26 year old never done laundry

[ordinaryma]

Is this normal ?

I have a little boy, aged 3. I don’t want to judge but I would hope he would be able to do laundry at this age..

it’s just a friend of a friend who was talking about her 26 year old son who was not able to do laundry. The friend had gone on holiday and was worried about her son. The son is NT.

it got me thinking of my H and his mum used to talk about him like this when he was that age. My parents were nothing like this with us. At 26 I was living alone and making my own way in the world.

this man lives at home and is unable to do laundry and his mum is missing him after 4 days away on holiday and is worried about him.

Anyway, it got me thinking- is that normal ? Anyone who has 26 year olds, is this the same for you ? it just wasn’t in my case. Am I going to be like this with my son / daughter when they’re older? I always thought, absolutely not- but who knows. I can’t really judge it.

I know I would want them to be more independent. I think they should start learning how to do laundry in their teens. I don’t know. Am I going to be one of those moms that holds on like this or will I be as I imagine.

I guess the way the friend of a friend was talking, it sounded like she was talking about a teenager and I found it very cringey.

Poor bloke. His Mum has failed as a parent in many ways.

My now nearly 23yo said several years "of course I can cook - I can read can't I!".
Made me laugh, but it is true and pretty much applies to everything really, and even more so nowadays with YouTube to get video instructions.

I do all the laundry in the house (ds1 no longer lives here, 19yo still @ home).
I was away last week and came home to a load of washing, which included some of mine, hanging on the airer. I can't recall whether I've ever shown ds2 how to put a load on (I know I did with ds1) but he clearly figured out the relatively new washing machine.

He also does his own food shopping and cooks for himself.

You want your 3 year old to do his laundry???😳😳

They have failed as parents and he needs to grow up.

lol no.

Lol thats what I thought too ! I think that's a bit young even by mn standards.
Though I think it's just the way @ordinaryma has phrased the 1st paragraph 😀

My 26 year old has been able to operate a washing machine for over 10 years probably 15. They don’t live at home and have lived in quite a few rented places at uni and now working. Strangely each time they have managed to work out how to use the machine without needing mummy

i have a friend with 3 kids in their 20s all still at home. She does their washing and ironing. Pops home from work in her break to cook for them. And does all the cleaning. I just despair.

I've got a 26 year old.
No ,this isn't normal.

Normal and healthy is teaching them how to look after themselves, laundry, cooking, cleaning, money management etc, so that they can function in the world without you.

You are seriously failing your kids if you enable and encourage helplessness.

Of course not. My mum never showed me how to do laundry it was just fairly obvious so when I moved out for uni I looked at the dials and just did it.

It’s pretty idiot proof.

My son is 13 and can do his own laundry. He could do it when he was about 11.
My 14 yr old daughter can as well.

I still do most of their laundry but they are perfectly capable of sticking some in the washer and then the dryer or hanging it out sometimes.

28 and 21 yo DSs. Def not normal. They aren’t brilliant at home but managed fine at uni. They know how to operate machine and how to hang stuff up do it dries and doesn’t smell…. Had several conversations about that. 🤯🤯

I know it's hard with rents nowadays, but these are exactly the exanples of why I always advised my younger family member etc to never take a partner directly from parents house. Even in houseshare they learn self sufficiency.

That said I never did my own laundry at home because there was no point doing people's separate laundry. I find that bit odd. Do you all have just tiny washing machines which run on little power? Would never fill the full machine myself especially when separate. But we did take turns on who does which weekend family loads.

That’s definitely not normal! Did the son go to university? Presumably he hasn’t lived away from home? Everybody I can think of that I know learned to do their own laundry at university or after the age of 18 at least if living at home! At 26 I was renting a house with my partner, had a professional job and hadn’t lived at home since I left for university. I appreciate that things have changed in terms of student fees, fewer jobs around and so on, but most teenagers ought to be able to put a wash on, I would think?

I certainly don’t want my DD to end up like that! I do her laundry now (she’s 12) but she has been taught how to use the machine, and I get her to help me, sort washes, hang it out on airers etc. By the time she’s 16 or so I hope she’ll be able to do her own laundry, even if I do some of it/remind her. (My mum regularly got me to peg out a load of washing in the garden and so on from about 11 or 12, as well as lots of other household jobs.)

He can't be unable. Unless he was born with no arms and legs. Or brain.

You put the clothes in the machine followed by detergent and then switch it on. A six year old could learn that in five minutes.

Your mate is doing him zero favours. It's like saying someone doesn't know how to bathe or wipe their own arse. Fucking preposterous.

My 18 mo old helps load the washing machine and can turn it on. Enough said 😂

I think my daughter learned how to use the washing machine before she went to school because she was interested. So she knew where the powder went etc, and which programmes we used and about light and coloured stuff etc etc etc.
She's now 26, and we recently bought a new one, one that wanted you to download an app for the warranty and additional programmes. So she downloaded it. She often does the washing anyway.
We now find it highly amusing as she gets the messages (when at work) to say the washing cycle is finished etc!

Same for me, I never did washing before I left home as my mum didnt like anyone using the washing machine but that in no way stopped me when I moved out. I haven't lived my life in dirty clothes

In my experience all washing machines are different so knowing how to use a particular one doesn't mean you know how to use them all. See also microwaves which to me are the most unintuitive appliance but most people work it out eventually

I'm sure the young man in question is capable of working it out when he needs to

It’s pathetic. My early teen can do a wash and tumble. It’s a basic life skill.

Laughing at the idea of my three year old doing laundry 😂😂😂 although honestly, he’d do it and I could show him. He absolutely loves being a little helper with chores and around the house and he’s fascinated by things that turn on and off. He knows how to call his dad on my phone or turn on TV / air conditioning. Lots of things that my older DD just doesn’t care about at all.

anyway, I just meant; he’s only 3 so I don’t want to judge ( though I guess I am ). I would hope he is more self sufficient, as I was at that age. The 26 year old has never lived away from home before, but still.

Can your 3 Yr old hoover ? Asking for a friend . . . . . . . . . . . 😄

At 27 (which I guess is older than 26...) I was running our entire local COVID vaccine response for an area covering a million people. Thankfully I had got the hang of laundry a bit before that point.

My 5 year old knows how to do laundry and dishwasher because he loves pressing buttons. He could do it all without me.

It's wonder so many women are on Mumsnet complaining that their partners are useless in the home.🙄

I just don't understand how any fully grown adult (who isn't in some way mentally or physically incapable) can say that they are unable to do laundry. It is hardly difficult or demanding. I don't ever remember having lessons!!!!!

Take dirty clothes, walk to washing machine, open the door, put dirty clothes inside the machine that is specifically for washing said clothes, add detergent - the bottle or box explicitly tells you how much, turn the dial to some kind of programme and press start. When the machine is beeping, it is finished and you open the door to remove clean clothes.

What is there about that process that a vaguely functional adult would be unable to do? Even if they were the most spoilt brat on the face of the universe, you know that all they need to do is type "how do I do laundry?" into any search engine for instructions to come up.

I think that the statement in question here is not that they are "unable to do laundry" it is that they "won't do laundry", which is a different thing entirely.

I bet Donald Trump can use a washing machine. He'll be the best clothes washer in the world. So they say. Bigly.