At what age should a child start ironing?

[Boogers]

H and I had a big argument last night about the things that DS(12) can and can't do. I said DS should be learning how to iron by now, to which H strongly disagreed.

I remember ironing my dad's hankerchiefs when I was about 7 or 8, and when I was about 12 or 13 I was ironing my school uniform on a Sunday evening (in autumn it was 5 shirts, 3 box pleated skirts, 1 blazer, in summer it was 5 dresses and 1 blazer).

DS had no issues with co-ordination or ability to sense hot and cold, there is no reason why he can't learn to use an iron. H says that he and his brother never ironed when they were younger (his brother is 40 and has never ironed in his life; his parents, my in-laws, do it all for him).

Who is being unreasonable here, me or H? Should I encourage DS to learn how to iron?

I read until page 4, didn't get chance to post again for a while and when I next looked it was up to 17 pages! I really didn't mean to start a bunfight, honest!

:o

Well as we are back to school and work tomorrow after the Easter holidays, I'll look with real enjoyment at my DSs wardrobe full of neatly ironed school shirts and trousers all lined up for the week ahead and mine and DHs work stuff all neatly ironed and hanging ready to wear.

We don't live with a huge pile of clothes hanging about contrary to what someone said earlier. The clothes get washed dried ironed and put away - usually within 24 hours. We are lucky to have a utility room where there is room for the ironing board to stay up permanently.

I'm my dream house I have an ironing room like that!

DH loves it! We used to have a teeny tiny one but we converted a bit at the back of the garage so we could get a proper one.

I love my pulley:

www.castinstyle.co.uk/product.php/1283/seven-lath-gismo-kitchen-maid-reg-clothes-dryer/180083213b149ebb65d001bc6daf42ae

I want a pulley like yours! I went to one of DD's friend's houses a while back and they had a pulley like that above the aga. I was instantly jealous that a) they had an aga and b) their clothes didn't smell of cooking smells considering where they'd been dried! Our clothes would stink if I dried them above our hob!

ha ha - ours is above the sink in the utility room so it doesn't get any cooking smells, the boiler is in there too so I can dry a whole load overnight on it. I luffs it. I put a load on most days when I get in from work and then hang it up (and take previous load down) it dries overnight and DH irons it after tea each night (about 10 minutes) and we all take our pile upstairs to put away when we go to bed. I do one load of white shirts (that's just the boys) on a Friday night and they iron them on Saturday and put them away. The only time we have a backlog is when we've been on holiday - we just have to power through it all to get caught up again.

Oh well.

I shall continue to iron my t-shirts and jeans, skirts and dresses and all the rest of my normal outerwear. Also my bedding. And shirts.

And so will my DH.

When I moved house a few years ago my DS, then 10, said, 'what's that?'
It was an ironing board.

I am a slut. But a clean one, albeit slightly crumpled.