Anonymous wrote:If not, how old were they when you told them to fend for themselves?

I taught my son when he was 8. He was completely responsible for it at age 10.

They do their laundry and mine and sometimes I do theirs but its usually a joint effort.

I admire the moms who go out of their way to train their kids for adulthood and I have nothing but contempt for those who baby their kids until they go to college without any practical life skills. Its disgraceful and its also "narcissistic mom" behavior.

Anonymous wrote:I did it till they left for college...just for efficiency. I hated to run mulitple small loads. I do not think laundry is something you really need much practice with. They had plenty of other responsibilities.

They brought the clothes down, sorted, folded and brought it back upstairs.

I taught DD to do it when she was 11. I will help if she is overwhelmed, asks for help, or I want to spend time with her.

Mine are 14 and 18. They certainly both can do it and do it sometimes, although honestly often I also just grab everyone’s clothes and throw in to make a full load. But dd has picked up plenty more complex skills so I’m plenty confident she’ll be able to handle it in college next year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I did it till they left for college...just for efficiency. I hated to run mulitple small loads. I do not think laundry is something you really need much practice with. They had plenty of other responsibilities.

Yes, thank you!

I’m still doing my HS senior’s laundry, primarily because he’d run it for one pair of his favorite shorts.

But I often see in the college/university forum that this is some measure of independence/maturity and kids must “know” how to do laundry before going to college. I was doing my family’s laundry at 12. Didn’t make me ready for adulthood.

They’ll figure it out.

It’s okay as long as they have other household responsibilities, and not just homework and lacrosse practice. There IS a certain maturity that comes with helping with household chores. When the expectation that clean clothes will just appear in your closet and food will just appear in the fridge for one’s convenience, a person can get spoiled and have trouble adjusting to real world expectations on them.

I started having my sons do their own laundry 2-3 summers before they went to college. Summer laundry is easy and you can’t do much damage to T shirts and shorts.

There’s just the two of us, so I just run loads when it needs doing. He’s 12. As we get closer to college, I will teach him how to do it. My mom also did household laundry my whole life - we would get a call of “I’m doing darks, bring them down” and we did.

I fold and put away, most of the time 😂
They sort, bring down and wash and dry though. Started at 8.

Anonymous wrote:I did it till they left for college...just for efficiency. I hated to run mulitple small loads. I do not think laundry is something you really need much practice with. They had plenty of other responsibilities.

Yes, thank you!

I’m still doing my HS senior’s laundry, primarily because he’d run it for one pair of his favorite shorts.

But I often see in the college/university forum that this is some measure of independence/maturity and kids must “know” how to do laundry before going to college. I was doing my family’s laundry at 12. Didn’t make me ready for adulthood.

They’ll figure it out.

10 and 12 year old do their own laundry and have for two years. They do it all, from start to putting it away. My 10 year old is terrible at folding, but he’ll get there with practice. I always rolled my eyes at the kids in college who had no clue what to do in the laundry room. I did a lot of unpaid instructional college courses in laundry in the first semester 😂

Once they turned 10, they were on their own for laundry.*


*I have two boys, so that meant I occasionally had to put up with them wearing dirty clothes...but it was their choice, and for the most part, they eventually learned the value of just doing their laundry and wearing clean clothes.

I do the actually putting it in the washer and dryer, but they are on their own to bring down dirty clothes and to sort, fold, and put away clean clothes. 8 and 12 year olds.

I did it till they left for college...just for efficiency. I hated to run mulitple small loads. I do not think laundry is something you really need much practice with. They had plenty of other responsibilities.

If not, how old were they when you told them to fend for themselves?