This column is the latest in a series on parenting children in the final years of high school, “Emptying the Nest.” Read the previous installment, a defense of helicopter parents, here . As I did what felt like my 18th load of laundry last weekend, most of it belonging to my 17-year-old daughter, I felt a strange catch in my throat.
In a little over a year, my three-decade indenture as a full-time laundress will come to an end. With my youngest child away at college, the only clothes I will be regularly loading in and out of the washer and dryer will be my own. (And my husband’s — but at this point he only wears, and re-wears, soccer pants and sweatshirts so the addition is negligible.
) For a moment I honestly thought I would cry. Over the freaking laundry. Where once I would grumble and complain — why am I doing this kid’s laundry when she could do it herself? — I take bittersweet comfort from the task.
But that’s the way it’s been as my third and final child draws ever nearer to deserting the nest, as the role of “mother” becomes less CEO and more consultant emeritus. You’d think I’d be relieved, excited even. A career in motherhood involves many repetitive and relentless tasks — changing diapers, assembling lunches, keeping track of doctor and dentist appointments, filling out school forms for each child Every Single Year.
But none are as omnipresent and unavoidable as the laundry. Picking up all the clothes, washing and drying all the clothes, .