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Why your teen needs to do laundry (and how to make it happen)

In this excerpt from her new book, The Blessing of a B Minus, psychologist Wendy Mogel reveals the secret to raising a well-adjusted teenager

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Originally published in Today's Parent December 2010

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When it came time for Fall break during his first year at a top-tier college, my neighbour’s son stuffed two months’ worth of laundry — every piece of clothing he’d worn since arriving at school at the end of August — into three oversized suitcases, paid an excess baggage fee of $150 to check them at the airport, and flew home to his parents’ house.

“What were you thinking?” asked his astonished mother, as Josh deposited a mountain of smelly jeans, T-shirts, sweatshirts and socks in the utility room and made his way to the kitchen.

“Mom,” he said, opening the refrigerator, “how was I supposed to have time for laundry? I was studying...plus, I had all my work at the Jewish students’ centre.”

Josh is a good-hearted, generally responsible young man, not typically in the habit of taking advantage of his mother. But in high school, his parents had sheltered him from chores in exchange for his total devotion to school work and extracurriculars. Now, in college, Josh was positive that this bargain was still in place — that academics and religious involvement gave him a free pass out of laundry duty. In Josh’s mind, he was too gifted to sort his own socks.

It’s tempting to protect our teens from the drudgery of chores and other work. They are up half the night writing papers about the role of the free market in medieval guilds; then they wake up at 6 a.m. for swim team practice; then they are at school for a long day. Plus, they are grouchy. Reminding them to clean the windows is asking for a fight when you are so, so tired of fighting.

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