There Comes A Time

There are times when you just gotta say, "I'm done." This isn't an earthshattering event, just something that torched me one day and I cracked. First I have to say that my Daughter is the best kid....ever. But for many reasons she can be lazy. In part, it's our fault with her being an only child and well...you get it.

Her academics have always come first so we've never been very strict with helping around the house, taking out garbage, dishes, laundry, etc. Her only real chore is feeding the dog once a day and making sure she has water. A few years ago I got so tired of reminding her I started taking her allowance away. Five bucks off for an infraction kind of hurts the wallet at the end of the week so she's much better at it. And I know I was no better when I was her age, having to be reminded to do even the simplest thing. It drives her Dad nuts when she walks right by something that needs to be done and just knows that one of us will do it.

This is going to be the summer of reality. It started a few weeks ago when I did laundry as usual and placed her clothes on the bed, already on hangars. All she has to do is hang them up. The following week I go looking for empty hangars in her closet and I see this pile of shirts just thrown over the bar in her closet. She was in the room but I didn't say anything, just slammed the closet door shut and walked out. Sometimes it's NOT what you say that gets the most attention.

The next day as she's helping me take clothes off the line I asked her if she knew why I was mad. Oh yea, she got it. Then I laid it out for her. From now on, she will do her own laundry. It will carry on to college too. When she registered for her dorm early, she got a certain amount of laundry credit for the whole year so there's no way I'm doing her laundry when she can do it there for free. I remember dumping my clothes off on my Mom when I came home on weekends. I figured she was just so glad to see me that she was happy to do it, ha!

So I have officially ended my 18 years of doing her laundry which will cut back on ours significantly. She loves to wear something once and throw it in the pile. I bet she'll change her ways a bit too, knowing that it's all on her now. I then informed hubby that I was only going to do laundry every other week so if he didn't have enough underwear, he better go buy some. He went the next day.

I feel liberated!