The famous actor Ed Asner said, “Raising kids is part joy and part guerrilla warfare.”

He had to be thinking about the laundry room when he said this—the combat zone—the space in which reasonable parents are transformed into bloodthirsty warriors hell bent on victory.

An empty wash basket is a sublime sight.

But.

With two teenagers, these moments are as rare as spotting a purple-striped zebra on the streets of New York city. The quantity of dirty clothing produced by human beings between the ages of thirteen and eighteen is remarkable. The basket is never vacant for more than sixty to ninety minutes and this only happens if wash cycles are precisely matched to said juveniles’ forced time away from home, i.e. when they’re at school, practice, or work.

It’s not common knowledge, but our youth take a secret laundry vow when they enter puberty:

  1. Should a garment be tried on for a possible outfit, but doesn’t work, it must be washed instead.
  2. Do not hang up wet towels. Their proper place is curled in a damp ball in the bottom of the wash basket.
  3. Under no circumstances wear pajamas two nights in a row. Icky. Throw those pjs in the laundry bin.
  4. The most sensible place for anything that you don’t want to put in a drawer or in a closet is in the laundry basket.

You might have guessed that doing the laundry has never made my top ten list of favorite activities. But by default, because I work from home, the majority of the wash duties fall on me.

Recently, though I reached my laundering threshold. After having completed four loads of laundry earlier in the day to find the laundry basket overflowing that evening, I broke.

I was resentful. Snappy. Pissed.

I was freaking sick of doing the laundry!

And forget about folding it!

This was not my job. I had company to run. Novels to write. Unending meals to make. Walks to take. Five hundred kids’ sporting events to watch. Books to read. I was NOT getting paid for doing the wash and I was gaining no emotional satisfaction from it whatsoever.

Enough. Done.

So I did what any reasonable human being would do under such dire circumstances.

I went to Target.

The home goods section.

I bought three hampers.

Then I called a family meeting and explained that I was no longer doing laundry. Ever. Again.

But my daughter whined that it was absolutely unfair as I’d been doing her brother’s laundry for seventeen years and, if this new law were to stand, she’d only been alive for fourteen and he’d gotten three more years out of me. My son sort of moaned and then went to his room. I happily set my new hamper in the back of my closet. For a couple days I felt bad for it as it had to be lonely with so little clothing in it.

My best friend thought I was being completely unreasonable. “The kids have enough to do. They won’t have time to do the laundry.” Another girlfriend sort of smirked and I could tell she was thinking, “That’ll never stick.” But other women looked at me with shock and awe a little inspiration.

Could it be?

Is it possible?

Now, part of the success of laundry relinquishment is letting go of any this-has-to-tidy-OCD-type-tendencies you might have. I like things neat, so this was a bit hard for me—oh, I lie—in the end it was sooo easy to stop doing the laundry. The solution was for me to close the doors to my kids’ rooms.

So, how’s it going?

Week by week, my darlings are developing their true laundering personalities. My son has gone from storing the clean wash in the dryer to throwing it on his floor to stuffing it in his closet. He hasn’t figured out that he’s creating a lot of ironing for himself (Nope, not doing that either).

My daughter’s laundry skills are evolving rapidly. At the beginning, she’d toss the clean wash on top of her bed. But this made it hard to sleep.  And the wrinkles were too much for a young fashionista. Drum roll please . . . she is now so possessive of her laundry that I am not permitted to even look at her laundry.

Me? I not doing anybody’s laundry but my own. I’ve had to buy more underwear!

This battle has been won!

Not to brag, but I may be reaching mythic status. People whisper as I pass in the grocery store. A friend texted me a Happy Mother’s Day greeting with a postscript saying she bought her whole family hampers.

* * *

P.S. There is something I love about my laundry room. Read about it HERE.

* * *

“It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings.”
—Ann Landers

* * *

Since you’re not going to be doing the laundry, you’ll have more time to cook (ha!) I found A Week of 5-Ingredient Dinners for Less Than $50 on EatingWell.com. They recipes look divine, especially the Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Pimiento Cheese! CLICK HERE

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Read the first three chapters of my debut novel, WHAT THE VALLEY KNOWS, HERE. I hope you love it enough to want to buy the book. Find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Black Rose Writing. Happy reading!

“A taut, compelling family tale.” Kirkus Reviews

Till next time,
Heather 🙂

 

 

 

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