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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to flatly refuse to do MIL's laundry when she comes to stay.

422 replies

Sunnydelight · 30/08/2012 07:58

I really need to know.

Last time MIL came to stay for a month (we're in Oz) it all turned toxic, but one of my issues was her insistence that I should do her laundry. She must be the only grandmother to three who ever got off a plane from the UK with her arms hanging, and spent a total of $20 in a month. Fine, I can live with that BUT when she kept on saying "I'll just give you my laundry" and I kept on saying "no, you need to do your own washing, here is the washing machine and this is how it works" it just drove me nuts. She eventually mixed her laundry with ours so I had no choice but I really think that adult women should not expect other adult women to wash their smalls.

She's coming again at Christmas AHHHHHHHH for a month which was forced on me but I can live with it. DH and I had a conversation last night about us having to be more upfront this time about what kind of behaviour is unacceptable, but as part of it he casually mentioned "we'll tell her we'll do her laundry and she needs to....". First of all what's this "we" shit as clearly that will be me, but I DO NOT WANT TO WASH HER CLOTHES and said so. When I explained how wrong it was for a woman who has had her own family to expect another adult woman (who she does not "employ" and she is not related to) to do her laundry I got the "that's your cultural expectations" line. I'm Irish btw so nothing massively exotic to her French. I'm not doing her fucking laundry so AIBU?

OP posts:
2rebecca · 30/08/2012 22:52

"There be fanny batter in pants"
You don't have to eat them!
Just pick them up presumably in a large bundle with other stuff, or by the waistband if only washing pants, put them in washing machine then wash your hands.
Alternately say "if you put any coloured 30 degree wash stuff you have in the machine I'll put it on in half an hour and can show you how to do it so you know how to work the machine and where the instruction book lives"

NellyJob · 30/08/2012 23:01

girls do their own laundry from the earliest indications of the approach of puberty. after that, no other woman washes for them. they do their own, and discreetly
un fucking believable....
and boys with their spermy jim jams?
what about them?

DuelingFanjo · 30/08/2012 23:03

"DuellIng presumably if you each wait to fill a load with your own stuff your laundry turnaround time is slower than if you washed together?"

It's fast enough for me, who cares about a fast laundry turnaround? I have oter clothes I can wear while the laundry is being done and anyway, not really as I put towels and my 20 month old son's stuff in with mine. If anything my workload is lighter now I am not doing laundry for a grown man. He's lucky I pick it up and put it in one place for him (we have a laundry basket ting with two bags, his go in the left and mine go in the right - there's very little 'sorting'.

I will teach my son to do his own laundry when he is old enough, and take responsibility for his ironing and folding.

what I don't get is why people think the OP should do it when

a. her dh is perfectly capable of taking on the extra workload
b. Her MIL is capable too.

Why is this atomatically supposed to fall to the OP?

seeker · 30/08/2012 23:08

."seeker, you do harp on. i told you what, i told you why, i told you what boys do. now, any further discussion, you need to have with someone else because laundry really doesn't interest me."

But you haven't. And you haven't said why a girl would have to do her washing "discreetly"

MadgeHarvey · 30/08/2012 23:12

This bit -

girls do their own laundry from the earliest indications of the approach of puberty. after that, no other woman washes for them. they do their own, and discreetly

sounds like it was lifted from the holy texts of some fucking weird religion! What - seriously - what the actual fuck mindset is behind that kind of fucked up thinking?

perfectstorm · 30/08/2012 23:15

what I don't get is why people think the OP should do it when

a. her dh is perfectly capable of taking on the extra workload
b. Her MIL is capable too.

Why is this atomatically supposed to fall to the OP?

Completely agree.

And lovebunny, sorry but your phrasing was all about girls and women. It didn't sound at all as though laundry affected boys in any way. Seeker isn't "going on" in pointing that out, she's just questioning your posts - which is how a debate works, surely? No need to get personal.

lotsofcheese · 30/08/2012 23:16

I think the OP has painted a picture of a "difficult" mil.

I would NEVER expect someone to do my laundry, cook meals etc if I was staying with them. Especially for a month. I would be horrified if I was expected to put up with that in my own home too.

When I stay with friends, I take a gift, pitch in with cooking etc, strip the bed & put on laundry before leaving. I was not bought up to be a "guest"

WorraLiberty · 30/08/2012 23:20

I don't know what some of you think is actually IN your knickers - or anyone else's? What do you think is there? Jizz? Hypersexual ectoplasm? Baton wielding pubic hairs? What?

Madge I think I've just soiled myself laughing at this....be a love and get the Daz would you? Blush

MadgeHarvey · 30/08/2012 23:22

Bless you worra ! I do not doubt the Godly cleanliness and fragrance of your smalls for a second and would bd happy to wash them for you!!

