#AITA for ignoring our daughter’s inconvenient boundary?
Hey everyone, I need some input on a situation with our daughter and laundry. 🧺 Our daughter has established a boundary where nobody can touch her clothes, which is fine, except she monopolizes the washing facilities in our home. Last weekend, she left her laundry out all day while we had multiple loads to do. 😬 We’ve offered her a weekly laundry day, but she says it’s not enough. Are we being unreasonable? 🤔
She’s upset, saying we’re not respecting her boundaries, but we feel it’s unfair to inconvenience everyone else in the house for her schedule. 🤷♂️ We tried to compromise, but she’s still not budging. What do you think? Join the discussion and help us out! 💬 #FamilyDrama #LaundryWoes #ParentingStruggles #RespectingBoundaries
>She’s upset because she says we’re not respecting her boundaries
By monopolizing the laundry facilities when you’ve asked her not to, she’s not respecting *your* boundaries. NTA.
She’s always welcome to go to a public laundry mat. It’s only reasonable on her part if she gets her clothes done in a timely manner, instead of holding the facilities hostage from everyone else. NTA
Edit: What did she do at uni? Those are almost always shared machines.
NTA. The only reason you’re not ‘respecting her boundaries’ is because she’s being inconsiderate and selfish. Ironically, that would stomp on most people’s boundaries.
Tell her you have no problem respecting hers, providing she respects yours.
NTA
She’s applying her college life to your home lol. That’s very simular to what you experience in a college dorm. However your home is NOT a college dorm. She needs to do her laundry when she is home to retrieve it if she doesn’t want anyone touching it and that’s just it. I don’t like my husband doing my laundry either (always afraid he’s gonna dry something that can’t be dried lol) but if I forget about my laundry and leave and he moves it so he can do his stuff- well that’s my problem not his. Best of luck OP!
NTA. It is unreasonable for her to expect you to wait around for her to free up the facilities. If she doesn’t like the one day a week idea, she can take it to a laundrette otherwise, if she isn’t around to move her washing in a timely way, it will be moved for her. She doesn’t get to set boundaries around the use of common facilities in a home she doesn’t pay for.
NTA, she needs to either manage her washing better or if she refuses to work with everyone else in the home she can look at going to a laundromat. The last more expensive alternative is for her to purchase a washer dryer combo for herself, put up her own dry line and exclusively use it. Your family has stuff to do that should not be held up because she starts her laundry and goes out for whatever reasons, that is selfish on her part.
NTA
Establishing a boundary doesn’t mean she gets to do whatever she wants and throw a fit if it doesn’t go exactly her way. She’s being beyond unreasonable here
NTA
I’d be curious as to what caused the shift in behavior. That seems to be the main crux of the problem.
Tell her if she doesn’t like the laundry situation then she can move out and get her own place and do it whenever she wants to. She’s selfish. And she doesn’t pay for your place, you do. You make the rules.
NTA Tell your stepdaughter she has two choices to pick a day to do her wash or she has to go to a laundromat. She may have all the boundaries she wants but she is no longer going to inconvenience the family by monopolizing the washer and dryer. If she leaves wash in the washer or dryer unattended it will be moved as necessary.
NTA. Thats not a boundary. A Boundary is what you build around yourself (think a fence). You can build a boundary/fence around your life/home but you can’t on your neigbhors. Sure, no one touches my clothes but the moment you clothes are obstructing your neighbor, it gets removed. Same with say your kids ball. No one is to take your kids ball BUT if it ends up on someone elses lawn, of course they can move it out of the way.
NTA
This is insane, you can respect her boundaries but she needs to work within YOUR rules/schedule, etc. She can’t just dictate something then make it impossible to go about your own business. It’s ludicrous.
The good thing is, you have the upper hand here. If she doesn’t want her stuff touched, then she’d better get it off the line before you need to use it.
1 – Ask for her input on timing, but being clear there are 6 people living in the house and she gets the equivalent of 1/6th of the available time to do her wash.
