Were you taught to use a washing machine

[Justreadingtheforum3]

Please settle this argument between my husband and me.

Were you taught/shown to use a washing properly as a child? On how to not overload it, setting, temperature etc?

He said "no child in the history of the world has been taught to use a washing machine" his exact words.

I said its basic life skills.

Yabu = no I wasnt taught
Yanbu = yes I was taught

Ps he does use the washing machine and regularly washes. It's not a husband bashing thread.

Which is why I cannot understand why, when she comes to stay with me, she chucks every single item of clothing in the machine together and puts it all on the hottest and fastest cycle she can find.

Mine taught me how to hang clothes properly, but then hangs my bathing suits with a peg right in the middle of the bottom where they leave a nasty mark.
It's as if they do it on purpose.

@YellowScallion

You need to know about separating colours and materials (like wool, silk), when to do hot washes and cold washes etc.

I suspect people who think there is a lot of knowledge that needs teaching have far more laundry rules than I do. I've never owned anything silk in my life. All clothes get washed at 40

This

My machine has loads of settings and you can change the temperature or spin speed.

I use "mixed fabrics" for everything which is automatically 40 °The only thing I change is to press the quicker wash button if I haven't quite got a full load.
Never had any clothes shrunk or ruined.

It think I was about 12? Maybe younger and I told my mother I wanted to wash something specific and she showed me how to use the machine. After that, it was expected I did my own washing.

Not actually taught, but we all picked it up.
I was doing the family's ironing from about age 12.
Funnily enough I still enjoy washing and ironing 50 odd years later.
My sister taught her children to use the washing machine from a very early age. Not sure about my brother's family, although he is very domesticated.

I don't think I was taught as such but I watched my parents so I knew pretty much what to do.

@knittingaddict

Thinking about it, I'm sure we learnt the secrets of clothing labels and sorting washing at school during home economics classes. I feel old now.

I vaguely remember a bit of that but I took 'Needlework' as an option, I even think there was a section on washing symbols but I don't think I would pass the test now. You can't really go wrong with modern appliances that wash at low temperatures. I have also noticed how few things colour run now, even when you would expect them to.

I need to do this with DD, as our machine has different weights for different settings etc. And she's not the most practical.
We used a launderette when I was a young child, as we couldn't afford a machine, so I watched Mum do the laundry. I had to do my own washing when I started at secondary school, my mum showed me how to use the machine and not to mix colours. Clothes label washing instructions were on the side of the washing powder packets then.

I mean there's not a lot to it but I learned at about 12 the basics of sorting whites/colours, not overloading it, general principle of washing woollens/ delicates at a cooler setting and general stuff generally at 40

Depends what you mean by taught.

As a teenager I was put in charge of day-to-day washing so I knew that usual wash was "H" then "D". Whites were "B" and towels were "C" then "D". Still firmly in my memory 25 years later!

It was only when I went to uni I had to deduce the whole temperature and what to wash with what by looking at labels and reading the manual every now and then.

Now I would need guidance in a launderette. I would not have a clue. Don’t know what the etiquette is or how long things take.

I can't say I was specifically taught, as such. I guess it's a bit common sense, a bit watching your parents and a bit trial and error when you have your independence.

I've kind of taught my own kids. I'll ask them (youngest is 9) to put the powder and conditioner in while I'm doing another task and they'll hold up the cup and ask , "Is this enough?". I'll tell them which setting and to press the start/pause button etc.

What I will not accept though is a husband who will not do laundry using the excuse of he doesn't know how to work a washer. It's surprising how many men like this there are. Men fully capable of holding down a job, running an office, building a house etc but household chores are beyond their ken?

@CreaturefromtheDeep you must be a much more generous person than me - after more than one incident of that kind I’d be thinking it had to be deliberate. I’d be furious at having my beautiful things ruined. I’d be telling her in no uncertain terms not to touch my things!

My mum washes everything together on the hottest fastest cycle she can find. Everything was always bobbly or grey. I definitely needed to "learn to wash" when I left home!

