I have a new parenting note I’d like to share. I, for the first time, was teaching my daughter how to separate her darks from her lights when doing laundry. She tends to build up a lot of laundry since she is a 13-year-old girl! When she realized that I was going to sit next to the washing machine, and help her differentiate what was light and what was dark, she informed me that she knew how to do her own laundry. I told her she had enough laundry that she was going to have to do two loads anyway so she needed to learn how to separate her lights from her darks. She reluctantly let me help her, asking periodically if something was light or dark.

When we finished, I told her that it wasn’t that I was trying to tell her what to do….it was just that I was trying to help her realize that clothes are getting more expensive, they aren’t made as well as they used to be, and if you can save something from being ruined because you worked hard to buy it then you should. I think she realized I just wanted to help her and she thanked me.

I told her to look at it this way, look at it as though I’m giving her “Life Hacks”. Not really trying to tell you what to do, just trying to make your life a little easier in the long run for when you get older and move out. “Life Hacks, not “my way or the highway!” Well at least until curfew is an issue anyway….. But that’s another story for when she’s a little older.

Love,

B~