Like pretty much every other person I know, I am constantly in a state of being behind on laundry.
I never catch up, ever. I may get everything all nice and washed, perhaps even dried, but even on these rare occasions, it won’t all be folded and put away.
At some point, you start to wonder if it is even humanly possible to be fully caught up on laundry, particularly when you have small children.
My son has been known to wear the same shirt multiple days in a row. It is usually a Pajama shirt that he wears one evening to bed, and then refuses to take it off the next morning, and the next and perhaps even the next! He stacks other shirts or sweaters on top of the favorite pajama shirt, but the beloved shirt will stay on for days at a time. Despite the love for specific shirts, we still seem to go through laundry at an alarming rate. I’m sure the cloth diapering doesn’t help in my attempt to stay caught up, but the diapers only account for 2 of the 10 loads I need to do every week.
When my son was about 18 months old (and I was pregnant with my daughter), I came to a decision. I realized that it is futile to fold clothing for my toddlers. At that time I would meticulously fold the tiny shirts and pants and then re-fold them after the toddler played with them while I was putting away my own clothing. Once I got it all in the dresser and walked away to cook dinner, my son would pull all the clothes out and throw them around the room. This would require me to fold the clothes again (or just ignore it and leave them strewn about his room out of frustration). I finally decided to just stop.
Stop folding my kid’s clothes all together. Now, they each have their own drawers, and I just shove their tiny pants and shirts in there, and that’s it. If they pull the drawers open and throw their clothes around, I can have them clean it up, because it doesn’t require any intricate folding. I can even take the 30 seconds to shove it all back in the drawer myself.
It’s so freeing, to be able to pull clothes from the dryer and just shove them into drawers. It makes me feel a bit like a rebel, and I need that in my life as a mom. So yes, I confess, I totally cut corners in the laundry department and I’m still behind on it most days.
Do you fold all the laundry, or do you shove some in drawers like I do? What household chore “cheats” do you have in your home?
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Megan Bailey says
Let me just say how encouraging your post was for me today. I am in my last month of pregnancy with my first, and nesting to an OCD level. The amount of laundry I’ve tried to do has been almost Everest in proportions and I’m trying to neatly fold and sort by size and everything. And I need to stop. Who cares?! As soon as my wiggly boy is here, I will have a few more important things to worry about. Thank you for this so much!
Paula says
I’m SO glad this encouraged you today!!! :) Amazing how much of our value we place in the laundry pile isn’t it? And So freeing when we take it back! <3 Congrats on the new baby!!!
Jonell Harrison says
Okay girls it’s confession time for this Grand/ & Great Gramma born in ’41 and having 4 babies 1960-66. I ALWAYS FOLDED ALL MY CHILDREN’S LAUNDRY. Why, you ask. Well quite frankly because I thought I had to. I never heard anyone suggest the world would NOT stop turning if I did not fold them. That’s my defense. And yes, EVEN DIAPERS..folded them too-every single one of those CLOTH DIAPERS. Now – you can all burst out laughing-I won’t know it :)
Randomly Fascinated says
I stopped folding them when little man started throwing them around the room. It is just too much work. And totally not worth it since we are the only ones who look in drawers and we don’t care. I do take the time to sort outgrown clothes into their sizes (by holding them up to each other, the sizes on the tags are so wrong) before I put them into storage because that makes it way easier to pull them out for little man 2. But I admit that I am usually several months behind on that. I have a question. How is it possible to get caught up in laundry? Even when you have done all the loads in the house you are still wearing clothes so there are still some dirty clothes. What I am trying to say is that it is not possible to be caught up on laundry so why do we put that invisible burden on ourselves? Do the laundry when you have time (where it fits in your schedule) and stop worrying about being caught up. Unless you have no clothes to wear the you are not behind, you are right on schedule :).
Marken says
I have never folded my (5 year old) daughter’s clothing and it never even occurred to me that it might be “confession worthy”! There are so many more reasons NOT to fold than there are to fold. Not the least of which is that she doesn’t care about wrinkles in her clothes, and when she picks out what to wear she’s going to rummage through every last pair of cinderella panties looking for the MOST PERFECT pair and leave the rest in a pile on the floor. If I were to “confess” something, I would say I don’t fold my husband’s clothes either…he gets a basket full of clean dry clothes to do with as he pleases. Incidentally, he doesn’t appear to care about wrinkles either. And I’ve got better things to worry about! ;) As long as he doesn’t wear cinderella panties, I’m happy. ;) :D
emily says
If I am honest I not only fold my 2 year old twins clothes but also iron them. I work full time and I just find time because its something I want to do. My mum and grandmother always did too so I guess I was born into what you would call a “waste of time” exercise. I do not judge people that don’t , I just cant imagine my family’s clothes to not be ironed. My kids did go through a phase of getting into the draws and throwing everything out but they soon learned and yes I know they will go through more of those stages so we’ll see whether I will change.
Heather says
Thank you for this article. When it recently came up that I refuse to fold my 3 year olds laundry, I got looks like I was a lazy failure of a parent. I hate folding and it seems like such a waste of time for me. After working part time, cooking and doing all the other household $&1! That has to be done, I want to maximize quality time w the kid and every 10min counts. My goal is to always be able to find what we are looking for fast. Sooo – my son has labeled drawers. One for pants, one for shirts, one fo socks and underwear……. It’s all thrown in and he helps. Is he wrinkled? Not bad enough for me to notice no one will care about that after he rolls in mud anyway.
Betty says
Th’tas the best answer of all time! JMHO