loopyloulaura

Love it or hate it, laundry is everywhere! Especially in our house!

You may notice that many of my pictures have drying washing in the background, although I do try to crop it out. Here I am bringing shame to my youngest whilst dancing to David Gibb‘s latest CD:

Here are the kids being zombies whilst washing dangles ominously behind them…

Laundry runs my life in a way that I never imagined possible until I owned my own home. The washing basket is rarely empty as a family of 5 makes a lot of mess! It can be heavy work carrying loads of washing around, back breaking lifting and hanging it out. There is nothing quite as sould destroying as watching your child throw themselves onto your nicely folded pile of clean laundry.

I also admit to quite a lot of pride that none of us have ever had a wardrobe panic because they have run out of pants or socks. It was a major turning point in our relationship when I began doing Chris’ washing and putting it away.

It is a labour of love. Sorting dirty washing says ‘I love you’, actions speak louder than words.

I now appreciate my own mum more for doing my washing for all those years! I used to laugh at her for hanging out washing on snowy days but now I appreciate that you can’t let a good drying day get away without a wash on the line! The pressure of checking the forecast and the anguish of an unexpected rain shower are bboth things that I grew up with but didn’t understand: now I do!

Following our 12 day holiday, I had a MOUNTAIN of washing to sort despite doing one load while we were away. One day I spent a whole hour sorting one lot of washing, putting it in the machine, hanging it, folding the previous load and matching socks, putting it in the airing cupboard and putting the load before that one away.

Is laundry a feminist issue? Am I perpetuating gender stereotypes? I don’t think so. I do the washing because I am home. I sort the washing because I am at home. I like knowing the state of everyone’s clothes to that I can plan for what new things need to be bought.

Chris is more than capable of doing the washing and often hangs it out at the weekends when he is around but he doesn’t know the minutiae of everyone’s wardrobes, he doesn’t have my system in place for being more efficient.

Is my washing work unappreciated…? Yes, and let’s be clear it IS work. My children might not appreciate it everyday but it makes their lives easier and one day they will take over the burden and THEN the appreciation will come. When they have their own families, they will understand that having clean pants in the drawer had my heart with it 🙂