Miss 10 displaying the clothes-folding ability of the typical 10 year old (Tweenus Non-domesticus)
Some years ago I heard that the recipe for a well-adjusted family was to have four children, and one bathroom. They would all learn to share, and to have the occasional cold shower.
The one bathroom, shared bedroom, home that was part of the domestic landscape before our time has largely disappeared in favour of ensuite bathrooms and one bedroom per child; and so too have the times when children would have to wait days, not hours, for their favourite top to be washed. Before our time most families did not have tumble dryers, they had to line-dry all laundry, no matter the weather, and children could not expect to have the jeans they got muddy at the park today ready for a play-date tomorrow.
The most often lauded benefits of unplugging your clothes dryer is the effect on your hip pocket and the effect on the environment. However it is the effect on your family which may have lasting consequences.
Last Winter I went dryer-free. Seeing the laundry hung all over the house, waiting for days to dry, brought the sheer volume of washing in the home into perspective and family members realised that if they wanted to wear a specific pair of jeans on the weekend, or have gym clothes ready for Friday they would have to plan ahead.
Conversation during the dryer-free period:
Miss 10: Mum, I don’t have any tights to wear to school.
Me: Have you looked in your drawer?
Miss 10: Yes, and I need them NOW.
Me: Well there’s one pair on the line, but they’re still wet. You have another pair somewhere in your room.
Miss 10: I can’t find them, could you put my tights in the dryer?
Me: We don’t use the dryer anymore. If you can’t find your other tights you’ll have to wear socks
Miss 10: [unrepeatable sentences involving tantrum like movements, stomping and huffing] I can’t wear socks, it’s too cold.
Me: Well you’ll have to look harder for your tights.
Miss 10 went to school wearing socks. I later find the tights in her drawer.
Old me would’ve put the wet tights in the dryer ‘to save trouble’. New me is tougher, more resilient. Miss 10 knows that the consequence of not planning ahead or bothering to look for her tights means her legs will get cold.
Have you experienced similar unexpected benefits of approaching household chores in an old-time manner?
5 comments:
Thankfully, I do not have to use a boiler or copper to wash my clothes, I can use my watersaver top loader. No wonder they had to wait days for clothes! My ex had the skin ripped from his shoulder to his wrist having his am caught in a mangle when he was but a boy. Bugger that, too.
I wash when I have a full load. I am trying to get the rest of the family into the habit, but I had always been a 'if there is washing there, wash it, even it's a small load' person, so getting them out of that habit has been hard, as they have to wait for the item of choice to be cleaned.
Hubby has run out of work shirts several times since I started this - because he leaves them at work (soiled) then brings them home, usually the day after I have washed.
He is learning to put the washer on himself, or wait... (evil grin).
I always line dry. Always, and in rain, use the airer. I once knew someone who said she she would NEVER line dry as she hated the idea of spiders hiding in the pegs.
Nothing smells better than air dried, sun kissed washing :)
So, my reply turned into a post of it's own. Sorry!
When I was in boarding school, we had to handwash all our clothing (at least until I was in Year 11 when we moved into the 20th century and got some washing machines). This meant I became very discriminating about exactly how dirty a piece of clothing could get before it needed to be washed. Slight spill on a school jumper? Sponge it off. It's too easy for kids to wear something for five minutes and then toss it in the washing basket.
My children all wanted to share the same room and ended up in bunk beds. At aroung 15 the eldest asked if he could have his own room back and spent sometime deciding on how he wanted to decorate it then just never bothered, he prefered to stay on his top bunk.
And as for washing, I do try to wait for a "good drying" day so that everything can be line dried. When the children were tiny and I didn't have a dryer to resort to during the winter I had a rather horrid drying rack.
Who knew line-drying could reap should benefits in the parenting department. I may have to go all-in.
Oh Fairlie, I remember the "sink rinse" method well. There were four of us and my mother did not cater to individual fashion needs.
Hello girls ... being one of four who grew up in a single bathroomed house and only three bedrooms I can attest to the power of the learning curve involved ...
I shared a room with my brother, then a sister until I was 13 years ...
I now have my boys sharing a room and have done from the day the second born moved out of our room and into his own cot.
I can still remember the imaginary line down the middle of the room and 'my stuff' on my side and my sis with 'her stuff' on the other side ....
As for bathrooms - we still only have one - and a second rate one at that with the loo in there too - oh what I would give for my own bathroon - not one to share with MIC - but just mine .... too many penises in my house and not enough porcelain bowls ... that is being to sound like a country and western song ... hmmmm le xo
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