When laundry day is every day
Today I’ve been doing my laundry, a task I hate. I love having clean laundry, but for some reason—although it’s not really that onerous at all, as tasks go—I hate doing it. I can’t stand ironing, either, and fortunately for the most part modern clothing and fabric has eliminated the need to iron.
It’s also fortunate that the modern economy means that most of us have plenty of clothes, and so we don’t have to do laundry extremely often in order to have clean ones all the time. That’s fine with me.
Or, clean enough ones. The question is: what’s clean enough? I consider myself quite clean, but different people answer the “how often to do laundry?” question very differently, as I learned years ago when I was staying with some relatives.
It seemed that their washer and dryer were going nearly all the time. The machines were located just off the kitchen, so their near-constant busyness was easy to notice. One would think the couple was running some sort of industrial operation, but there were just two of them in the house at the time because their children had grown up and moved out by then (and were not the type to bring their laundry home).
I was puzzled. Why on earth would this couple generate such reams of laundry? At one point I grew bold enough to ask, and the answer was that they only wore each item of clothing once, and only used each towel or washcloth once. In other words, once something had touched their bodies, it was laundry time. I’m not just talking about underwear or socks, either; this was everything except coats (maybe it was even coats, too; I didn’t ask about that).
It flabbergasted me. Then again, I should have realized there were people for whom this type of behavior was the norm. In college I had once lived in a four-person suite (that’s two bedrooms shared by two persons each) having a small kitchen and bathroom. My roommate and I were content to wash the kitchen and bathroom floors every now and then, as the spirit moved us, and although the spirit didn’t move us all that often, believe me those floors were basically clean.
But the other two roommates called a conference one day to announce that they required that both the kitchen and bathroom floors be fully washed every single day, and that we needed to share that task. This caused a rift that never was resolved (although maybe “rift” is the wrong word, since my roommate and I hadn’t been all that friendly with the other two in the first place and had gotten the apartment by merely answering an ad looking for roommates).
That’s how I learned that there are people who want their floors washed every day. Maybe that’s even most people, for all I know. And maybe most people only wear clothing or use towels a single time before washing them. Maybe I’m the abnormal one.
You are the normal one, neo. I have enough trouble washing the jeans I wear for several days or towels and sheets. I hate doing laundry.
Not even my mom or grandmother washed floors or clothing (etc.) that much. The room mates were outliers.
I vote for normal for you, Neo. My mother’s motto was “clean enough to be healthy and dirty enough to be happy.”
Another vote here for “Normal” …. :>))
You are indubitably normal, dear Neo.
People like us probably have better immune systems than the germophobes too.
That reminds me, I have to do laundry tonight! I’m out of briefs. Briefs are a subject on which I’ve… hmm, if I complete this thought, someone is going to call me out for TMI. (Although what I was going to say really would have been germane.) Well, suffice it to say that I’m all over the map when it comes to frequency of laundering, depending on the type of article.
I agree with everyone else. Washing floors every day is outside the range of normal behavior. I also suspect that most people wash towels once a week.
This is so odd. I know of many friends and extended family that engage in compulsive clothes changing and washing. They may routinely use two sets of clothes in a day, and sometimes three. And after only being worn for a few hours, it must be washed.
Some frequently shower twice a day, though these might be the exercise fanatics.
While the amount of water wasted is considerable, the amount of heat required to make warm or hot water, and to heat a clothes drier is quite large. I have often wondered how big the carbon footprint is. How does it compare to auto fuel, lighting, computers & entertainment, cooking, etc.?
My sister when she had a couple teenagers would always have to do laundry a 4-5 times a week because my nephew insisted on using a clean towel everytime he took a shower which could be a couple of times a day because of athletics practices and the like. Wonder if his thinking has changed now that he is an adult living on his own. The way I look at I can use the same towel 4-5 times maybe even an entire week if I’m too busy to do laundry. After all I am as clean as possible when using it.
I had a dear friend who was a cleaning freak. It was a very uncomfortable household, in my opinion. Food could be consumed only in the kitchen or at the dining room table on formal occasions. Not even a cup of coffee could be taken elsewhere. Her daughter was not allowed to sit on the bedspread in her bedroom, lest it be soiled. I learned some housecleaning tips from her, but my husband remarked that he couldn’t live the way they did.
My mother raised two slobs and a neat freak. I’m not the neat freak.
The people who clean everything, every day; THEIR children will be the ones crippled by asthma and allergies. Babies’ immune systems aren’t fully developed, and for the first 18 months or so of life, their immune systems are becoming accustomed to their environments. Sometime between 18 months and 2 years, their immune systems become active, and start to react to unexpected stimuli.
So the baby who is NEVER on the floor and NEVER was exposed to dust, or pollen, or peanut butter – they’ll at high risk of developing allergies when they finally DO come in contact with them.
