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Alison Housten

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Laundry for teens – what are your tips?

This is what my laundry “room” look like on a laundry day:

Scary right? Well it makes me want to run away – quickly. But since I am the lucky one who usually tends to laundry, I have to stick around and actually get it done.

I feel kind of like a bad mom in some ways, as my kids are 15 and 21 and they never do their own laundry. My son is 21 and I know that he can do his own laundry. Heck he was away at state college for 2 years, so I’m assuming he didn’t go around that whole time wearing dirty clothes (and if he did, I don’t even want to know about it!). As college kids tend to do, he would bring me baskets of his dirty clothes to do while he was home for the holidays, or a break. I didn’t mind doing his clothes at all – it actually felt good to baby him a bit. Well…that has changed. Now that he is living at home full-time, he should be doing his own laundry right? It sure would make laundry days less of a burden for me.

Now comes the problem with that. I am very particular about how laundry is done. Very. I always make sure I use the proper settings, and pull the loads out of the washer right when they are done (to avoid that awful smell that occurs when wet clothes remain in the washer too long). So if I let my son do his own laundry, I see the following problems:

  • He will screw up his clothes by washing them in the wrong temperatures.
  • He will make a mess of the detergents/softeners (leaving gunk in them, instead of rinsing)
  • He will conveniently “forget” that his clothes are in the washer, in hopes of me finishing them for him.
  • My washer and his clothes will smell horrible as a result
  • His clean clothes will be in the dryer when I am ready to do my laundry
  • I will get annoyed because I will end up folding his clothes
  • I will realize that it is just simpler for me to do his laundry, from start to finish

Yes, these are the reasons I still wash my 21-year old son’s clothes. How can I get him to do his own laundry and avoid the above issues? I am open to suggestions!

My daughter, who is 15, has done a few loads of laundry herself, and she does a good job. But again, it is just easier for me to do all of the laundry. There has to be a way for the kids to do their own, to relieve me of some housework/laundry duties, but I am having a hard time letting this happen.  Of course when this time comes, at least I can still buy my detergent of choice 🙂  and they will just have to use it.  I’m fairly certain that they won’t be rushing to the store to buy a certain brand, just because.  That is a good thing, because one of my favorite detergents is ARM & HAMMER Plus OxiClean Power Gel Laundry Detergent. I know I can count on it to make their clothes look as nice as if I had washed them. Hey – it’s a mom thing!

At what age did your children start doing their own laundry? Or what age will they start? What problems did you run into and how did you solve them?

THE GIVEAWAY:

One winner will receive a $25 Visa Gift card!

For first (and required) entry, tell me in a comment, what your biggest laundry challenge is.

EXTRA ENTRIES {can be done only after initial entry above is done}:

Please leave links to your entries, where appropriate.
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Tweet this giveaway using the phrase below or retweet button above – 1 entry daily:
Win a $25 Visa Gift Card (giveaway #5) @EightyMPHMom
https://eightymphmom.com ends 8/14 #switchandsavechallenge

No purchase necessary. Open to residents of US.  ONE ENTRANT PER HOUSEHOLD/IP Address! Giveaway ends August 14th at 9:00 p.m. (PST).  I check all entries – cheating will not be tolerated.  Winner will be notified via email and needs to reply within 48 hours, or a new winner will be chosen. Please make sure you check your spam folder – I will not be responsible if you did not receive winning email notification. Winners name(s) will also be posted on Winners List immediately after drawing has occurred. Winners will be chosen using the “And the Winner is” plugin.  Screenshots of winners available by request.  **By entering this giveaway, you confirm that you have read and agree to my giveaway rules. Please allow 6-8 weeks for deliver of prize {though it is usually much sooner}.

Please see Eighty MPH Mom giveaway rules for further information.

Eighty MPH Mom blog

*This is a sponsored post for Church & Dwight Co., Inc, the maker of ARM & HAMMER branded products, who is compensating me to try different products. Save $1.00 on any 2 ARM & HAMMER Laundry Detergents. And be sure and head over to The Switch & Save Challenge for the chance to win $25,000.

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784 Responses

  9. Training my husband & kids to use their dirty clothes hampers and not throw wet towels on the laudry room floor! Ugh!

  12. my biggest challenge is getting the baskets full of clean or dirty cloths up and down the stairs!