99luftballoon · 30/08/2012 23:24

I would do a guest's laundry but if MIL has caused you that much grief, I wouldn't let her stay in the first place

chipmonkey · 30/08/2012 23:46

Wow, this is an "only on Mumsnet" thread!Grin

You have sectarianism and hypersexual ectoplasm all in one place!Grin

Here, we do whites, lights, brights and darks. For everyone. Apart from when my Mum comes and just bungs everything in together at 60 degrees. But that's OK as she loves her grandchildren and will mind them for nothing.

Nanny0gg · 31/08/2012 00:25

Thanks Worra. I need a new keyboard now!

I am absolutely bemused at the thought of all these separate washloads. I am anal about laundry and am the only person allowed to do it in my house as I sort the clothes properly. However, my children did their own ironing and put it away, and either my DH or I do the ironing now, depending on who wants to watch something on the TV at the time.

All those who find it demeaning to do a 'grown man's laundry' (really??), do you find it demeaning to cook for him? Dust and hoover around his side of the bed?

What on earth is demeaning about washing clothes?

Nanny0gg · 31/08/2012 00:27

Oh, and where two DCs had similar items of clothing, I just marked the labels of one of them so that I knew whose was whose. Otherwise the washing machine would have been on for one t-shirt.

Alibabaandthe40nappies · 31/08/2012 01:31

The laundry weirdness on this thread is unbelievable! Where do some of you get your bonkers ideas from?

iMoniker · 31/08/2012 02:24

I wouldn't mind general laundry, but I"d draw the line at smalls.

The thought of somebody elses knickers just grosses me out. What if they dont use a panty liner, or if they aren't scrupulous with their wiping after a poo. Or even worse if they had the runs....

EWWWWWW!!!

Blu · 31/08/2012 06:01

Lovebunny - are you referring to 'the basin'? I read a play by a Caribbean writer about the currency of the basin, given to girls at puberty, in which to wash their underwear. Her interpretation was very much that it was to keep discreet / secret / apart the garments of a menstruating girl, and was a strong symbol of shame around menstruation. I have no idea whether this is an outdated or current practice, or how widespread - certainly all the actresses involved responded with a strong sense of recognition.

There is a sense in parts of this thread of 'a woman's pants? eeugh' and 'an old woman's pants? even eeeeugh-er'.

I can see why the OP focusses on washing as the sticking point in a very difficult relationship, the whole thing is steeped in issues of status, gender, territory, body issues.

But it's the 21stC. We have washing machines, freedom from traditional gender boundaries, biollogical washing powder...

No-one likes being presumed upon or being treated like a servant - it's the relationship and the communication that is at issue, not the pants!

(my DSis and BIL lived with me for 2 years - I will admit to feeling unrelaxed about my BIL gathering washing from my laundry basket whenever he put a wash on...)

HecateHarshPants · 31/08/2012 06:25

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by Mumsnet for breaking our Talk Guidelines. Replies may also be deleted.

arthurfowlersallotment · 31/08/2012 06:26

:o

arthurfowlersallotment · 31/08/2012 06:27

No! I mean Shock]
FFS

HecateHarshPants · 31/08/2012 06:30

And she started a thread about me. I am actually in tears here.

Spuddybean · 31/08/2012 06:38

oh dear Hecate. I just read the other thread she started and it seemed like someone was trolling you. But if that's what you said (and i have no reason to doubt it) then i don't see how you were being bitchy. You said she wasn't being unreasonable.

Try not to be upset. These things upset me too. Maybe the poster just totally misunderstood and after feeling fragile from this thread felt a bit pursued. I never PM people for this reason :(

Hope you feel better. :)

Wigglewoo · 31/08/2012 06:44

Fuck it, I'll do the bloody woman's laundry and shitty kegs. Post them to me. :)

Its such a shame a thread about laundry has gone this way. Only on mumsnet!!

squeakytoy · 31/08/2012 06:56

Well after the way OP has reacted to a supportive message from Hec, I am now 100% convinced that OP is more than a little unstable, and unreasonable, and even more sorry for the MIL if her DIL flys off the handle so easily and is so unwelcoming.

hairytale · 31/08/2012 06:58

"I genuinely don't understand married couples each doing their own washing. Is it really that horrific a job...I am assuming you're not having to take it down to the river. Washing v doing the bins - no contest..."

Which is fine if you haven't got one lazy bastard who "forgets" or doesn't care and one more efficient person. I often bung some of DPs stuff in the machine if there's space and it's to hand and not dumped at his side of the bed.

Sod doing other grown up people's laundry for a game of soldiers though.

exoticfruits · 31/08/2012 06:58

I think that this thread just needs a line drawn under it. It seems an amazing fuss about nothing. Next time I have people to stay and say 'Have you any washing you would like done?' - I will think back to this peculiar thread where people only wash their own and girls have to wash their own knickers from the age of about ten!