Laundry is not hard

Chlorine isn't an issue if the clothes are being thoroughly washed in warm water. There's no need to wash them separately.

It's sad that you've typed that up just to be a d*ck basically. There will be things you find difficult that others find easy but the rest of us aren't twisted and shove that in your face. P.s putting washing on the stairs is dangerous. Just take it up if you have sooo much time.

Because they are covered in chlorine and that wears the swimming things out quicker, not to mention swimming pools stink to high heaven and so I wouldn’t want to mix that with my underwear for example

Thank for reminding me to book the oven clean 😊

It's not physically hard like construction work or mentally challenging like neuroscience but it's endless, boring, unrewarding invisible work that requires daily drudge and mental planning so if it all falls to one person for a family then, yes, it's hard to carry that responsibility around for years on end.

This is a prank post for reactions right? Surely nobody is that bad at 'reading the room'?

It's not the washing, it's the drying part that's so tedious this time of year. We don't have a tumble dryer so I perpetually have two or three clothes airers up in the kitchen. I check for dryness and manage to skim off the odd dry sock from the outer layer now and then but the inner core stays damp for days. I run the dehumidifier and do rotations of wet clothes onto radiators but it's a lot of effort for not much reward. By the time I've freed up enough airer space to contemplate putting on another load, the basket is near to overflowing again. It's miserable!

I also take a survival of the fittest approach to laundry and cannot imagine why swimming stuff is obviously different.

I used to wash £60 racing jammers regularly (plus all the training jammers and towels required for 12 hours or training a week) and they were fine in with the normal wash.

I don’t agree that it’s only people making extra work by having 37 hue-based washing groups and washing bedsheets every day that find laundry arduous.

I have the most lax approach to laundry imaginable and still it’s bloody relentless.

Then there’s their swimming stuff (which obviously is a seperate load)

I have admitted upthread that I take a "survival of the fittest" approach to laundry, and rarely read laundry labels, but this is a new one to me? Why do they obviously need washing separately? (This admittedly coming from a woman who runs a bit of extra shower gel on hers and rinses them in the shower after swimming...)

Surely with kid's clothes, they grow out of them faster than they wear out from washing?

Well I have to do at least 2 loads a day. One of my aprons and towels for work, one with just my work tunic in.
then there’s my work trousers which need to go in separate because otherwise they will be out of shape.
my kids have PE two consecutive days a week, so that needs washing and they also produce one school uniform each 3 days a week. Then there’s their swimming stuff (which obviously is a seperate load) and then bedding every other week, towels every 2 days and things like that new shirt my husband decided to buy for work that’s brand new so needs washing alone the first few times.
There’s a lot more going on then the standard “I just wash once every 3 days” for me it’s 3-4 times a day every day.

My bed is two loads, daughter’s bed is a load. Our towels are a load. Dog towels are one load on an average week, two or three on a wet one.

I do one load of school uniform, one of PE kit/swim kit/gym kit, and two loads of regular clothes. Oh, and a whites wash.

That’s ten loads, changing bedding and washing towels once a week. What should I be skipping? This isn’t snark, it’s a genuine question! I don’t think we are ‘so dirty’ - we wear clothes for two days-ish. And I think once a week is reasonable for sheets and towels and sports kit, so I can’t see how I could do less?

I don’t think it takes an hour a day. Probably half an hour, if you include changing the beds, sorting the kits and packing them ready to go again and hanging uniforms etc. A load of dog towels that I just throw in a basket takes a few minutes. Stripping my bed and folding the stupid extra long king size duvet cover does not! half an hour is a significant chore if you work, have kids to connect with, supervise homework, ferry to activities and bloody dinner to make and clean up every bloody night between getting in at 6 and getting kids to bed by 9 and having a bit of downtime. What am I missing?

Do you have a full time job OP?

I have every laundry privilege going. Separate washer and dryer, laundry room upstairs, dedicated hanging space upstairs and out, folding space and I don’t mind laundry. It’s never-fucking-ending. There’s two humans and two dogs here and I do ten loads a week in winter. Folding and putting away is most of it, and takes a good twenty minutes. I do it while I’m on the phone. If it’s a chore you hate, you don’t have a great set up, a big family or a high needs child, it’s a significant chunk of time and faff.

You know what I really hate? Emptying the fucking dishwasher. Yes, I know it’s a five minute job. And they’re clean dishes. And the dishwasher does all the work. It’s easy. But I HATE it. So I put it off. And while I’m putting it off, dirty dishes accumulate and then loading the dishwasher is a whole other job, and not just done as you go. But I hate it so irrationally and so much. I can’t get past it. I make my teen do it, which takes even longer and is even harder.

Oh, and washing up water bottles. I’ll take laundry any day!

Sorry but you’re a dick.