  13. My biggest hurdle is stains, especially oily stains that splatter. If I don’t treat them quickly, they get spots that can never be removed.

    I have found that salt, when diluted enough to make a paste, really is a miracle-worker. I have used the paste to get out even RED WINE. It also works great on bloodstains.

    With other stains I typically treat them with stain remover and then wash them on cold.

  21. Ha ! That is a good question to ask me !
    My biggest challenge is to figure out if they wanted to wear something
    that day and the darn thing is in the laundry basket how and the h…. am
    I suppose to have it washed and dryed in 1/2 hour because they have to
    wear it tonight.

    Ha Teens! Boo………

  26. My biggest laundry challenge is ever finding time to do it! Just hauling all the clothes to the car and down to the laundry room is a big task, then going back to move them to the dryers, etc etc!

  32. my biggest laundry challenge is clorox somehow staying in the washer for future loads that I don’t want to clorox =X

  39. My biggest laundry challenge is getting spaghetti sauce off of clothes….usualy my clothes. I can’t seem to make spaghetti sauce without it splattering on my clothes.
    Thanks!
    jackievillano at gmail dot com

  45. My biggest laundry challenge are the tomato sauce stains on my daughter’s clothing.

    abfantom at yahoo dot com

  52. My biggest laundry challenge is just keeping up with it..we are a family of six so I always have lots of laundry that needs to be done. I’m very much like you in that I’ve never made my kids do their own laundry and they are now ages 18, 15, 13, and 10. I promised myself this summer I would teach them to do laundry. But, I’m so much of a control freak that it’s hard for me to give that over to them.

  55. My first 4 children’s laundry was just included with everyone else, except when they were in late teens…if needed, they did their own.
    My youngest son starting washing his baseball clothes when he was about 12, and he does his own laundry when he’s home now that he’s in college.

    I should have started earlier with all of them. No reason teenagers can’t do their own laundry and help with everyone else’s if needed.

  62. My biggest laundry challenge is grease stains left from my son wiping his hands on his shirt.

  68. Mt biggest laundry challenge is keeping up with the food stains on my one year old daughters clothes!

  76. My biggest laundry problem is all the laundry! LOL. I have 3 kids and my fiance and myself, and it becomes very overwhelming.
    banks_family_5{at}yahoo}dot{com}

  77. As my little girl is only 1, she won’t be doing her laundry for a while. I definitely plan on teaching her young though because I want to empower her (I grew up wearing lots of dirty clothes until I learned to do my own laundry).

    My biggest challenge so far – washing the poopy clothes! ewwh!

  80. My two boys seem to drop their clothes in half inside out so that the dirt, gras, blood, ??? doesn’t get out. I often miss their stains too

  90. My biggest laundry challenge would have to be getting dirt and grass stains out of baseball uniforms.

  100. My laundry “challenge”? Battling my own laziness… I don’t mind washing, but putting away? Just ugh! LOL

    Email Add: misssld2u (at) gmail (dot) com

  115. My biggest challenge is hauling all of the clothes from upstairs to the basement and then back up again when they are clean.

  120. My biggest laundry challenge is getting motivated to put clothes away! I also have challenges with stains.

  123. my biggest laundry challenge is getting the kids to put their laundry in their laundry bags and not leave it on the floor

  142. I’d have to say one of my big challenges is getting everyone to empty their pockets

  144. My biggest laundry challenge is the delicate clothes that might fall apart if they go in the washer and dryer

  158. My biggest challenge is fitting all of my bedding in my washer. I’m not sure if I’m over loading or not.

  171. My biggest laundry challenge is coaxing my 20-year old washer and dryer through another laundry experience.

  186. My biggest laundry challenge is finding all the random socks that my family stuffs all around the house. It is like sock hide and seek every week!

  187. Keeping up with it – we just get busy and it starts piling up, even when we try to have set laundry days.

  194. My biggest laundry challenge would be getting the mud and dirt out of my clothes after I’ve been working on the lawn and garden.

  204. My biggest challenge is getting my husband’s, the mechanic, clothes clean.
    Thanks for the giveaway!
    eswright18 at gmail dot com

  220. My husband can’t seem to remember to put on his OLD clothes when he’s working on the car!

  223. unknown stains is my biggest issue! you don’t know they’re there, you miss them while loading and then they get dried ! ARGH!

  245. My biggest challenge is keeping up with it! There’s only three of us in the house, and one of us is only a year old, so I don’t understand how it multiplies so quickly!

