Am I the only parent who doesn't care if the laundry gets folded?

[Anonymous]

I sm a little OCD so I actually do care, however, there is currently a big pile of my daughter's and my clothes to fold! It has been there for a few days.

[Anonymous]

I don't care as long as it isn't something I'll have to iron. But I did teach my boys to fold clothes, and they do it automatically. I showed one how to pack for a trip in cubes with super flat folding, and he became obsessed. I have visited their dorm rooms and apartments and never saw clothes laying around.

Note: I was NOT this neat as a kid.

[Anonymous]

You have teens who do their own laundry and are capable of sorting out a system so they have clean laundry.

Most of the parents on this board who complain about laundry have young kids who can't do their own laundry yet, or may have more kids than you. Also your situation where your kids are the same gender and work together obviously doesn't work for every family. If you had a 12 year old by and a 7 year old girl, they would not be handling laundry the way your kids handle laundry.

Also different people get annoyed by different things. I still do my kids laundry and actually do DH's laundry mostly, but I don't mind doing laundry and it doesn't bug me. I WFH and laundry is such an easy task to fit into little gaps in my day. Everyone is good about getting things into hampers and we don't sort laundry so I just make sure I start a load or two of laundry in the morning at some point and then when I'm done with work I take 20 minutes to fold everything while I listen to music and it relaxes me. DH on the other hand likes cooking and does most nights, which is good because I find cooking feels like a real chore and would hate having to do it every single day.

[Anonymous]

I taught my kids how to wash at age 8, and by age 10 they were completely on their own, deciding when they needed to wash.

We used the white wire basket system in their closets, so 1 wire drawer for socks, 1 for shirts, 1 for shorts, etc. They just threw them in. While the Tshirts and school polo shirts were a little wrinkled, I noticed after an hour they looked fine.

I bought them each 2 multi packs of matching socks, different from each other, so every sock matched. I kept a pair of dress socks separately for nice occasions.

They didn't separate by colors either, and the white shirts were still white, not dingy. I made sure to wash any new items that were red or blue separately, so no pink shirts.

I heard friends complain how long laundry takes to sort, wash/dry then separate and fold. My way we skipped the sort, separate and fold. And no mixing of clothes in the washer for more than one person. This was the easiest chore ever. All I had to do were my own clothes.

[Anonymous]

So it’s not just my son.

So glad to hear this.

They are on hangers laying on his bed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My teen boys have been doing their laundry for years. They combine their laundry, and have worked out a system where they take turns. They do their bedding and towels, sports uniforms, regular clothes etc . . . When things are clean, they pull out the dressy stuff to hang up before it wrinkles, and throw everything else in a laundry basket or drawer. Then they just grab things from there when they are getting dressed. I buy two kinds of socks, black and white, so they don't match socks, they just grab two of the same color.

I'm curious because I feel like other than this my house is orderly and my kids are pretty capable, but this one chore gets mentioned all the time here and it just doesn't happen in my house.

I have two teen boys and most of their clothes are hang-dry only, which is a pain (hoodies, nicer t-shirts, sports uniforms, practice uniforms, nicer sweat pants for school, etc.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't like wrinkled tshirts. I think it's slovenly personally. But if it works in your house, great.

Same.

[Anonymous]

I do not care one bit. But also, my family knows not to come to me if they can't find something in their laundry. If they were constantly losing things or asking me to find something I would insist that they fold and put away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My teen boys have been doing their laundry for years. They combine their laundry, and have worked out a system where they take turns. They do their bedding and towels, sports uniforms, regular clothes etc . . . When things are clean, they pull out the dressy stuff to hang up before it wrinkles, and throw everything else in a laundry basket or drawer. Then they just grab things from there when they are getting dressed. I buy two kinds of socks, black and white, so they don't match socks, they just grab two of the same color.

I'm curious because I feel like other than this my house is orderly and my kids are pretty capable, but this one chore gets mentioned all the time here and it just doesn't happen in my house.

I have two teen boys and most of their clothes are hang-dry only, which is a pain (hoodies, nicer t-shirts, sports uniforms, practice uniforms, nicer sweat pants for school, etc.)

Where do you buy hoodies and t-shirts and sweat pants that can't go in the dryer? I didn't know that was a thing. Same with practice uniforms. If my kid's sport required practice uniforms that weren't machine wash and dryable, I think I would rethink that club.

[Anonymous]

Hang nice clothes so they aren’t wrinkled but I don’t care what their drawers look like if they’re putting them away.

[Anonymous]

I don’t fold my own laundry. Anything that wrinkles gets put on a hanger, anything else goes in an elfa closet pull out bin