Need parenting advice- laundry mess

[mom2rtk]

In the bath is one. I wasn’t clear but referring to the kids putting clothes in their own hamper in their room if they had one. We have 2 hampers in the house - both in the bath and communal

Everybody needs their own hamper.

 

[Hisgirl]

Sorry I’m replying too much to my own thread but I’m just thinking a lot about it right now in the main issue is not them not doing their own laundry but the fact that so much of their clothing ends up in the laundry that is not actual “laundry”. Another words clean clothes. Hence my idea of OK maybe they should do their own laundry just so they see how much is being wasted

I haven't read through all the responses, so I'm sure others have said this, but my two cents is this:

It's time they do their own laundry.

Your job, as the parent, is to teach them to 100% be able to live independently away from you. They need to work that muscle way before they actually leave.

Have a family meeting, explain this, teach them, print instructions on how to do laundry. Give them a basket.

But after this, the clothes that are tossed on the floor are picked up by you. And then hidden away.

"Mom, where is my "fill in the blank"?

You: "Its in clothes jail for 2 weeks. Every time a piece of clothing is on the floor, or anywhere not on your body, in a drawer, a hanger, or the dirty clothes basket, it is picked up by me and stored away."

This is the hard part of parenting.

It's called consequences. But in the end you'll be doing them a huge life favor, doing their future spouses a favor, and giving them a model to help their own kids one day.

You can do this.

 

[mom2rtk]

I haven't read through all the responses, so I'm sure others have said this, but my two cents is this:

It's time they do their own laundry.

Your job, as the parent, is to teach them to 100% be able to live independently away from you. They need to work that muscle way before they actually leave.

Have a family meeting, explain this, teach them, print instructions on how to do laundry. Give them a basket.

But after this, the clothes that are tossed on the floor are picked up by you. And then hidden away.

"Mom, where is my "fill in the blank"?

You: "Its in clothes jail for 2 weeks. Every time a piece of clothing is on the floor, or anywhere not on your body, in a drawer, a hanger, or the dirty clothes basket, it is picked up by me and stored away."

This is the hard part of parenting.

It's called consequences. But in the end you'll be doing them a huge life favor, doing their future spouses a favor, and giving them a model to help their own kids one day.

You can do this.

Give notice. Warn them it's coming.

Say what you mean. Mean what you say.

 

[mom2rtk]

So with the new info, it's like you all are dressing in the kid's bedrooms or closets.

It sounds exactly like that. We're pretty laid back on a lot of things. But this would never last here.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I guess people are different I prefer getting dressed, un dressed in the bath.. It's part of my showering or washing up for bed routine. My pjs hang on the back of the bath door. For day-to day we use the baths to get dressed. but it's not like we never use our rooms to get dressed. My DD uses her room more, but she is probably trying 5 things on before she makes a choice,

Our house is wierd. It's huge but the floor plan is off. We have two family baths- huge rooms, with separate shower, tub and double sinks. In Europe most homes, even nicer ones do not have en-suite. I have an actual large dressing area with builit ins, a seating area in my bedroom but no private bath- and the bath is a good hallway trip off. My husband and I prefer to use the downstairs bath and when we shower we get dressed in the bath. this way towels stay in the bathroom. there has been the occsasion that one of us runs up fast butt naked. But usually when nobody is around. We have hampers in our baths.. The kids have an issue using the hampers.

For some odd reason the upstairs bath doesnt get used as the downstairs. Though its just as nice. I think historically the kids feel upstairs is too isolated when they were little. and at night when the shower prefer to be downstairs where the action is.

Whenever we go to my husband's grandmother's house in STL the bathroom to shower is downstairs in the finished basement and the bedrooms upstairs. I hate hate hate having to try and get dressed in that tiny bathroom (even though yours is bigger). Anyone ever try to put on a bra when your skin is still wet or you're in an environment where it's steamy/moist? In any case I usually do the best I can bringing clean underwear and then having some pj-style/loungewear to dress in and then go up and get actually dressed in clothes for the day. It's never ideal and it's not a task I find comfortable at all but that's me.

