Saturday, October 28, 2017

Not a Fan: Dirty Laundry edition

The backstory: On Instagram, I follow a woman named Jen Hatmaker.  She lives in Austin, Texas and writes about her life as a wife, mother, and Christian.  On the face of it, we don’t have much in common, but I like her sensibility and her sense of humor.  From her, I’d adopted the idea of an occasional rant about the small annoyances in life.  She calls her grievances “Not a Fan” and that rather sums it up, so my occasional rants will also arrive under that title.

I am not a fan of people who learn that I wash my teenage son’s laundry and then take the opportunity to primly explain that their children do their own laundry.  I call bullshit on that claim.  For starters, I straight up don’t believe you.  Your children don’t consistently arrive in clean clothes that they washed themselves.  I am sure that on occasion your kid goes to school in dirty socks and underwear. And if you think I don’t know of what I speak, let me remind you that I am a teacher.  I know the difference between kids who stink from lack of deodorant and kids who stink because you make them wash their own clothes and they’ve taken a pass on that option.  For fuck’s sake, wash your kid’s clothes and then brag that you do it.

And on that subject, for those of us who do fulfill minimum parenting responsibility by taking on the laundry, I’d like to speak to our children.  Child, do not place rolled up, sweaty socks in the laundry. Unroll. those. socks.

And now you’ll have to excuse me.  I have to get the laundry going.

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