Science fiction writer L. Neil Smith has speculated that children born in space habitats or in the Moon or on Mars will never be able to come to Earth. They will be allergic to EVERYTHING here.
Yup, germophobes. Cleanliness is next to godliness but God invented dirt and germs for a reason, without them a fully developed immune system cannot develop and we all know of immune system diseases and dysfunctions.
Griffin on November 17, 2018 at 7:30 pm at 7:30 pm said:
My sister when she had a couple teenagers would always have to do laundry a 4-5 times a week because my nephew insisted on using a clean towel everytime he took a shower which could be a couple of times a day because of athletics practices and the like. Wonder if his thinking has changed now that he is an adult living on his own. The way I look at I can use the same towel 4-5 times maybe even an entire week if I’m too busy to do laundry. After all I am as clean as possible when using it.
* * *
This.
One towel a week is our norm, unless it somehow gets dirty by encountering really soiled gardening clothes by accident.
Three to four times for normal wear of pants or skirts, one to two for shirts, depending on the level of exertion.
I do insist on clean undies every day.
As for the nephew: any of our boys trying to pull that would have been assigned laundry duty and assessed costs.
(A friend of ours complained once about the time it took her to iron her son’s tee-shirts — not happening in OUR house!)
Even so, with 7 people, the w/d ran pretty much constantly, and one day wore out. We didn’t have the money to buy new ones just then, so once a week we loaded up the Suburban and went to the laundromat, filled up about 5 or 6 washers and then driers, spent about an hour sorting and folding on the big tables.
It did cost more in the long run (several years) than new machines BUT
the wash was over and done in about 3 hours, the time was spent reading, we met some nice people, and the kids (in summer) got training in laundry care.
We never did buy new machines until after the kids left and we moved.
1. AesopFan matches my description of “normal”. However here in Israel climate and informal style mean a new polo shirt most days due to sweat. When i lived in the states “business casual” meant a woven button-down shirt – more maintenance but could be worn over a t-shirt which kept the dress shirt fresh. Suits were worn multiple times. I remember my grandmother using a clothes brush to clean up a suit jacket.
2. Very important to educate kids for laundry independence. This is one of the few character builders still available in comfortable suburban parenting. We required some responsibility in this area at the same time we gave independence in choice of clothing. It started with the basic “if it’s not in the hamper it’s not in the system” and “all your laundry goes in this basket. Up to you what happens next”. That second one is easier to enforce when kids dont share a room – but all scenarios are instructive. All our boys were instructed in use of the machine and our clotheshorse taught himself how to iron. Only exception is made for kids still conscripted coming home for weekend leave.
Similarly our boys were given weekly floor care as their household chore.
Ben david, that reminds me of a friend’s famous story. Her son was about 11 when he was dumb enough to make a comment about laundry being “mom’s job.” He learned how to do his own laundry about one minute later.
I was so slow ironing my shirts just so in high school – full length back pleats and cardboard strength starch. Maybe 20 minutes per shirt. Mom charged me a quarter every time I used the iron.
An earlier “no free lunch” lesson was the nickel she charged for supplying the sugar for our Kool-Aid stands. But having to darn holes in my socks finally motivated me to get a paper route and buy new socks.
I think they have a medical term for neat freaks…. Felix Unger syndrome
Interesting, Neo!
I suspect most of us find a compromise between how much cleanliness we need, and how much work we have time for. (It also helps when we have division of labor. In my household, my wife does most of the cooking and I do most of the laundry.)
I was taught that undershirts, underwear, T-shirts, and socks get washed after one wear — but that pants and shirts (when worn with undershirts) can stand a second wearing. I mostly stick to that. And I still remember vividly my days in the IDF, when we were *ordered* to wear undershirts, so as not to sweat through our uniforms.
I suppose some people really want to be washing things all the time, and have the time and energy to do so. As long as they keep it to themselves, more power to them.
People like us probably have better immune systems than the germophobes too.
Ken Mitchell beat me to it but I will add that, in the Book “The 10,000 Year Explosion” which is about genetics, the point is made that one reason why the Indians died off so quickly was that they were isolated from Old World diseases for 10,000 years. The incidence of autoimmune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis was low but hey had no immune system to deal with smallpox. The same thing happened to Polynesians with measles in the 19th century
I wash my shirts undershirts and underwear after one wearing. My pants whenever I happen to spill something on them.
Ben & Sarah & Uff –
sounds like there are a lot of us “old skul” parents around.
All our boys can sew buttons and hems in a pinch (LDS missionary training by Mom), but one of them, while not a “clotheshorse,” got good enough with the sewing machine to make his own Renaissance costume, and irons much more than the others do. Probably not a coincidence that he became an architect.
