Why do so many people not do their spouse’s laundry?

[Anonymous]

Nanny does all the laundry until quarantine...now...everyone including the kids are on their own.

[Anonymous]

I do all the laundry. I don't get doing it separate. My husband will sometimes help fold or I will make the kids help but we have one hamper, one washer/dryer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, when you folks make dinner, do you only make it for yourselves? I mean, he’s a grown man and can make his own food, right? And do you only take out the trash you made, or do you take out all the trash the household made?

There are economies of scale. It makes more sense for one person to do one whole chore and another to do another whole chore, rather than all of us just doing our own halves. This isn’t about philosophy or feminism or whatever someone’s sense of the 1960s was.

Yeah...this is a false equivalency, and you know it. You make a family dinner, you have a communal trash can, one person does the dinner dishes, etc. But if everyone has enough clothes for their own load of laundry, especially if they each have their own hamper, what is so ludicrous about handling your own clothes? Really not understanding the “BuT dO yOu eAcH MaKe yOuR OwN dInNeR???” histrionics from some people on this thread.

[Anonymous]

Separate hampers! Husband is picky and doesn’t like sorting through my stuff, and vice versa I guess! Sometimes we combine loads but not that often.

[Anonymous]

Well I didn’t think of it as a false equivalence, which is why I wrote it. We actually do have communal laundry bins, in the bathrooms where we take off most of our clothes. Not everybody has to live the same way I do. But I don’t think that doing someone’s laundry is any more demeaning than making their dinner or taking out their trash, like some on this thread think it is.

[Anonymous]

Everyone has their own laundry hamper and does their laundry. Why mix it all up? Then you need to sort everything.

No “economies of scale” for us.

[Anonymous]

The only reason I do my DHs clothes is because I don’t work and am spoiled rotten. Laying around all day, shopping online, going to luncheons while he works. It’s the least I could do.

[Anonymous]

Because DH was convinced I was losing his socks. He requested that I quit doing his laundry. Now he loses his own socks.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn't mind doing someone else's laundry but I would want them to fold it themselves. Folding it takes forever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have different hampers. Never occurred to me to do his.

Never occurred to me that some married people do their laundry separately!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Funny thing for you to comment on when you don’t wash your kids clothes.

What does that have to do with anything?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s something SAHMs say so they can feel like their husband is doing something around the house.

Personally it’s so much more efficient for one spouse to do the family laundry, one spouse to make lunches, etc. You can trade off tasks or weeks but everyone doing everything individually is not very productive.

And yet op says her nanny does the kids clothes. So WOHMs feel like their nannies are doing something around the house? It just seems weirdly ironic to say it’s somehow superior to do your spouse’s laundry, when someone else is taking care of it for your kids.

This is OP. Show me where I said doing your spouse's laundry was somehow superior. Because I didn't.

[Anonymous]

My DW and I have separate hampers. We each do our own laundry when we have time. I am always the proactive/efficient one. Often I am folding her clothes out of the dryer b/c once her clothes are dry, she often leaves it in her hamper for days and it drives me nuts. Clothes end up piling everywhere so I just end up folding them and putting them away. NBD.

[Anonymous]

I do everyone's laundry and actually enjoy doing it. I also iron a lot because of DH's dress clothes and mine. It doesn't bother me and it never piles up. I remember when I was like 10, my mom would give me 6-8 baskets of laundry to fold while I got to watch TV. They were all wrinkly and it took forever to fold them all.

DH makes dinner and lunches for all of us, which I feel like is analogous.

I don't think I'd let DH do the laundry though. I'm particular and have a way of doing it that I like. I also hate it when my parents try to do my laundry too (like postpartum).

[Anonymous]

I do the entire family's laundry. Recently my DH decided he wanted his things folded in a special way - I think this came form some marie kondo video he watched on organizing your drawers. I was not interesting in changing how I fold so his clean laundry is left laid out in a pile on his side of the bed for him to fold on Sunday evenings.