That's a habit in your family that created a larger mess in the end. The kids have grown up seeing the bathroom as their changing room so yeah they are going to be more inclined to treat it that way. Probably makes more sense then why the rest of us are like "why are they throwing their clothes in the tub".

I'd say everyone really needs to be getting changed in their own rooms. Even the parents. Lead by example. Wouldn't IMO be fair (and sure life isn't fair) for the parents to continue on with the habit while they helped create that habit in their kids. Maybe it's your preference to get ready in that bathroom but that bathroom should revert back to the communal one for everyone not the changing room for only some. I realize some people may not agree with that and say "parents can do what they want" but I don't feel like in this case it sets the best example. I'm okay with that being a minority opinion here.

The root issue actually is a lot different than I originally thought. I still think kids need to be doing their own laundry with their own hampers but the mess isn't because of some messy teens like I originally thought. It's actually a habit/routine that the parents then passed down to the kids and them being teens may mean they are more inclined to be messy rather than pick up after themselves. Fight the battles that need fighting and IMO at the very least that bathroom needs to be reverted back to a bathroom and changing/getting ready done elsewhere since it's communal.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Everybody needs their own hamper.

100% yes.

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

So I’m not gonna chime in on the why are you doing your children’s laundry debate, but I am going to chime in on my laundry. I will always have at least two loads. One for dark/regular load, one for permanent press (aka fancy). Then a third load, be it white load, sheets, masks. (So with masks now it’s sometimes 4 loads). Then I have towels. So 3-4 prior to pandemic, 4-5 since pandemic cuz I wash my masks religiously on a delicate setting in a lingerie bag and then hang dry.
so 2 is pretty normal for their age in that sense

 

[Karin1984]

I also feel out of place not doing a dark and a light load... Except when I have something new that is a bright red or blue colour, I wash that with dark only the first time. After that, everything in the same load. Never noticed that anything light/white got discoloured.

 

[NotUrsula]

FWIW, my mother was manic on the topic of no dirty body part ever touching a towel, and I'm the same way, so our towels get used for about a week before they are washed; they are only used to dry freshly-cleaned skin/hair, and are immediately hung up after use so that they air-dry between uses. There are however-many-in-use that the bathroom rods can hold; normally 3, and you use whichever one your hand lands on that is dry. If for some reason someone uses a towel after something like getting caught in the rain, that one is immediately washed in the next load because it will probably have picked up sweat, makeup, etc.

We do the equivalent of about 7 total laundry loads per week, and there are 3 of us at home now.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I also feel out of place not doing a dark and a light load... Except when I have something new that is a bright red or blue colour, I wash that with dark only the first time. After that, everything in the same load. Never noticed that anything light/white got discoloured.

It's not normally much of an issue when you're doing cold water. I've only had small bleeding (it was towels though) when it was washed in warm and above temperatures and those warm and above increase the chance of dye bleeding and thus transferring.

It's becoming less and less needed to sort if people do cold water because you have detergents specially formulated for cold water washing and machines are more efficient in general in washing clothes than before more speaking towards front loaders.

 

[BroadwayHermione5]

It's not normally much of an issue when you're doing cold water. I've only had small bleeding (it was towels though) when it was washed in warm and above temperatures and those warm and above increase the chance of dye bleeding and thus transferring.

It's becoming less and less needed to sort if people do cold water because you have detergents specially formulated for cold water washing and machines are more efficient in general in washing clothes than before more speaking towards front loaders.

I do this as well if I have too little of my dark or fancy loads and I need to combine them. Just put them all together on delicate with cold water and it’s fine.

 

[leahgoogle]

I haven't read all of the responses, but I had to chuckle at the picture you posted. Since my two older kids have started doing their laundry, I wish that's all the dirty clothes they had laying around...lol. They each have their own hamper in their rooms and most of the time they are overflowing. When it gets bad enough, they throw in a load. I say give them their own hamper and let them know it's time for them to do it themselves Make a stipulation that all laundry (dirty or clean) stays in their rooms unless they are doing a load. That way it is at least contained. And, I have never had a problem with clothes of all colors in a load bleeding even on a warm water setting. The worst that happens is that whites get dingy faster so if I have a white item that I want to stay bright, I wash it separately.