  250. My mother would always put liquid fabric softener in with the towels. I am of the opinion that this prevents the towels from absorbing moisture as effectively, making drying after a show a right pain in the… She is of the opinion that towels need fabric softener to be soft. I say that during the winter she is wrong because she uses the dryer, which fluffs them; during the summer she is wrong because she line dries and they are sandpaper consistency with or without fs. It was always a toss-up, who would do towels, because there may not be enough when one of us notices, and someone may decide to do a smaller load just so the towels would get done her way.

    So my biggest challenge was my mother.

  257. My toughest challenge doing clothes s simply doing it. I’m not one who likes to wash, as it’s tough on my back just having to do it. Ihate trying to get nsty stains out as well.

  263. My biggest laundry challenge is to get my kids to NOT put clean clothes in the hamper just because they don’t want to put them away.

  267. My biggest laundry challenge is not using too much detergent – weird, I know, but even though the bottles say the detergent is formulated for HE washers, mine will give me a too much suds warning sometimes. Thank you for the giveaway!

  268. My biggest laundry challenge is the blackberry stains from when I pick blackberries and mash them to make jam – purple polka dots every where and it does NOT come out!

  273. My biggest laundry challenge is cutting down the time it takes to do it because my schedule is so hectic.

  285. I dislike folding laundry and I absolutely hate it when I accidentally dry some delicate items on high. Overall we have a good system. We do two types of loads 1) darks 2) lights. The hamper is used for accumulating one of the loads and the actual washer is used for accumulating the other and we run it once it is full, then dump the hamper load in the washer and start accumulating the other color in the empty hamper. This at least saves me the sorting – I hate sorting. But you hear a lot of “what color’s in the hamper” around my house as people try to figure out where to put their dirty clothes.

  291. My biggest laundry challenge is that our washer/dryer are downstairs in our finished, hardly ever used basement. Unless I set a timer upstairs I don’t know when either is done their cycle. This usually ends up in me forgetting that I’m doing laundry. Usually I end up leaving the last two loads unfinished because I forget to switch out the last load!

    It’s terrible. I wish my laudry room was upstairs!

    thecozyreader @ gmail.com

  293. My biggest challenge is the amount of laundry that needs done everyday. Where does it all come from?

  297. My biggest laundry challenge is dealing with those one-offs that need to be washed separately, but there’s not enough of them to justify a load of laundry.

  304. My biggest laundry challenge is keeping my sheets clean because my dogs sleep on the bed, even after washing, they always look a little dingy.

  310. My biggest laundry challenge is separating things-Even though I’ve been doing laundry for years now, I STILL get confused on how to pair certain things together when washing them O.o

    Thank you for this great giveaway!

  312. getting to the bottom of the basket! oh also spaghetti stains on my girls’ clothes

  327. definitely grease from the farm machinery
    Debbie Jackson
    djackson1958 at hotmail dot com

  343. Optical Brightening is always a problem with Khakis and muted colors. What I have done to overcome is to mix water and detergent first, stop the water and add the clothes to soak, then proceed with the washload. All detergents have optical brighteners in them and most material is pretreated and the brighteners do not attach. Khakis/Chinos generally are made with material that is not prebrightened or treated, therefore the brighteners in the detergent will attach if they come in direct contact with the detergent. You can see optical brightening in bright sunlight or under a fluorescent light, NEVER pretreat new khaki type items – unless you pretreast the entire garment so the coloring will remain consistent overall

  345. My biggest challenge has been to get the food stains out of my husbands shirts & pants, he is the sloppiest eater I know and manages to get something on him almost daily, I keep threatening him with a bibb so he will stop ruining his shirts & pants
    And both of my kids have been doing their own laundry since they were 11, I taught both of them when they each turned 11 how to sort, measure the detergent and how to wash their clothes,& I havent touched their laundry since (they are 31 & 23, both still live at home) I’m glad I taught them because my mother never taught me anything and when I moved out of the house I had to learn how to do everything on my own, cooking, laundry, ect. I decided to make sure my kids learned those things and they’ve done great, sometimes they have to take my clothes out of the dryer to put their clothes in but I tell them, its my washer and dryer and if I want to leave them in I can, but when I go to use my machines there never ever should be any of their clothes still left in there for me to take out, LOL

    Thanks for the great giveaway

  353. biggest challenge – getting the clothes in the dryer dry the same time as the washer finishes

  354. My biggest laundry challenge is my husband’s stinky sweaty workout clothes and towel!

  358. My biggest challenge is getting my daughter to help fold clothes.When you were telling how it is at your house with the laundry that is this family.My daughter is 19(she will be 20in Nov)She has yet to do a load of laundry.Thanks for a chance.