Story time …a tale from 25 years past:
…we still joke about it when Josh comes home to visit. We’ll never let her live that one down.
…and my wife – Ol’ Eagle Eyes Deb’ – (as she’s fondly known around here) can still spot a single, tiny, insignificant bread crumb from yards away.
Some people are built different.
…and now y’all, and the world, know.
I don’t see the need to change underwear every day. I usually wear shirts or pants/shorts for 3-4 days. If there is a lot of sweat, I change it. I wash towels once a month. As such, I don’t find laundry a stressful time.
I air dry my laundry, with the exception of once every year or two. In the summer, sheets will dry outside in 10-20 minutes. Shirts dry on hangers. My Sephardic “Jewish mother” – she is Sephardic Jewish but she is not my actual mother- taught me to button the top button and then pull on the shirt to reduce wrinkling.
When my mother was ill during my junior high school years, I began ironing my shirts and pants. That was the only way they would have gotten ironed. Today, I hardly ever use an iron.
While on the topic of climate change, most folk I know in California have dryers. Which use energy to more quickly dry clothes, as compared to hanging them outside thru the day.
That’s kind of hypocritical.
Even in Slovakia, with snow, we air dry out clothes. When they freeze at night, it dries them quite a bit, then they finish drying inside on our rack, near the heater (not much room other places.)
More folks should be using sun light for drying.
My children started doing their own laundry somewhere around middle school or the beginning of high school. I helped with stains, how to handle a Chap-Stick or a pen that had gone through the cycle and bedecked everything, and I taught them to iron — and also how to avoid ironing. It worked out well.
My wife and I (a 2 person family) exercise 5 days/wk. Additionally, we frequently do yard work in temps/humidity that cause us to sweat (or “glisten” as my wife prefers). Regardless, these clothes definitely need to be washed after each use, so we routinely do laundry routinely every other day without considering the weekly need to wash bedding/towels, miscellany.
Although we don’t enjoy it, I wouldn’t consider it a nuisance.
Tom G
Even in Slovakia, with snow, we air dry out clothes. When they freeze at night, it dries them quite a bit.
Yup. You can shake out the ice crystals. 🙂 My mother air dried clothing in New England winters. She also raised kale, which would remain green in the gardent throughout the winter.
Good point about using clothes dryers in California. I noticed that my siblings owned in HOAs that forbade drying clothes outside- in yellow dog Democrat areas that presumably were on board about climate change and not wasting energy.
I know you folks mean well and are being funny, but I sure wouldn’t want to share an office with someone who didn’t change their underpants every day! My biggest beef with my fellow office workers was having to gag over their massive cologne dosages in the morning. Then, when the cologne wore off, you could smell who showered every morning and who didn’t. Armpits and anuses in a confined space…
Before I got into IT, when I was in my 30s, I was an industrial blue collar work. My last such job, I worked in a shipyard, and until you’ve spent the day in the bilge of a nuclear submarine undergoing repair and refit, you don’t know about getting dirty. And before that, I was a sewer worker. These are the kind of dirty clothes that make the laundramat owner ask you to leave.
When I lived by myself, I vacuumed once a week and washed the bare floors once a months. Hardly a neat freak, hardly a germophobe. (Nobody who has regular sex is going to be a germophobe, if nothing else.)
William: “My last such job, I worked in a shipyard, and until you’ve spent the day in the bilge of a nuclear submarine undergoing repair and refit, you don’t know about getting dirty.”
A bunch of 16-year-old Boy Scouts after a 10-day hike with one change of clothes gets pretty close.
At least, the smell in the car does after they all get out.
Anybody remember the book/movie “Holes” and the anti-shoe-odor invention discovered by accident?
Funny I was just pondering this exact thing, Neo! I have a small laundry basket and when it gets full of my dirty clothes, I grab the two towels I use to dry after showering (one is thin for my hair), throw them on top, and wash everything together. Clean undies every day, socks can sometimes be worn more than once, depending, shirts worn a few times unless they got dirty/sweaty, and jeans can be worn all week. Sheets changed every few weeks. It adds up to very little laundry! Also, if it needs to be ironed, I don’t need to own it.
I had a floor mate in college who, if she tried on a blouse and decided not to wear it, threw it in the laundry hamper. If it touched her body, it was dirty. That showed a level of OCD that amazed me. I don’t sweat unless exercising, so I can wear shirts multiple time before laundering — I just give the armpits of the garment a smell to make sure. I also air dry much of my laundry. Machine drying is so hot and it fades the colors, and weakens the fabrics, especially anything stretchy. So my clothes stay nice for a long time.