 

[VandVsmama]

OP here, still trying to sort some things out. Update on the general kids should do their own laundy.. - my DS has on his own been doing a few loads the past few weeks on his. I am just too slow for his needs.. He also has this wierd thing ( thanks internet) where he washes his nice- expensive Levis by hand in the tub) and drip drys them. He also read that Levis should be worn tons before being washed.. fine with me.

The challenge is that for ALL of us, the bathrooms is the place we all undress and dress. the downstairs bath that for some reason everyone prefers ( maybe the heated floors plays a role lol) is a bit off from the upstairs bedrooms. So undressing and going back upstairs to put clothes in a hamper is simply not gonna happen. Heck even I wouldnt do that. MY DD is a bit of an exception and she does dress in her room a bit. This this is the result of another issue with her, she seems to change her clothes x amount withini a day.. on a positive she went from a pile on her floor of clothes to using one of our laundry baskets. We ordered a nicer hamper still thing for her room. Issue here though is I can guarentee what goes in with be a mix of dirty and clean...


so baby steps.

This additional info is helpful.

Simple solution: put the kids' laundry hampers in the bathroom if you have the space for it. When Kid #1's hamper gets full, Kid #1 sticks all of that in the washing machine and turns it on. Same for Kid #2.

Is your clothes washer downstairs as well?

 

[VandVsmama]

FWIW, my BIL is a bit of a drama queen when it comes to using towels. He insists on only using a towel ONE time and then he considers it 'dirty.' And he throws his used towels around everywhere, so you can never tell which towels are clean and which are dirty. So if he takes 2 showers in a day, he uses 2 towels. As a result, their household does laundry every day. Most of those loads of laundry are just for towels.

It was just downright impossible in the past when we'd go to visit them and spend the night. I had to start bringing our own towels from home (and our home is a 6.5 hour drive from them). That's when we said to ourselves, "Forget it. We're staying in a hotel from now on when we go to visit them!"

If I lived with somebody like that, I would totally go on a laundry strike over it.

 

[mom2rtk]

FWIW, my BIL is a bit of a drama queen when it comes to using towels. He insists on only using a towel ONE time and then he considers it 'dirty.' And he throws his used towels around everywhere, so you can never tell which towels are clean and which are dirty. So if he takes 2 showers in a day, he uses 2 towels. As a result, their household does laundry every day. Most of those loads of laundry are just for towels.

It was just downright impossible in the past when we'd go to visit them and spend the night. I had to start bringing our own towels from home (and our home is a 6.5 hour drive from them). That's when we said to ourselves, "Forget it. We're staying in a hotel from now on when we go to visit them!"

If I lived with somebody like that, I would totally go on a laundry strike over it.

I'm just going to go out on a limb and guess that your BIL doesn't do the laundry at his house?

 

[VandVsmama]

I'm just going to go out on a limb and guess that your BIL doesn't do the laundry at his house?

LOL. Correct. SIL does it all.

 

[QueenIsabella]

I'm just going to go out on a limb and guess that your BIL doesn't do the laundry at his house?

I know, right? I wouldn't mind using a towel just once--so long as the person deciding that once was enough, is the same person who actually gathers, washes, folds, and puts away those towels!

Here, we use towels more than once, but anyone is welcome to bring stuff down and do a load of laundry, anytime. Really, ANY TIME. The washer is right there...

 

[mousefan73]

This additional info is helpful.

Simple solution: put the kids' laundry hampers in the bathroom if you have the space for it. When Kid #1's hamper gets full, Kid #1 sticks all of that in the washing machine and turns it on. Same for Kid #2.

Is your clothes washer downstairs as well?

in the basement which is full of spiders so my daughter will not go down there. which I get she has a serious fear. she sees ones and seriously freaks out and crys depending on size DS goes down there

 

[Southernmiss]

in the basement which is full of spiders so my daughter will not go down there. which I get she has a serious fear. she sees ones and seriously freaks out and crys depending on size DS goes down there

Can you get rid of the spiders?

I would not do laundry down there either.

 

[mousefan73]

Can you get rid of the spiders?

I would not do laundry down there either.

Nope. Part of our basement houses our winter supply of wood. We heat part of our house with wood. It’s gross.