Laundry Discontent

What if there were a child who could not pick up socks? What if that child could not manage to get any dirty clothes off the floor? What if that child, when about to be caught by the Big Bad Mother, decided to stuff dirty clothes, wadded up, into the drawer of clean clothes? (I know. I know. This is so far-fetched as to be almost unbelievable. But just stretch your imagination....) Imagine also that this child is so opposed to picking up clothes that sometimes it's just easier to throw clean clothes (perhaps something she tried on, or wore for 15 minutes) into the dirty-clothes hamper so that she doesn't have to be bothered with folding it and putting it away in her drawer or on a hanger.

The Big Bad Mother decides that it is important to teach such a child some basic self-care skills. The BBM thinks that learning to brush teeth and brush hair and pick up clothes is even more important than math and spelling. The BBM spends an entire school year making such simple skills the priority of the day, trying to pass on the responsibility for these skills to the child. After months, it appears that maybe a little of this is beginning to sink in. So the mother continues to back off slowly, checking up on the child periodically, and normally finding those skills slipping -- slowly at first, but then precipitously.

How can this be remedied? The logical solution would be to allow "natural consequences" (one of those buzzwords in parenting advice today). If the child does not put the dirty clothes in the hamper, child will have to do her own laundry. But she wouldn't. She is perfectly content to wear clothes with ketchup splotches and peanut butter smears. There's also the problem that the Big Bad Mother would have to buy more clothes for the child, so as to make a whole load of laundry, and not allow the child to wash 3 shirts, thus wasting water and electricity and detergent. Buying more clothes involves also finding more dresser-space to store such clothes. And more clothes just means that soon the bedroom dresser will no longer be resting on its feet, but perched precariously on the pile of clothing that has been smashed under it, causing it (to all outward appearances) to be levitating.

Another solution would be to engage in that whole "behavior modification" thing. But when the Big Bad Mother is already stressed with too much to do, too much to keep track of, too many places to be, too many lessons to teach, the last thing BBM needs is to be monitoring whether Messy Child gets a star or a demerit every 15 minutes. Besides, BBM already tried something like that, and as soon as the mother's constant involvement is curtailed, bad habits return like a stubborn weed.

Sometimes it seems entirely hopeless.