Photobucket Photobucket Photobucket

Monday, November 26, 2012

The Laundry Manifesto

Dear Kids:

I know that I have admitted in the past that I kind of enjoy doing laundry. I wasn't lying. I like watching my DVR'd shows while folding laundry in the family room. However, there are some aspects of the task of laundry that I do not enjoy. For that reason, I feel compelled to write and share this "Laundry Manifesto."
  1. I will wash, dry and fold your laundry. I will not, however, put it away. That is your responsibility.
  2. Socks will not be matched or folded. Instead, they will be immediately placed in the sock basket. Please don't ask me for socks. Get thee to the basket and find some for yourself.
  3. Clean and folded laundry will be placed in neat piles on the couch. If you wish to sit on the couch, you must first carry the piles to their appropriate locations. The floor is not an appropriate location. Neither is the bottom of the stairs. Nor is under your rear end on the couch.
  4. Hell hath no fury like a woman whose laundry piles have been shoved, smashed or unfolded instead of carried upstairs. Put the laundry away or wrestle somewhere else.
  5. Once clean laundry is moved from the couch, it should be put away. Pants and shirts with buttons should be hung in your closet. Hollering that you can't find "x" item, only for me to enter your room and find it on the floor will not be dealt with kindly.
  6. I am your mother. I gave birth to you and know you probably better than anyone else does. That does not mean I always know which t-shirts are yours. If you discover one of your siblings' clothing in your pile, do not throw it in the dirty clothes. Carry it to their rooms. Even better, be daring and put it away for them.
  7. I encourage you to check your pockets before putting clothes in the laundry. Any money left in said pockets becomes the property of the laundress. 
  8. If you need something specific to be cleaned and ready for tomorrow, 11pm is not an okay time to let me know that. 
  9. You are welcome to use the washer and dryer. If you don't know how, ask. If you choose to do a load of laundry yourself, do the environmentally responsible thing and please make sure it's a load. Two t-shirts do not constitute a load.
  10. You know that fury I mentioned in #3? Multiply it by 10 if you put clean items in the dirty clothes. Multiply by 20 if the clean clothes are still folded. 
  11. Clean clothes that are found in the dirty laundry will be immediately selected for donation to the Goodwill. 
 If we all follow these simple rules (note: they are not suggestions), we'll get along just fine.

Love,
Mom.

7 comments:

Rebecca said...

You took the words right out of my head and wrote them down. Your manifesto may end up posted on my laundry room door for all to read/understand/obey. :)

Janet said...

Nicely stated. I really like #11.

My girls (12 & 14) have to help fold and hang (I'm such a mean mom!) I even make them fold their little brother's underwear (gross!)

kimybeee said...

yes, yes and more yes!!! my kids are a boy and girl and i don't always get their's right (rednecks that wear redneck wear that is the same for boys and girls)

my kids have been doing their own laundry for years - the younger one washes one day at a time, pants, shirt, underwear, socks - and the older one washes a weeks worth at a time, and then fusses cause the washer won't spin them out!!!

i sort, no folding at all here lol and i will throw the kids clean clothes on their beds if i do wash something of theirs or take a load of theirs out of the dryer. and they end up on the floor all the time - drives me nuts!! they get that crap from my husband - he is just as bad lol lol

Unknown said...

AMEN!

Momza said...

With 7 children at home, I decided that the best way to manage laundry was to teach them how to do it themselves when they reached 9 yrs old. And we gave each kid their own "day" of the week designated as their laundry day. The younger kids and our laundry was done around those days, and SUNDAY was a day of rest for all of us, and for the washer and dryer too. It worked. It kept me sane. And relieved me from having to do it for children who could do it themselves. The teenagers could wash and dry and what they do with it in their rooms is up to them--cram it in a drawer unfolded? no problem. toss it in a basket and leave it there the whole week, pulling clothes as needed? also not a problem. They learned how to iron, more importantly, they learned how much easier it is to just hang up their clothes immediately and be done with it. But again, it was up to them.
The only firm rule I have about laundry is that clean clothes aren't recycled into the washer before they've been worn. Heads will roll for that! (Oh and if they missed their day, they had to negotiate using the W&D on someone else's day or wait until the next week.) TRY IT, Amy!

Ellen aka Ellie said...

But the time I was in middle school (jr. high back then), I was doing my own laundry. My mom hated laundry too, so she taught us how and that was that.

Anonymous said...

Its my at the start time to enter on this forum,just wannat pushy some friends here.if its not allowed to advise on this enter,please strike out this thread.Nice to adjoin you!

---------------------------------------------------------------
[url=http://www.sexybags.info/rssrock.html]My designer handabgs[/url]