Washing clothes

I saw the laundry room floor! It’s actual concrete; it’s not clothing all the way down!!

I assigned each child a year of laundry in turn; the early children washed clothes for a year or two until another child grew tall enough to take over. The later children ran clothing through the washer and dryer for two or three years each, especially as the oldest children went away to work and college. My youngest knew his turn was coming long before. At 9 years old he started moaning that he’d have to wash clothes for years since the others would be gone. No younger children to take over from him! He didn’t actually wash clothes himself until he was 12 or so. At age 17 he’s been in charge of laundry for three plus years. At some point he stopped moaning about it, thank goodness.

It’s not difficult; we had a durable Maytag washer for years, followed by a high efficiency Whirlpool. We’ve had two or three gas dryers in the 12 years we’ve lived here. Currently it’s an extra large front-loader that works really well. We lined up laundry baskets on the floor next to the dryer; each person’s clothing gets tossed into their own basket. I haven’t carefully folded each item since my second child was born. Towels initially got better treatment, i.e. folded and put away, simply because we didn’t have room for them unless they were folded.

I’ve been simplifying for years: my mother’s expectation that clothing needs hung outside to dry, then ironed and carefully stored, has morphed in my life to: throw it in the washer, throw it in the dryer, throw it in a basket, throw it in a tote in my bedroom. 99 percent of it is wash-and-wear, no wrinkles, and the ones that do wrinkle get fluffed in the dryer. Easy, right?

On the other hand, we have way more clothing than my mother had. She said it was a dirty child who could not keep her one school dress clean for a week. My children have two weeks’ worth of pants—a different pair every day, three times that in shirts, plus multiple underwear, socks, coats, jackets, vests, sweaters, hats, and gloves. The girls have dresses and skirts besides. They each have a pair of snowpants, even. We’ve only had one or two days of sledding, snowpants weather, per winter.

Then there’s bedding. We have quite durable mattresses; I dispensed with washing bedsheets years ago. Instead we use multiple blankets and sleeping bags, different thicknesses for different temperatures. I sleep in my clothing, and if my children want pajamas, they can buy their own. My children have stuffed animals they use as pillows; I have an actual pillow but the pillowcase doesn’t get washed all that often. I don’t see the need to. We have no pets and have been blessed to have no bedbugs or roaches. There’s the occasional mouse, but they’re rare. We haven’t even had headlice for years!

I know, I know, by saying so I may be jinxing it. Well, God has blessed us so far. The point is, humans have survived centuries without washing everything every moment. It is nevertheless good to know, the clothing pile does have an end.