To ask what you actually do if

Truly, don't see how. Wear natural fabrics like cotton and linen? They need an iron.

Ironing - the clothes are creased. that’s it.

My sheets are not ironed.

I waft about looking attractive and aloof. I wear only kaftans. I cook 30 minute brownies is under 20. I eat them on my porch while building scale models of suspension bridges. I participate in full contact competitive tiddly winks. I read the classics. I have been known to devour War and Peace, A Tale of Two Cities and Anna Karenina in one afternoon. I make long, passionate, sensual love. I don’t drive, I am driven. I intoxicate men with my professional level French Horn playing, they frequently swoon at my garden party recitals. I breed prize-winning chinchillas.

I love cooking and driving and do basic “clean as I go”-type cleaning. But I don’t iron or do proper cleaning- I pay my cleaner to come in twice a week for that.

I don’t really understand the question about contribution. I don’t feel I need to justify my existence on earth or place in the family I have created by pointing to a pile of ironing and saying “I did that”. And while at the moment I make a huge practical contribution through the money I earn, running the house, etc, there may come a time when I can’t do these things, and I don’t feel at that point I’d be failing to contribute. I contribute myself.

There is an oddly puritan strain on MN sometimes- a sort of assumption that we’re all somehow in debt to the world and have to prove our right to be here through endless drudgery and moaning about drudgery. Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.

I hang things up straight out the dryer and that solves most of this problem.

I also don't really care if my pillowcases "look a mess" - no-one is going to see them except me and DH!

What proportion of your life do you spend doing those things that you can't possibly imagine what other useful contributions to their families people fill their time with?

I do all those things except ironing, but I probably average...idk, an hour max a day on them (my husband works part time so does more than me). I also work 9 hours a day and look after my kids for the vast majority of the rest of the time.

This!

Ilive alone and am retired. I do what I like

I don’t iron; we buy clothes that generally don’t need ironing. Maybe we get the iron out once or twice a year.
do have a cleaner for the big stuff but lots of day to day cleaner still needed (have toddlers).
cook, drive and tidy though.

plus work, looking after kids, everything else needed - laundry, shopping, life admin etc

Work. I work and ferry my children around. Repeat repeat repeat.

(I do drive though)

It only occurred to me to wash cushion covers when I had a newborn who kept being sick all over them!

Ironing is so outdated now, no one needs to iron anything anymore unless you’re one of the small minority of people who still wears crisp shirts to work or something. No one gives a shiny shit if you wear a top / dress that’s been ironed or not. (Yes I can hear my Mums voice in my head “but I care!”) but honestly society has changed so much now people care so much less about peoples opinions about what they wear. I haven’t ironed anything in about 10 years since I stopped wearing shirts for work.

I do cook and drive because I like to eat nice things and go to remote places but other than that I do as little as I can. I spent years trying to keep a super clean home and then I suddenly thought why? As long as it’s not a health hazard and looks okay I’d rather spend time doing what I want to do - Mumsnet, reading, watching crap on Tv, going for walks, etc.

I wear mostly 100% cotton clothing and never iron anything! I don't think I look like a wrinkled mess?

Haven't ironed since mid uni. Just hard shake the clothes before putting on the airer or hang dresses when still wet and there's no need. I do all the rest

I have never agreed with anything on Mumsnet more!

I iron only if I need to. If something is too creased to wear. Happens about 4 times a year. My family's clothes just....don't crinkle 😂

I could list all the things I do that aren't cooking and cleaning but it's early and I can't be bothered. But there's so many other things involved in raising a family and running a household than cooking and cleaning.

I’m too busy doing my OnlyFans.
I don’t really need to iron for that.

I do cook, because I really prefer my own cooking. I don't really do the others

I have a cleaner who cleans and tidies

We don't have a car so no one in our household drives - we walk, cycle and use public transport

I just don't wear clothes that get too wrinkled

What do I do? I have this new fangled thing women can have these days - a job.

I have children who I spend time with. I read books, I go to the theatre, I volunteer.. I have yet to get bored enough to iron

I drive.

I don't do any of the others, except tidy as I go.

My husband cooks.

We have a cleaner who also does a bit of ironing.

Still irrelevant for most people.

There's always one

To save me from ironing in a moment of weakness, I don’t own an iron. It’s the safest way.

I wish I had told my Chief Wren at wrns basic training that. The heat and light of her explosion would have light Cornwall up for years!

What a peculiar question. Are you a man?

I work, tidy and cook. Mainly work. I iron very rarely and definitely not sheets!