Wisdom Learned from the Wash

This is a companion post to my updated laundry room post from Tuesday. You can read it here.

I was on bed rest for 28 weeks when I was pregnant with Micah (yep, 28 weeks--from eight weeks until 36 weeks, almost seven months).  At the time, Heidi was thirteen, Tucker was twelve, and Ben turned eight just before Micah was born.  Grandma T lived with us for about four of those weeks, doing all that I normally did.  Then, she left.
During that extremely LONNNNNG pregnancy, I learned a valuable truth:  kids as young as eight are fully capable of doing their own laundry.  That tradition continues in our home today--when Lily was about a month away from turning eight, I started playing up her new responsibility:  "When you turn eight, you are so lucky!  You get to do your own laundry!"  I'd bring her in to watch me as I sorted and washed her clothes: I showed her how much detergent to use, how to turn on the washer, how to clean the lint screen on the dryer.  "Isn't this fun?"  She thought so. That lasted for a few times, maybe.  Then she realized she'd been tricked, but then, it was too late.

Here's how we do laundry around here:

Mom's laundry day is Monday, and that is not negotiable.  I do mine, Brad's, Micah's Hyrum's, Eve's, and a load of kitchen towels--usually between 6-8 loads.  I help Hyrum put his clothes away, but Micah is responsible for putting his own away. Tuesday is sheets and bed changing, but if there's time, someone can squeeze in their stuff.  Since Heidi and Tucker have left (sniff), things have been a little more flexible.  But typically now, Lily does her laundry on Thursday and Ben on Wednesday.  On Friday, I toss in another load of kitchen towels, and this time of year adds 1-2 loads of pool towels.  Assigning days has been really helpful to keep the kids on top of their clothes. If they miss their day, it's not that difficult to find another time to do it, but sometimes the washers will be full, so they'll have to wait.

They each have divided hampers in their rooms (thanks, IKEA) that allow them to sort their clothes as they take them off (or when they scrounge them off the floor).  Then, all they have to do is take their own hampers down the hall and load the washers.  The only assistance I usually give is if they are gone to school, I will move from washer to dryer, upon request.

I know moms that are very OCD about the laundry--they carefully pre-treat, sort, wash, dry, fold, iron, AND put away in the drawers.  I've learned to let all of that go.   I don't buy them anything really complicated, so they don't need to hang dry or wash in cold.  If they ruin their own clothes, that's their fault. They wash their new jeans with the whites because they were too lazy to sort?  Then they wear dingy t-shirts. But grievous errors have been few and then never repeated (remember the pen debacle of '08, Tuck?).  They are responsible for taking their clean stuff back to their rooms, folding it and putting it away.  Does this mean their drawers are messy?  Usually yes.  Does this mean that they occasionally can't find something important?  Yes.  Does this mean that sometimes they throw clean clothes back in the hamper to avoid folding it and putting it away?  Yep, but I bet your kids sometimes do that too, right?

How has this changed my life?  Wow.  Let me count the ways.  I don't need days and days to do all the laundry.  Now I can use that time to do fun stuff (like decorate the laundry room!) I am not drowning in dirty or clean clothes.  I don't ever get the complaints of "Mom, I have nothing clean to wear," because that's not my job.

How has this changed their lives?  Let this picture illustrate:

That's my Ben. Yes, my big boys iron.  I think I taught them how when they were about ten or eleven--time to teach Lily that skill.  When Heidi and Tucker both left for school, I knew there was one domestic thing that they were fully capable of doing without my supervision--not cooking, unfortunately.

And who dictated the policy that moms had to do all the laundry?  That takes personal responsibility and time management skills away from our kids.  And they have few enough opportunities for this in this modern life we live.

Linking up to W on Alphabe-Thursday with Ms. Jenny.