15 shirts a week

[theonlygirl]

DS2 starts big school in September, meaning there will be 15 shirts in the laundry each week. DH 5, DS1 5, DS2 5.
no issue washing and drying them but it will be a cold day in hell before I stand ironing their shirts. I don't use a tumbledryer so they all definitely need ironing.

Option 1 - make them iron their own.
Option 2 - drycleaners

Curious to know what others do

I think its a bit off to insist the children iron it themselves if the parent can't be bothered. What if the child can't be bothered. Then they might be happy to have a wrinkly shirt.

Funnily enough, I was just saying to DC, who starts senior school this year, that we'll have to give lessons in how to safely use the iron.

I should have gone through this earlier but I don't iron anything. It's all line-dried and hung away ASAP.
Hoping I can find non-crease shirts (but the uniform is quite specific).

My grandson is starting Reception in September. He tells everyone he’s going to ‘big school’ and that he’s currently in ‘pre school’. 😂

Big school is a childish way of saying primary to most, easy way of explaining it to pre schoolers getting them ready for ‘big school’. So I can see why a few people are confused.

Loving or hating something that needs to be done for your child is neither here nor there!

And this isn’t about teaching them responsibilities either - the youngest is 11 FGS. They can learn household responsibilities in other ways!

Just be a decent mum for goodness sake (and yes their dad should be a decent dad too, but I’m assuming OP is a woman!)

Some of us believe it's our moral responsibility as a parent to equip our children with the skills they need to be functioning adults, and to not grow up to be lazy incompetent adults who expect someone else to do everything for them.

11 is a great age to start learning how to complete basic self care and food prep tasks. In 7 years they will be an adult.

It's a relatively recent phenomen that it's seen as 'cruel' or 'lazy parenting' if there is an expectation for children to do household tasks.

Another who would interpret 'big school' to mean starting primary!

Feeling sad for all the 11 year olds out there doing their own laundry, I didn't know it was a thing until I read it on here.

And it's so obvious at school which kids don't have their uniforms cared for properly at home, grey shirts which should be white, funny shaped skirts where the pleats have either been tumble dried out or not ironed, etc.

But I never ironed school shirts, i bought m and s ultimate non iron ones. Even for my DDs' bespoke school shirts I just hung them on hangers to dry. They were so synthetic there were no creases!

Following for this. I don't iron and DD starts school September.

I have 2 DC (12 and 15) at secondary = 10 shirts/week (DH mainly wears polo shirts which sometimes don't need ironing, or he occassionally irons his own. )
I either do them all on a Sunday evening or (not ideal) at 7.30am the day they're going to wear them. I don't mind ironing shirts, I hate ironing the school skirt which is pleated but thankfully one skirt usually lasts a week (awaits lots of appalled posters from the smelly people thread!!)

I iron the odd item maybe once every few months? M&S non iron shirts for the kids, give them a good shake when still a bit damp and put on a hanger to dry, absolutely no need to iron. And minus definitely dont have a new shirt every day. Two or max 3 shirts per week each.

Non iron shirts which we hang to dry ,don't need ironing at all.

Handle held clothes steamer it a game changer

We don’t bother with ironing anything.

A creased shirt isn’t going to kill anyone

I don't iron. Kids haven't been thrown out of school yet. I don't get involved with what DH does with his clothes.

I disagree. Kids need to learn to be part of a team and how to do thing. BUT I can’t imagine making an 11 year old iron their shirts every week and make their own packed lunches every day.

Why are you washing your children's clothes every day?

Yeah, because not ironing shirts all your school at 11 will make the lad lazy and incompetent.

Have a word with yourself.

I have three sons - and they all do certain things, are we’ll adjusted, well mannered, do things in the house and are responsible for the garden. These are extras which teach them how to be ‘competent’ as you say.

No 11 year old should be responsible for doing this re their uniform. That is down to the parent, and yes I think it’s lazy parenting to make them do it because you don’t want to!

Thankfully it's all polo shirts around here.

Non-crease shirts, put on hangers straightaway. No ironing needed.

Anyone who would like an ironed shirt, irons their own.

Then you don’t disagree! You clearly say that making an 11 year old iron shirts for their uniform is unreasonable, which is what I’m saying.

The manual dexterity won’t be there - it will take a lot longer too and won’t be done as well.

My kids have a household schedule that benefits the house, that we all contribute to for the house!

Stuff for their day to day basic needs, should not fall to them at such a young age!

I work part time and one of my jobs on my non wage earning week day is the ironing. I iron DHs 5 work shirts, takes me 35 minutes. I have never ironed the DCs school shirts, I buy non iron and dry them carefully so they are as little creased as possible. Youngest DC is part way through her GCSEs so I have only a couple of weeks of school shirts to go. No need to iron school shirts, the DC look no scruffier than most pupils at school. I do the laundry, I find the DCs are a bit useless at this until 6th form age, they tend to just wash what they want, rather than a full wash, which is wasteful, or wash things on the wrong cycle which I am a bit OCD about. And this being Mumsnet, I feel the need to defend my behaviour, just putting it out there that I don’t trust DH with laundry, he does his fair share of things but that is unlikely ever to include laundry.

Exactly!
Why on earth would you think this is your job when you dont wear shirts?
If the youngest is secondary age they can sort their own uniform out

Both my DC specifically request their shirts are ironed. DD asked me to iron a jumper but I said that was fine without ironing, the skirts look a lot better ironed (even if it's one of my most hated chores)

I've never ironed a school shirt, I just hang them up.
My year 7 DC does a lot of his own laundry, he sorts it and can put a wash on. He wouldn't know what an iron was tho.

It’s only 5 more than now, what was happening with the 10 previously? It’s not really fair to make an 11 year old do it from the start of secondary if others haven’t had to do it from that age.

In our house, me and partner both do the ironing. From about age 14, the kids would do some occasionally, not usually uniform though.