When my mum decided it was time for me to do my own washing, she showed me where to put the powder and how much, how much washing to put in, how to separate the colours, and which setting to use. Also how to hang them out to dry to ensure they do actually dry (unlike my stepson does here, he literally takes them out of the wash and puts them - still wet - in a pile on his bedroom floor again).

So yeah.

If people aren't taught, how are they supposed to know?

I vaguely remember my mum trying to show teenage me but I was pretty disinterested.

Separating whites from colours is just one of those things you pick up passively as you grow up. Emptying pockets is one you get told off for not doing when a tissue ends up distributed through the clean clothes. Most other things are either self-explanatory, can be Googled, or are learned the hard way.

Never was taught how to use Washing machine but honestly I wasn't really taught anything. Just learned on my own and from i observation. I was the last of 4 so they were done teaching things by the time I came around lol

Not taught mine beyond mentioning washing batches depending on colour. Most machines nowadays are common sense.

I could use one as a child but it wasn’t done as a life skill but to offload a job from the adults.

I was taught as I helped mum with it- but that was back in the mists of time when the wash took all day once a week. Big drum with an agitator filled from the hot tap via a hose, 'Tide' in, then agitated for 20 mins, then lifted out with a pair of wooden tongs to be fed through the electric mangle, being shown which plate you had to hit hard to make it spring open if you got any part of yourself trapped in it!

Washing was wrung into a sink of cold water, the machine was drained via its internal pump (took ages), then it was refilled with cold clean water, you mangled the clothes back into it, it agitated the clothes again for 10 mins, then you either repeated the rinse cycle, or went straight to the stand-alone spin drier that you had to sit on to keep if from heading off across the kitchen, thence onto the rotary washing line.

It was a huge parlarva.

I taught my DSs how to use the automatic washing machine aged about 14-15.

I don't remember being taught but I would have asked my mum and she would have explained. When I got my first washing machine, I read the instructions and kept them near to it for frequent reference.

When it comes to washing "wisdom", like estimating or balancing a load or choosing between 3 different washes that would all do, I learned by experience and learned to guess confidently. My dh seems to think it's some kind of magical specialist skill and asks me so many questions whenever he puts a load on that my head spins. I try not to answer them.

I wasn't taught - but I have taught my 2 teenage boys. I consider it a basic part of life education for your children. I taught them, wrote instructions down and stuck them on a cupboard door. I also discussed the need to separate strong colours. (The eldest had that lesson reinforced the hard way at uni when the colour on a new hoodie run and turned a T shirt pink !)

Nope, I wasn’t. I left home and had a huge shock to the system having to learn how to do things like this for myself for the first time. I’d never even changed a duvet cover so had to learn how to do that too. I’ve subsequently taught my DC how to do things like this already and they’re only 8, 10 and 11.

Anthea Turner taught me how to wash clothes (and everything else I know about looking after my home).

Yes, I was. As were my five brothers (and conversely I was also taught how to use a petrol mower, change a car tyre, drain engine oil, swap spark plugs etc).

No I wasn’t taught until my ex showed me aged 19 and pregnant
My mate had to show me how to wash whites and colours
I taught mine what to do from about 5/6 (I didn’t make then do it!more ‘pass me that white tee not the coloured one,we don’t put anymore in as we will overload it’)
By the time they where about 12 they could put a load on/cook basic meal/make a cuppa etc
My partners kids are 18 and 13
They couldn’t make toast if you asked and I had to show the 18 year old how to use a kettle/turn the oven on/how to put her clothes away etc
I taught mine young because one day they’d have to do it themselves-and they all do

I’d call it basic life skills

Never. My mum didn’t want us touching the washing machine because she was very frugal and thought we would do a wash before there was enough to fill the drum.

My housemate had to show me how to use a washing machine when I moved out for uni.

It was only when I started using cloth nappies that I learned how to dose the detergent and remove stains!