Laundry: A Never-Ending Task or a Valuable Lesson?
Laundry! For many parents, it can quickly become the one household chore that never seems to end. The moment you finish one load—folding and putting it away—a hamper in the bathroom starts to overflow with stinky socks and soiled clothes.
According to Proctor & Gamble, the average family washes between 300 and 400 loads of laundry per year. This equates to nearly 7 loads per week. However, if you have multiple children or kids who participate in extracurricular activities, you’re likely washing anywhere from 10 to 15 loads per week. No matter how much you encourage your children to air-dry towels instead of throwing them in the hamper, or to hang up clothes that are still clean instead of tossing them into a pile on the floor, chances are your teen isn’t listening. This raises the question: should your teen wash their own clothing? Would requiring them to take charge of their laundry be a responsible way to teach them self-care, and possibly encourage them to be less careless with tossing clothes in the laundry basket?
The Benefits of Teen Laundry Responsibility
The reality is that with today’s modern washing machines and dryers, laundry isn’t much of a chore anymore. What truly feels like a chore is sorting the clothes, drying them, removing them from the dryer, and putting them away before they become a wrinkled, haggard mess. One of the main reasons to enlist your teen’s help with laundry is that it teaches them how to follow through on tasks. For example, it’s one thing to simply throw clothes in the washing machine with detergent and press a button to start the cycle, but it’s another to remember to remove them before they turn musty, dry them, and put them away.
Moreover, your children will eventually be responsible for themselves. Raising a child who can’t even wash their own clothes is not preparing them for life. Laundry is a task that won’t change much over the decades. If a teenager can manage the intricate technology of a computer, smartphone, or even master a tricky video game, they are certainly capable of learning how to use a washer and dryer.
Additionally, making your child responsible for all of their laundry will help them appreciate the clean clothes you’ve provided for them over the years. It won’t take long before your teen realizes that laundry is an ongoing task. Due to their naturally “slacker” tendencies, your teen will likely come up with creative ways to minimize the amount of laundry they have to do. Who knows? They might reuse the same hair towel after every shower for a week, or they might be more careful about spilling spaghetti sauce on their favorite shirt or staining their jeans with grass and red clay—especially when they realize that mom and dad won’t be there to do it for them.
Your child is fully capable of handling laundry duties by the age of 10 to 12. When you first assign them this responsibility, it’s important to set up a workable system. Provide them with their own laundry basket in their room, so they aren’t tempted to toss their clothes in your hamper when it’s overflowing. If you prefer to sort laundry by color, invest in a hamper with three sections, so they can separate the loads. Next, prepare an informational sheet that guides them on which clothes to wash in hot or cold water. Modern washers are relatively easy to navigate, and many of them make it simple to choose the right wash cycle. Lastly, hand the job over completely. Once you’ve shown them how to use the equipment and given them the necessary information, let it go. If they wake up one day with no clean underwear for school, that’s not your problem! Going to school without underwear, or wearing dirty jeans or a smelly shirt, is an important lesson in responsibility for your teen.
Laundry truly is a family affair. While you might not want your 5- or 6-year-old touching your expensive washer and dryer, the truth is they can still help with laundry duties. Kids can be empowered to sort laundry, reuse towels when necessary, put dirty laundry in hampers, and even help unload the washer and dryer or fold and put away clothes. If you get them involved from a young age, by the time they’re 10, they’ll likely be able to handle laundry responsibilities on their own—and may even help you with your laundry! This will make the family’s operation run more smoothly and save you from weekends spent facing a mountain of laundry.
The Bottom Line
Everyone wears the clothes and uses the towels, sheets, and covers in the home, so EVERYONE should take part in caring for them. If you’re not handing over some of the responsibility to your kids, you have little room to complain—because THEY ARE CAPABLE!
