Am thinking about culling DS (17)'s ridiculously vast collection of clothes

[duchesse]

He's supposed to be doing his own washing. Yesterday other day, not being able to bear the smell emanating from his room any longer, I investigated and found 4 7kg machine-loads of dirty clothing lying around his room. He's been wearing mismatched socks for months because half of all his pairs of socks were lying festering under furniture.

He was lucky enough to be given three large binbags of outgrown clothes by a friend's son a year ago and he barely ever has to do any washing. I think that subtly removing clothes until he has a manageable amount might be the solution.

How many clothes do think it is reasonable for a boy to have? How much did/do your sons have at that age? AIBU to cull them without really telling him (can guarantee he won't notice).

My son is 17 and I do his washing why wouldn't I? I also iron his clothes. He clears up after himself as he is a very tidy person.

His older brother 23, at 17 was totally different and left everything on the bedroom floor, so when I was doing washing I would go and scoop it up and wash it.

I taught him to iron at 18.

For me when a child reaches 18 they should do things for themselves before that they are still children.

That's just me.

Let's just say that I disagree that children are children until they're 18 and then suddenly become adults, fabby. I believe that childhood is a long process towards adulthood. All three of my older children help around the house with allotted chores and all cook supper for the entire family once a week. Why wouldn't they, since they are perfectly able to?

My son will probably leave home in the next few months, certainly within a year (depending on what he does in his gap year) and at the moment I doubt his ability to look after himself, despite years of training. Looking like he may have to learn on the job so to speak.

Would you like it if he culled your clothes...??
If they are his then leave them...

My feeling is that it would be off to do it without him knowing - really you don't know what he might be attached to.

But you would def nbu to 'spring clean' and demand he spend the weekend sorting out clothes to charity shop, along with everyone else in the house making donations.

I don't think you should throw out things that belong to him, on principle. It's reasonable to insist that he washes clothes often enough to stop his room from stinking, whether that means him doing them himself, or him putting them in the washing basket, depending how you want to approach it.

As to whether he can manage on his own when he moves out, well, that'll be his problem won't it! I think most people suddenly start understanding about domestic stuff when they have to deal with it 100% themselves.

I wouldnt throw them out, but I might be tempted to get some of those vacuum storage bags and "capsule" his wardrobe...

Dropdead- I know what you're saying but we are talking about roughly 30 t shirts, a dozen jumpers, probably 6-7 hoodies, about 10 long-sleeved tops, about 15 pairs of trousers, four pairs of swimming shorts, about 20 pairs of socks, and about 4x more RAF cadet uniform than he needs.

How you would feel if your son took it upon himself to start throwing out your clothes?

His clothes, leave them!

My sons 17, I still do his washing as I would for anyoneone living in the house regardless of age, it makes life easier for me, but he does know how to use the machine and will do a load if asked.

I dont do his ironing though, he does that himself and has done sice he was 14 same as his older sisters when they were here and the same will happen with his younger sister when she's 14.

Son puts his washing in the basket most days without being asked and tidies his room once a week

Ah, also about 25 flipping smart/school shirts (he has to to wear smart business wear to school and that seems to include a load of manky ordinary white school shirts from when he was in uniform 2 years ago).

I think either he is in charge of his own washing and clothes, or he isn't. You can't have it both ways.

I do my son's (18) washing and ironing because I'm a control freak and know it'd drive me mad to see his clothes thrown around his room. But during the week when he is away in college I don't care what way he lives, cos I don't have to see it.

So I think it would be unreasonable to interfere with his clothes without his permission.

But why can't he sort them? Giving him a timeline is perfectly fair or it just won't get done, but it is not up to you to decide which ten of his 30 tees are worth keeping, it's up to him.

Duchesse I do this from time to time.If ds hasn't worn something for ages and it is lying about I throw it in teh bin.Otherwise he would be living in permanent chaos

Why would you expect your 17 year old DS to do his own laundry? Keep his room tidy, yes, and put his dirty laundry, right side out, in a laundry basket, yes, but I think you are being very mean and unreasonable to expect him to take care of the whole thing.

All he is "learning" right now is to live in a pigsty.

I think I am going to start showing ds that the washing machine isn't a magic space ship tbh.They do need to learn.I am laundry monitor in this house and it does get wearing

I'm so surprised at the responses that its unreasonable to expect 17 to do his own laundry. We had to put it into the laundry basket then week by week it was a different family members turn to put the wash on etc. Same with ironing.

My brother was 17 (summer birthday) when he went on his gap year.

IMO, if you keep your teens' bedrooms clean, they get used to a certain standard of hygiene and do not like it when their living conditions get really horrid.

If you let teens' bedrooms fester for years, you get them used to that level of grot and it is much, much harder to get them back on track!

He'll run out of clothes eventually though! Then he'll have to do his own washing (or bring it to you all sorted into colours/loads and you do it).

maryz Half an hour to process 6 loads of laundry should be enough, surely? Who'd have em??

I had to do my own ironing from the age of 10, but didn't do my own washing until I moved out.

Instead of throwing away a load of his clothes without warning, why not say that you'd like him to sort out and give some clothes to a charity shop over the weekend, and if he doesn't you'll go through it on Monday when he is at school/college/work and give some away yourself.

They move out and take their disgusting habits with them - to their shared lodgings or their girlfriend. I get really cross with mothers who let their teens live in a slobby mess on the false pretext that they are teaching them independence. Ha ha ha. Just lazy mothers.

And then you get half of MN complaining about their slobby DHs...

bonsoir- my son is always ultra-grateful to me when I clean his room. He loves having it clean, just can't quite work out how to do it. Ee, when I were his age we was made to do stuff and we just worked it out. So I agree with those who say that he will learn when he has to. Just a shame that's at 18 rather than 14. Seriously, there was a whole eco-system under his bed...

And frankly I feel it would be a lot less lazy of me to do it for him. Frankly I'd rather his room were clean and I'd rather do it for him, but he would learn nothing from that except to rely on a woman to keep his things in order. And as I point out to him fairly regularly, no woman is going to want to wash his socks for him.