What’s your point?! Congratulations to you.

doing anything with a toddler hanging off me crying it basically impossible but I’d never do 2-3 loads of washing a day. What a waste of energy and bad for the environment and bills! How are you all getting so dirty? I suppose dogs are dirty but even kids are that dirty… I’d perhaps look at your life and see how you can be cleaner 🤣

I feel lucky to have my auto washer and my tumble drier, my electric steam generator iron and detergent after I visited the Mansion house my mother in law worked in yesterday, in the late 1940’s/1955. it’s now part of the National Trust, part of the visit was to the kitchens and laundry room. Copper boilers, deep Belfast sinks, wash boards and poss sticks, huge hand operated mangles, a huge, huge chain driven mangle for sheets, flat irons heated up on hot plates, an iron heated via the mains gas supply, a linen press, wooden clothes maidens. Then I thought back to my own mum, doing the same but on a smaller scale, her face the day she bought a twin tub was a picture. The day she used a front loader was epic, she sat and watched it, terrified the door was going to burst open and flood the kitchen.

Just came to say that folding is absolutely NOT a 2 minute job.

I do my laundry once a fortnight and i own a twin tub but i live alone.
No piles of washing at my home.
Yes im bragging.😁

Just give them back to him inside out. He can wear them inside out and then when he pulls them off presumably they will be right way round the next time!

I think things like this are subjective because everyone has basic standards/systems that are their "default" and everyone assumes they have similar set ups so they asume everyone is starting from the same point in the process when they aren't. Also some people take each step separately so when you say "Washing takes 5 mins" they only include anything up to the point of getting the clothes into the machine whereas other people see "washing" as anything up to the clean clothes being returned to the wardrobe/drawer which takes longer than five minutes and is where the disconnect comes.

DD and I live in a small flat and have a sorter laundry basket that lives in the hall between our bedrooms. There's only the two of us (and just me on weeks when DD is with her dad) so we rarely need to do more than one load of each (lights/whites/darks/towels and sheets) per week.

When I come to do laundry all I have to do is take the relevent basket (lights/whites/darks) and put it in the machine. From collecting the basket to turning on the machine takes about a minute and a half due to the fact all of the sorting is pre done and the basket lives literally 15 steps away from the washing machine due to the size of our flat.

When it comes to drying it, we don't have a tumble dryer (no space) or outside space for a line so it all goes on an airer in the kitchen and all I have to do is take the clothes from the machine and immediately hang them on the airer, it takes 5/6 mins at most.

Putting away the clothes takes maybe 5-10 mins as we are mostly a folding family and I don't really iron so things go from the airer, folded into a basket and I tend to batch things so take all DDs t-shirts and fold them and then her bottoms etc so when she puts them away she just has to take the pile of tops and the pile of bottoms and put them into the drawer and then into the bedroom 15 steps away to be put away.

My sister on the other hand has three kids in a three floor townhouse ... Each child has their own laundry basket so on laundry day she collects each basket from the top floor, brings them to their utility room in the basement, sorts them all into L/D/W piles and puts the first load on which takes 10/15 minutes.

When the laundry is done they have a large garden so she hangs stuff out to dry as much as possible so has to put it in the basket, take it upstairs and outside and peg it all out ... If it's raining she has a dryer but puts as much as possible on airers in their conservatory so still has to take stuff out of the washer, sort it into"dryer/airer" piles, take the airer pile up the stairs, set up the airer and hang it all up which easily takes 20 mins.

When it's done she is an ironer and hangs lots of things so putting laundry away means she has to bring it in off the line where it's then split into "ironing pile" and "things to be taken to their rooms" and she has to split things into multiple baskets and then return the baskets to the rooms on the top floor, all of which takes about 20 minutes

So for me, all in, laundry (from dirty clothes to being back in the drawer) takes 20 active minutes -wash cycle not included - whereas for my sister it takes an hour, just because our individual circumstances are different not because either of us is faster/slower at the actual process and that's without taking into account the need to fit all of the active minutes into our schedules where we are out of the house 8am-8pm every day.

i suppose it depends if you have a full on career (and what type of career you have) or have illness or other responsibilities in your life apart from homemaking?

Wear jeans not west head 😂

That said when not working west head for 3 washes and jumpers 2 if not got hot. I think a muddy dog adds significantly to the washing tbh!

I do 2/4 loads a day but wear clean change of clothes every day as do my 2 teens and husband. I mainly do a lights and darks wash every day as don’t wash white uniform shirts and white bras with colours. I change 4 beds once a week and towels are used for a week. Change the tea towel and dishcloth daily. Oh and dog towels once a week. Soon mounts up I find!

I am pretty good at laundry, because I have absolute minimum standards, a tumble dryer (and a hot conservatory in summer), and a survival of the fittest approach to clothing choices. A capsule wardrobe also helps.

I have a BIT of sympathy with the OP's sentiment to be fair, because we are new parents, and people don't stop banging on about the laundry thing.

Yes, there's more items, but his stuff is all really small. Yes, he spits up, but it can be left until the next load to wash.