Tombstone sayings

[beth_leonard]

There's a saying that goes, "No one ever puts on their tombstone 'I wish I'd spent more time at work.'" implying that people who work too much while their kids grow up should come home more often.

I'm pondering the concept of "No one ever put on their tombstone, 'I wish I'd spent more time folding laundry.'"

Our laundry is unfolded. All of it. There's some clothes in the drawers from back before we had kids[1], but for the most part we live out of unfolded laundry baskets. While I did manage to put a few bags of clothes that were too small for Peter away, most of them are still in circulation. Meaning that I dig past them every time I need to find clothes to put on the kid. Sometimes I put them straight on Amber without ever having put them in the closet.

Peter is just now completely outgrowing 18M clothing, while Amber is nearly beginning to fit into it. Amber is outgrowing some things before we ever managed to get them out of the closet from the first round. Luckily she seems to have slowed down on the growth curve and maintained the 9-12 and 12-18M size for a few months.

I however am going to stop feeling guilty for never folding the laundry. I'm sure my mother is horrified. I love my children. My children love me. We don't have a maid. We wear clothes in public. I answer (most of) my e-mail and maintain relationships with my friends. I think we're doing ok.
--Beth

[1] Jon will point out that I'm exaggerating here. He is the person who washes the laundry, and if it ever gets put away, he does it. He makes valiant attempts several times a month. But the work is never done, and I've decided to just live with it that way.

Comments

[corpsefairy.livejournal.com]

I think work that is never done, like laundry and dishes, is the hardest to do, or at least the hardest to cope with even if it isn't physically challenging. At least with projects like painting a room or fixing a leak or something, you're done at the end. With laundry, you pretty much have to be naked for it to REALLY be done... and even then it doesn't last very long.

[ukelele.livejournal.com]

With you there.

[kirin]

Yeah. I concur with everything above. Perpetual maintenance is a drag. How much longer before we have robots doing all this stuff, seriously?

[clam-shell.livejournal.com]

That's a thought - swap out the dresser(s) in the bedroom for shelves designed to fit the laundry baskets...

[zathrus.livejournal.com]

Reevaluating housekeeping standards can be a good thing. The trick, for me, is recognizing the right balance for our family -- what level of organization actually saves time and makes life better, and what is just an unnecessary time-waster. I usually do fold my laundry, but in the craziness of life, didn't get to it the last several days; I currently have 3 baskets of clean, unfolded laundry in my bedroom. Mostly, this hasn't been a problem -- except that every time we've tried to go anywhere, I've had to go dig through the basket of whites to find socks for the kids. Thus I know that it's definitely helpful to have the kids' socks somewhere that they can reach and know where they are.

Maybe it'd be helpful to have a basket in the corner that you can throw outgrown clothing into, so you're not digging past them every time? Laundry's far from an all-or-nothing thing. By all means, don't feel guilty for not doing things that aren't beneficial for your family -- but a little bit of organization might actually give you more time for the things you care about. (Having a profusion of laundry baskets is very helpful with this, as it lets you sort things quickly and easily, and they can stack up to take up less space when not needed. I've had good luck with small laundry baskets from the dollar store for this purpose.)

Newt