Trials and Tribulations of Mixing the Kid's Laundry
With three sons, you would think I would know whose clothes belong to whom by now. Apparently not.
“Why are you wearing my top?”
“Mum put it in my room.”
And there I am, responsible for another wardrobe mix up when all I was trying to do was put the clean washing away.
Managing family laundry is a big enough job without having to identify the owner of every black sock. Between the piles of clothes, the stains and the things that must never go near the tumble dryer, there is always something to keep me busy.
The laundry basket surprise
One of my biggest frustrations is the way dirty clothes arrive in the washing basket.
Instead of appearing steadily throughout the week, they sit in a bedroom pile until someone realises they are running out of things to wear. Then comes what I call the “lump and dump”.
A week’s worth of washing, sometimes more, arrives all at once.
Two of my sons are mostly good at using the basket. There is one, though, who seems to wait until the situation becomes urgent. Just when I think I am getting somewhere with the washing, another clothes mountain appears.
I keep encouraging them to put things in the basket regularly. It makes the job much easier to manage than having everything land at my feet in one go.
The jumper I learnt an expensive lesson from
Sorting the washing is about more than working out who owns what.
Different fabrics need different care, and I have learnt that lesson the hard way. I once shrank my son’s new, expensive wool jumper in the tumble dryer. Not my finest laundry moment.
It is very easy to get into a rhythm of washing, drying and putting things away, especially when there is so much to do. But that jumper was a reminder to check the care label rather than assume everything can go through the same routine.
Keeping anything that needs special washing or drying separate is worth the extra moment. It is certainly better than discovering a much smaller version of something you have just bought.
Who owns these socks?
Socks and boxers are where my system really falls apart.
I did try buying different brands for each son. For a while, I knew who had which brand, and sorting their things was much easier.
Then the older two started buying their own clothes. Sometimes they bought the same socks as their younger brother. Sometimes they bought the same ones as each other.
And that was the end of my clever little system.
I lost track completely. Most of the mystery socks and boxers ended up in my youngest son’s drawer, and if someone ran out, I told them to check their brother’s.
Is it the most organised approach? Absolutely not. But that is the honest reality of our family laundry.
If you are trying different brands or styles to keep everyone’s washing separate, it is worth getting the whole family involved. My attempt worked until everyone’s shopping choices started overlapping.
Keeping up with a busy household
When I first wrote about our laundry struggles, there were six of us at home. Seven, if you counted my middle son’s girlfriend, whose clothes were starting to creep into the basket too.
The washing machine was on at least once a day. If I fell behind, the pile quickly became overwhelming.
My sons have done some washing themselves, but I tend to prefer managing it so I can combine suitable items into full loads. It frustrates me when the machine goes on with hardly anything inside.
Of course, a full load still needs to suit the machine and the fabrics being washed. The aim is to make sensible use of each wash, rather than squeeze everything in and hope for the best.
Why I still quite like doing the washing
After all that complaining, you might think laundry is my least favourite chore.
Strangely enough, I do not really mind it. I find it quite therapeutic, and I have even been known to consider myself the stain remover queen.
I do, however, have a thing about socks and pants being inside out. I cannot leave them like that.
For me, keeping family laundry manageable comes back to a few simple things: encouraging everyone to use the basket regularly, checking care labels and finding a way to recognise whose clothes are whose.
I have had more success with some of those than others.
The washing gets done. The clothes get put away. And sooner or later, someone announces that they are wearing their brother’s top.
Please tell me it is not just our house.
About me
I am a married mother of four children. One of those four children is our granddaughter, for whom we are SGO (legal guardians)/kinship carers. I run a small business and enjoy writing, so I blog. My blog focuses on my family life as well as my experiences of living with chronic illnesses and disabilities such as ME/CFS, spinal stenosis, chronic pain, and fibromyalgia. Oh, and I am only in my mid-40s.
It hardly seems possible that more than seven years have passed since my older boys sat their GCSEs. At the time, it felt as though our lives revolved around revision timetables, past papers, flashcards and endless cups of tea. Like many parents, I wanted to help, but I also knew there was only so much I could do. Ultimately, the revision had to come from them.