The frequency of bathing is another thing that I disagree with. The waste of water is excessive. It has been pushed by the shampoo/soap/skin lotion industries. When I was a kid, it was a bath once a week. My mother would get her hair done at the hairdresser once a week and never shampoo at home. I know many people who shower twice a day, and never do anything strenuous. How are they getting dirty? Washing your hair every day is terrible for it, likewise blow drying. I wash my face, hands, private parts, armpits every day. My hair every 3-4 days, blow dry much less than that and my hair is strong and healthy.
Alas, poor Samson….
(Though at least he was able to “solve” his hair problem, if only temporarily….)
This is a good time to be thankful for our clean, hot and cold running water, our nice sewer systems that take our waste products away and our machines, washers and dryer that most of us can access easily. Our womenfolk no longer have to haul iron cauldrons out in the back yard over fires to boil water or beat our clothes on rocks in the river and all that other over a 150 years ago stuff. I am thankful I have the option of living in a clean environment with clean clothes. Not all of the world lives as most of us do in the US, Europe and parts of Asia.
Having said that, as retired old folks, my wife and I not longer use a housekeeper who comes in weekly to clean the hose while doing the sheets and towels the way we did when we were working full time. I do all of the cooking, clean the floors weekly and maintain the yard while my wife does the laundry, usually two days a week to keep current and out she cleans our bathrooms meticulously every Friday because she says it makes her feel good about our home.
We use a fresh big fluffy towel each week that is replaced when the new wears off and it has been laundered too much because it makes my wife feel good. Since I no longer go to work I have projects in my garage, and outings with my dog so most days I don’t shower until late afternoon before I start cooking supper and that way I don’t go to bed on clean sheets dirty and sweated up. Feeling clean, with a glass of wine and an hour or so to cook dinner is a great way to slow down and in recent years, a during dinner (supper in the South) we have turned off the TV and actually sit across the table and talk to each other, that’s nice.
I should also add that I am so very thankful for my lovely wife who has put up with me going through all our good and not so good times, we have had our share of those, up to now when we are in our 70’s. Yep, that and Trump is still our president.
for some reason—although it’s not really that onerous at all, as tasks go—I hate doing it.
For ME (YMMV), I connect this same behavior with “taking out the trash” (apartment, so, not just outside — a distinct trek to a dumpster) and with doing the dishes.
There’s no sense of completeness: “Well, that’s done. I don’t have to do that again any time soon…” You do it today, you have to do it tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after thaaaat… It’s an “endless task”.
That’s my analysis of why *I* have this attitude towards it. You are free to consider if that has anything to do with your own reluctance and dislike for it.
I think some people overclean themselves, their clothes, and their homes for a combination of reasons: advertising that convinces people that bodies shouldn’t smell anything like bodies, fear of “what other people will think,” paranoia about germs, the relatively low cost of cleaning materials (including water and heating energy), and the proliferation of labor-saving devices.
I wash my hair about every 7-10 days, because I live a rather sedentary life. When I get my hair trimmed or cut at a salon, the stylists always comment on how thick and healthy my hair is. Part of that is also because I don’t use heating implements on my hair, nor do I color or perm my hair.
I change underclothes every few days, though my husband changes his every day. We sweat differently. I typically wear pants for a few days before putting them in the wash. I generally wear a fresh shirt every day, but especially if I’m going to be seen by non-family. (So I *look* like I don’t wear the same thing twice in a row, ha ha.) If I haven’t worn a shirt or pair of socks for more than a few (non-sweaty) hours, I’ll wear them a second time. Especially wool socks in winter, which can bear a bit of extra wear.
We also homeschool, which reduces our clothing expenditures. Our kids typically wear the same clothes 2-3 days in a row, though one kid seems oblivious to the need to change clothes ever, and another seems prone to wanting to wear two sets of clothes a day, plus pajamas. We make sure the kids wear their nicer clothes (the clothes in better shape) when we go out for any reason, and they wear the torn, stained, holey-kneed clothes indoors.
I think you’re more normal than the roommates you mentioned, Neo, but I also understand there are people who are very sensitive to odors and have a hard time disregarding smells that others simply don’t notice. I think it’s harder for the latter to tolerate more casual cleaners, since anything less than immaculate may seem like filth. I also think it’s very difficult for a casual cleaner to adopt a rigorous cleaning style, because we are not likely to ever meet the rigorous cleaner’s standards, and we don’t feel the same *urgency* to clean at that level.
The comments on lifestyles here remind me of the old TV show “The Odd Couple.”
And also of a scene from one of my favorite books set in 16th C Scotland.
A family is discussing a long-term guest, a young woman, not too complimentarily.
The Dowager Baroness contributes the observations that, although the girl presents as a chaste virgin, she has been rumored to be carnally consorting with the stable lads; although she is faultlessly mannered with the family, she is known to bully the servants; and, clearly the most damning, when she washes her hair (much too often!), she always insists on a clean towel.