we all abide by the “full loads only” rule, and sometimes combine if someone needs one thing washed, but most of the time one week equals 2 loads (dark and light) per person. Also have a front-loading energy saving machine.
D2 attends a school with free laundy machines in the dorms (tiny town, so no freeloading friends of residents). SHe says there’s a big “green” movement on campus that causes students not to abuse it and wash one shirt at a time. Plus the time factor - why wait for one garment when you could get a whole load done?</p>
<p>Two (or three) words: Economies of Scale.</p>
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<p>In this case, the cost of washing and drying each unit of clothing decreases when you increase the number of units of clothing being washed at the same time. In other words, whether or not you wash half your wardrobe at the same time or a pair of jeans in the same load, your washer uses the same amount of water, consumes the same amount of electricity, and requires the same amount of detergent, fabric softener and dryer sheets. Your local utility bills you the same amount for water and electricity. Your local Whole Foods charges the same amount for a bottle of detergent, whether you use a cup per pair of jeans or a cup per half your wardrobe. The cost of washing, in some ways, is fixed. The washer will use the same amount of water and detergent whether or not you wash a pair of jeans or your entire family’s laundry. The variable cost is the cost of the extra power to spin the extra weight around and the proportionate extra detergent that must be used, which costs minimally more, plus the cost of drying. That’s the cost of 4 dryer sheets vs. 1, and the cost of running the dryer for an hour and a half rather than a half an hour, and the equivalent wear and tear on the machine. When you crunch the numbers, the unit price (or the per-piece-of-clothing price of laundry) is lower with a full load than with a half a load.
Firm=family, household. Unit=dirty laundry. LRATC=cost of water, detergent, running the washer, and running the dryer, the money value of your time, and the opportunity costs of both using that money to do something else and the time you spend watching the washer and dryer.</p>
<p>Sorry, econ major. Just felt the incurable urge to write that incredibly complicated analysis.</p>