  361. hoping that my whites don’t turn pink or whatever other color that I
    throw in with it in the wash

    queenie001 (at) hotmail (dot) com

  367. My biggest laundry challenge is staying on top of it with a family including three little ones who someone go though A LOT of clothes, socks, towels, sheets etc.

    Sigh…I do 10-12 loads per week!

  368. I’m thinking of shifting the laundry responsibility over during senior year of High School in preparation for college. Since this is a future event, there are no problems yet.

    momznite_at_yahoo_daught_com

  370. Commented on your post, “I seem to be the go-to person for everything.”
    gfc follower
    momznite_at_yahoo_daught_com

  372. I have trouble remembering to take out washed clothes and putting them in the dryer

  379. My biggest challenge is getting the motivation to do it in the first place… I HATE laundry!

  385. My biggest laundry challenge is the 3 flights of stairs between my apartment and the laundry room.

  391. My biggest Laundry challenge is my work clothes, I get them greasy from cooking chicken. Thanks for the giveaway

    karenb834atyahoo.com

  403. Biggest laundry challenge – gardening stains!
    Thank you.
    barbara dot montyj at gmail dot com

  411. My biggest challenge with laundry is keeping up with it because I have a nine month old who is constantly growing out of his clothes. Every time I do laundry I have to sort out the clothes that are too small. Besides that I have a hard time with stain removal of my boys (almost 3 and 9 months) clothes.

  419. Staying on top of it – with 2 small kids it’s tough

    I’m trying to do a load each morning – then it doesn’t pile up so much!

  422. Stains that I can’t ever get out, like mustard, are my biggest laundry challenges. Thanks for the chance! 🙂

  444. My challenges have decreased a lot since I retired and my kids are grown. But my adult grandson lives with me, and frequently has grease, etc. on his clothes, so that is my largest challenge.

  455. My biggest laundry challenge is sheer volume! With three kids and a husband, I can never stay caught up on laundry. Thanks for the chance to win!
    mrsmchappell at gmail dot com

  463. I end up dealing with a lot of grease stains. My solution — empty a can of Coke in the washer. If it doesn’t work, the grease stain is not going to come out.

  471. My biggest laundry problem is the machining oil from my husband’s work shirts.
    Thanks for the giveaway!

  477. My laundry challenge is watermelon. My daughter loves it but boy does it stain!

    appetizerforacraftymind(at)yahoo(dot)com

  483. my biggest laundry challange is that i cant do enough in one day there is always a load to be done and i can never catch up! and the worst is my 4 year old cant wear white at all i try every stain remover and still theres a stain!
    edgesmama@yahoo.com

  485. My biggest laundry challenge is getting things out of the dryer BEFORE they wrinkle….sigh

  497. My biggest laundry challenge is keeping the whites as white as they can be. It’s especially difficult when people like (ahem, cough cough) my husband and daughter think it’s fine to walk outside and in the garage with their white socks and no shoes. Katharina angelsandmusic[at]gmail[dot]com

  514. my biggest challenge is just keeping it all done. my husband helps when he can, but towels and work clothes add up fast
    brittneydejajason at gmail dot com

  526. Mine started doing laundry as a teen. My biggest challenge is getting him to sort and do a full load. Total fail. I catch him repeatedly doing a tiny load of what he wants to wear the next day. Maddening!

    chrisdeglen(at)gmail(dot)com

  531. My biggest laundry challenge is getting things from the washer to the dryer quickly since the laundry room is in the basement and I hate going downstairs to do it!

    Maybe you could assign your kids a specific “laundry day”?

  534. My biggest laundry challenge is just the sheer volume of it. Between everyone’s clothes, the sheets, towels, etc. it can get overwhelming.

