If you work full time, would you do your 17/18 year old's washing and ironing?

[bookworm8500]

As the title says really, do you?

Daughter is 17 (18 in September).

She is doing her A-Levels and has a part time job.

She spends the rest of her time with friends or on her phone (hours and hours in her room on her phone, like so many kids this age I guess).

I work full time.

I find myself resentful standing here for hours doing her ironing whilst she is chilling in her bedroom..

I don't mind washing as it all gets chucked in, but the ironing grates on me

Do you do your almost adult child's ironing?

YABU - of course I do
YANBU - no, I don't!

I'm old and haven't ironed for years, we still have that cheap basic iron.

Fuck no

Wash yes, iron no

Very little actually needs ironing these days, show her how to iron herself and see how much suddenly is fine not ironed.

Washing, I know some friends of my dcs still get their parents to do their washing as adults in their 20s but I stopped when DCs were 18/19 and working.
I might wash the odd thing from their baskets when I need to make up a decent whites or darks load.

But ynbu if you decide now to stop doing her washing, or get her to help you out in other ways. She's going to have to eventually anyway.

Washing yes, ironing no. I gave that up 15 years ago.

Haha! 🤣

As a parent I signed up to produce fully functioning and capable young people/adults who don't take the piss out of others.

She's 17 not bloody 7!

My mum did. She just did all the family washing together, we just had to bung it in the washing machine in the morning. If we were at home we would transfer it to dryer or whatever but it as all the families washing, not just ours.

We did other stuff around the house though, but my mum preferred her routine and way of doing the laundry so that it wasn't lots of little bits of washing, just a machine load full every day of whoever had bothered to put their washing in the basket or machine that morning. If we didn't put it in, it didn't get washed.

I do washing but no way would I iron. They might not want things ironed particularly anyway.

I don't do anyone's ironing. They can do that for themselves. But laundry i will do.

Washing yes. (I never understand the logic of making a child - pre-teen, teen or young adult - painstakingly separate out their own washing and run separate wash cycles to do their laundry individually, it's far better for the environment to do everyone's together, surely?). Obviously reasonable to expect them to take their turn at loading/unloading washing machine/hanging out family laundry/bringing said laundry in once dry etc.

Ironing no. But then I don't iron anything if I can avoid it!

We washed everyone's together but by that age I was putting on the washing machine with whatever was in the basket. It was just one of those household jobs everyone did.

My 17 does his own washing and he has been shown how to iron but doesn't.

No to the ironing. She gets to decide if she's bothered about it being ironed and do it or not as she sees fit.
Washing would be only as and when it suits if there's space for it, up to her to make sure anything specifically required is sorted. Shouldn't be your job to make sure there's a clean shirt for work.

Given we are on this topic. How do you know whose pants belong to what?

I do my 17yr olds washing, as it goes in with everyone else’s, but once washed and dried it gets out on her bed to iron and put away

I don't iron at all and haven't for years and years. Dy flat, hang shirts.
I do DD (19) washing but she's perfectly capable of bunging a load in and will do. I just happen to do the washing when she is at work usually. She will do ours if she's home. It's just a shared chore.

She's old enough to decide for herself whether ironing is worth the effort. She can wear unironed clothes or do her own ironing, either choice is valid.

I just cannot fathom why anyone would spent time separating washing to ensure DC are doing their own. Absolutely bonkers.

Ironing gets done when needed here. Usually before being worn. Again, not sure why ironing for hours is necessary.

I don't iron anything at all. But my 18 year old son offered to do his own laundry and I refused as he is the oldest of 4 and I'd personally rather know the machine was available when I wanted to use it. If he wanted his clothes ironed he would do it himself. I was doing all the families ironing when I was a young teenager.

I don’t do anybody’s ironing, even my own. I would do the washing as everything goes in the same basket here. I wouldn’t do ironing for a capable 17 year old.

My rule with my teenagers is that if they bring their laundry basket down, I'll put it in the washer and hang on line/airer, then fold (I can get a couple of loads done by putting in before work, swapping over at lunchtime, etc cos I wfh). They have to take it upstairs and put away.

I don't iron anything 😂

I can’t think when I last ironed anything!

@bookworm8500 my brother’s kids have a chores rota. My Mum was a SAHM although later did Dad’s self-employed accounts. As a teen I changed my bedlinen and did washloads as and when needed. And my own ironing. So did my brothers. All able to cook, rustle up decent meals and so on. Brothers are both better cooks than me. We are all quite handy as Dad encouraged us. As a parent our job is to turn small people we have to do everything for, into adults who can do it all themselves. So I think your DD should step up,
especially with you working.

What needs hours of ironing? Just stop doing it.

The only stuff that really needs ironing is shirts.

It's a life skill, teaching your children how to do these things IS inconvenient but that's a large part of parenting imo.
Just the same as teaching them how to cook, it takes time, sure I could do it all quicker but then they'd leave home not knowing how to make their own food.