To not want MIL (or other relative) folding up our smalls?!

[BigGingerCat]

Yes, I realise this is not up there with "AIBU to not want my MIL to put her cigarette out on my baby's arm?" But I'm not sure if I'm peeved for no reason on this one, so turning it over to the Mumsnet jury!

I know she was only trying to help, and was probably trying to find something to do while I was out and she was very kindly watching baby DS. But I came back to find all the dried washing sorted out into piles: mine, DH's and baby's, all folded (even the underwear), and my DH's socks put into pairs and balled together. Lucky boy to have mummy on hand -I never bother to do this for him. Maybe I would have been less funny about it if it was just bedlinen or something but, I dunno, it felt a little intrusive.

This is not a gripe against MILs per se. Mine is generally lovely. I think I'd be funny about my mum or stepmum doing the same, and I certainly wouldn't start sorting laundry in a relative or good friend's house without asking if they wanted help. Is it then a question of boundaries and not automatically treating another woman's household as an extension of your own?

Didn't say anything of course as I know it is a v. minor point, but is anyone else a bit funny about this sort of thing???

[pommedeterre]

Helping with the washing as with anything else in someone else's house is a great help if you have asked or been asked. If you just do it of your own bat then it's rude and invasive. i would rather go without sleep and do my housework at night if I were that busy then have my MIL come in and do it.
Unfortunately her natural instinct is to pretend like I don't exist and act like 'woman of the house' at ours. Dh seems to have managed to sort it out to some degree and currently we are managing to kind of rub along.
I too hide washing from her and time washes before they visit so that none of our clothes (only dd's) are hanging out to dry. otherwise she goes in our wardrobe and I can't deal with that.

[pearlym]

YANBU - we had a nanny once who would take baby's dry washing off radiator and fold - one day came home and she was holding a thong of mone and said, " I took this off the radiator for you" Cringe! On hols FIL snuk his samlls into our wasing so i stuiffed in machine and then had to peg out and it felt really weird

[seeker]

I'm not "going into their laundry".

I'm putting it into the washing machine!!!!!!!

Hmm. I am a very popular "waiter-inner". I wonder if that's because everyone else just sits and reads a magazine and drinks tea!

I do only do this in friend's houses, by the way. I don't do it for Mrs-Smith-next-door.

I wonder how people who have cleaners feel. Is it OK for your social inferiors to touch your pants but not your equals?

[VajazzHands]

YANBU

And can I just say that besides any of my various leakages that could be found in a pair of my knickers...

You're likely to find some of DH's.

Now to all the MIL's who think its completly ok to go through your DiL's dirty pants.. are you really OK with that?

Also I hope the ones on the thread who admit to rummaging in the laundry bin know how most people feel about it.. will you continue to do it?

[seeker]

I just find the words used odd. Rummaging, ferreting, rooting.

Don;t you just chuck it into the machine? It's not as if the pants are being picked out and examined separately!

[gooseberrybushes]

How can you put someone's laundry into the machine without going into the laundry bin and pulling it all out?

Maybe it's because they all go out to work?

[VajazzHands]

Washing needs to be sorted, some people even (not me) have really nice expensive underwear that needs hand washing. Leave people to do their own washing unless asked. As has been mentioned sometimes you might actually be doing it wrong and messing up their clothes. Dh sweats like a horse all his arm pits have to be treated or they stain.. just throwing it in the wash wouldn't help. Also if its just throwing it in the wash and not that difficult.. why do it at all?

[seeker]

Nobody's answered my question about cleaners.

[AmandaCooper]

Fancyalittle I had exactly the same mad experience when we lived with MIL, she used to come into our room, go through all our stuff to find my dirty knickers and then handwash them! I started washing them the second I took them off, hiding them wet and then putting them in with the laundry once they dried.

Maybe I should have just said something but with all the hide and seek going on it seemed like it must be more than a simple misunderstanding that you could sort out by saying "I'm not comfortable".

She comes round our house and does all my housework now. I've given up caring.

[VajazzHands]

I woudln't give my pants to a cleaner to wash.. don't know anyone who does tbh.

And when I used to work as a house cleaner was never expected to wash parents laundry (maybe they were equally shy) although did sometimes wash (young) kids manky pants.

[pommedeterre]

Why would a cleaner be washing my pants? or in fact going anywhere near them? I amke sure all dirty ones are in the basket and any cleans one in my drawer. She then umm, cleans my house. Odd.
I agree with bumspoon further up - if you ask it's helping, if you don't it's not.

[VajazzHands]

Also seeker unless you are best mates with yor cleaner, a proffesional relationship is different from knowing someone personally dont you think?

I have let my doctor "rummage" round my cervix I sure as hell couldn't do it if I knew her out side of a professional setting!

[thumbwitch]

If I had a cleaner I still wouldn't be letting them near my laundry, unless I had already sorted it and still they wouldn't be getting near my underwear.

Seeker, if you are just picking up all the laundry and dumping it in the wash without sorting it then you are as bad as my MIL.

[wendylovesbob]

I can answer the cleaner question:

1. She is not my "social inferior" !!!
   

1. I am forever begging her not to put washing into the machine. I have no qualms about her 'rummaging' through my dirty pants, but I do object most strongly to her bunging everything in together and turning all my whites greyish or pinkish.

[bronze]

My cleaner cleaned. I never once asked her to do my washing. She was and is not my social inferior

[gooseberrybushes]

I've had live in staff. Do the family pants on Sunday. Also always clean the loos myself. Nobody's job but ours to clean up intimate stuff and poo.

[ceres]

it would never occur to me to be upset by either my mum or mil helping out.

i am just thinking of all the help we get - fil was here last weekend cutting the lawn, mil regularly helps with gardening, both my mum and mil will fold clothes or iron if there is obviously stacks to do, my mum often cooks for us.

both dh and i are capable adults. we also help our parents out when needed. however both sets of parents are retired so they have more free time and so it tends to be them helping us more then the other way round.

i've always been grateful and thought us lucky to have such a lovely family.

[gooseberrybushes]

Yes, I must admit I think it is very weird to go into other people's dirty laundry in other people's houses and wash it.

Either you sort it, in which case POR FAVOR get out of there

or you don't, in which case you could wreck stuff

different, different worlds.

[gooseberrybushes]

Dear me.. we're having to turn this into a class argument now are we.

Honestly. You want to rummage in the pants of others, I think it's......unusual.

[thumbwitch]

herbie - another question - if you see bras and knickers as just another piece of clothing, same as t-shirts and jeans, would you buy them from a charity shop? (assuming you would buy anything from a charity shop of course)

[exoticfruits]

I think people should swap their MIL-the poor woman can't do right! Some people moan because they arrive, expect to be waited on and do nothing and others moan because they get stuck in and help!
I didn't realise so many people were precious about their washing- it just gets pegged on my line. Does this mean that your DCs can't help?

[gooseberrybushes]

Exotic, stop trying to make this into a thing about poor mils, or being precious. Basically, it's not normal to rummage around in other people's pants. Whatever construction you might like to put on it, that it's unkind to mils, or an indicator of snobbery, basically, it's just not normal.

[fifi25]

yabu-if i was in someones house watching their child and got bored i would probably end up washing the benches and folding the washing thinking i was doing them a favour. I would appreciate it if someone done it for me

[fifi25]

p.s did the op not say her mil folded the clean washing. She didnt come in and find her mil wearing her thong, she come in and found clean washing folded in a pile