  542. My biggest challenge is everyone hates putting it away. Oh you mean stains- ha probably grease.

  550. My biggest laundry challenge is grass stains from my sons sporting events.

    jweezie43[at]gmail[dot]com

  557. my biggest challenge is my toddler who seems to be a walking stain catcher 😀

    Thank you for hosting this giveaway

    Louis
    pumuckler {at} gmail {dot} com

  578. My biggest laundry challenge is that no matter what I always seem to get mustard on white tee shirts. Help!

  582. My biggest laundry challenge is getting it done! Taking the time to sort, clean out pockets, and do it – ugh – I feel like I never have the time to do it!

    e-mail: lucky02130 (at) gmail (dot) com

  586. My biggest laundry challenge is forcing myself to go out to my dryer with a load of clothes to dry when it is -30 outside…

    mtdoonmeister at gmail dot com

  591. My biggest laundry issue is folding it in a timely manner. I admit that sometimes we just dig through the basket of clean clothes for days before I fold it.

  598. My biggest laundry challenge is folding and putting away. I seem to get the laundry done, but then forcing myself to fold and put away is always a chore.

  605. My biggest challenge is remembering to check all of the pockets. It’s always the ONE time I don’t that someone left a tissue in their pocket, which leaves a big mess.
    jryder416 at yahoo dot com

  615. My biggest laundry challenge is getting stains out after it has gone through the dryer.

  622. My biggest laundry challenge is getting the clean clothes back up stairs, to the correct person and actually put away!

  623. My biggest laundry challenge is well water. It makes the clothes dingy no matter what we do, especially the whites.

  634. biggest challenge is getting time to do the laundry in an apt. building with 42 apartments and only 3 washers available

  640. Biggest laundry challenge is keeping up with it – my twin girl go thru clean clothes so quickly!
    lara at twiceblessedlife dot com

  641. my biggest challenege is just getting it all done.. my daughter didn’t start doing her own laundry until she went away to college, and when she is at home i still do it.. so you aren’t alone

  642. My biggest challenge is dealing with tween sweat. It always seems I can still smell this on my daughters shirts even after the wash!

  647. My biggest laundry challenge is getting out the cooking spray I accidentally get on myself sometimes…

  659. My biggest laundry challenge is finding the time to do it!! We will sometimes just go out and buy whole new outifts because there really is no time to get it done some weeks!!

  688. I have 2 sons; 22 & 14. The sporadically do their own laundry…that means when Mom is unavailable. :o) My biggest laundry challenge is getting them to throw their dirty laundry down the laundry hamper.

  696. My biggest laundry challenge is getting enough quarters together to do it. It’s always a project to make change for so many quarters.

    wolverina401 at gmail dot com

  698. My husband refuses to step out of his jeans correctly. Inside on leg is inside out and it drives me crazy!!!! I am about to refuse to do his laundry until he does it the way I want it!

    shopditzydiva@yahoo dot com

  700. My biggest challenge is just trying to get caught up. There’s 4 of us and there is always dirty clothes. I will think I’ve got the done and then everyone gets in the shower and there’s two more loads. I can’t stand doing laundry. lol

  712. My biggest challenge is finding a detergent that won’t irritate my youngest son’s skin.

  719. Biggest laundry challenge is getting all the clothing together as they seem to be scattered hither and yon, instead of being all in one spot, like the hamper or laundry basket!
    Thanks for the giveaway!

  727. My biggest laundry challenge is just finding the energy to get it all done! It’s just SO time consuming and there are a MILLION other things I would rather be doing!

  741. Oil stains is my biggest laundry challenge. I work at an oil refinery
    teressaoliver at gmail dot com

  765. My biggest laundry challenge is stains! (especially when there are stains that don’t get pre-treated)

    wendym at cableone dot net

  768. Thanks for the giveaway…biggest laundry challenge is white cotton dress shirts i.e. armpits
    !
    senorpiero [at] yahoo [dot] com

  770. My biggest challenge is keeping up with it! Between the husband, dog blanket, 19 month old, 3 yrd old, 12 yr old, and 15 yr old, and myself, it seems like it never ends!

  780. My biggest laundry challenge is my husband washing clothes! He puts everything in one load. I’ve had to start putting my clothes in a separate hamper…so he washes his, and I wash mine!!!

  781. my biggest challenge is having about 20 loads of laundry and not having enough space for them in my dresser, or my hangers breaking. It’s just a mess.

ABOUT AUTHOR
Eighty Mph Mom
Lyric Spencer

I’m all about sharing great products, recipes, home decor, and parenting hacks for busy moms.

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