2 – If she fights it, assign her a time
3 – Respect that time, and don’t do any of your wash during her scheduled time (so she can’t come back at you that ‘your stuff was in the wash’
4 – Go about your business. If he stuff is in the wash/on the line and she’s not around to move it, you move it.
DONE. PERIOD.
This teenager-making-rules bullshit has to stop. You are the parents, and it’s your house.
Come on. You know you’re NTA here. She is being very inconsiderate. Tell her unless she can compromise you WILL continue to move her clothes as you see fit so that you can do laundry for all FIVE of the other people in the house. And if she doesn’t like it she is welcome to go to a laundromat.
NTA. Suggesting a designated laundry day is smart and removes this issue. If she’s using your machines, she has to respect that.
NTA. You’re not being unreasonable at all but her new reality is probably someone messed with her laundry at uni and she had to adjust (laundry stolen or vandalized). She’s operating on college laundry rules and not home laundry rules. Remind her you did her laundry for years and this was never an issue. While you want to respect her wishes, you have your own set of rules that need to be minded and one of them is that you don’t hog up the laundry. You want to respect her boundaries. But her boundaries are causing other pre-existing boundaries to be broken. This is not acceptable.
NTA. Is she majoring in entitlement? Tell her she needs to respect the boundary of the OWNERS OF THE HOUSE AND WASHING MACHINE! Then Mapquest some laundromats in your area for her.
Your step-daughter is a dumbass. Tell her to fuck off with that shit or use a laundromat from now on.
Sometimes, being nice and reasonable isn’t the answer
NTA. Boundaries are not rules you can create for other people to follow. But maybe you could just create your own laundry “boundaries,” such as clothes can’t stay in the washer after it has stopped, and anything hung on the line must be brought inside the same day.
I hate the weaponisation of psychiatric terms. Not everything you don’t like hearing is a trigger and not everything you don’t like happening is a boundary. She doesn’t like you touching her clothes? Fair enough. You don’t like her leaving her stuff blocking laundry? Also fair enough. But framing as a violation of her boundary,she’s made it as a borderline assault, you can’t negotiate from there and your reasonable needs make you wonder if you are TA.
You are NTA
NTA- That’s not a boundary. That is a request. A boundary has a cause and effect.
I don’t want to be all “kids these days”, but boundary seems like the new buzzword for “If you don’t do what I want, I’m going to claim emotional abuse.”
NTA. It sounds like you should set your own boundary of, “No using my laundry equipment if I can’t touch your clothes.” Then she is free to drive to a laundry mat and guard her clothing with every breath. It makes me wonder how she’s surviving at school, because when I was a student clothes left unattended for more than a few minutes were always taken out of the machine because they were in huge demand.
Boundaries are something you put around yourself, not around other people. “If people keep touching my clothes, I will find somewhere else to do laundry.” “If people keep touching my clothes, I will stay home while they’re being done.” You can make a boundary too, y’know: “The laundry facilities need to be available for everyone who lives here. If they are not, clothes will be moved.” You could just shove everything into a basket and not fold it.
Honestly this is a lesson she needs to learn; when she’s in a situation where the laundry facilities are shared, it’s considered extremely rude to leave your clothes to the point where it inconveniences others.
We occasionally forget; the neighbors will text the group chat, we apologize profusely and if we won’t be home soon we might say “put them in x place.” My friend’s place has a whiteboard above the washer where people write instructions for advancing their clothes if they’re not going to be around, and leave their laundry basket there, so as not to hold up the washer and dryer. Your daughter needs to understand that it’s an embarrassing social faux pas to leave your clothes in the laundry and hold up other people’s laundry.
You might say, “waiting until you move them in your own time is not an option as we are all sharing this laundry. Would you prefer that we take them out and put them directly into a basket without folding them, regardless of what stage they’re in, or would you prefer that we advance them to the next stage and fold them when they’re dry?”
Make it clear that-just as with any laundry facilities shared between adults-leaving them indefinitely is not on the list of options, that the offer to fold is only because you’re family, and she’s welcome to take her clothes to a laundry mat or other laundry service if she really wants to ensure that you aren’t touching or moving her clothes.
Otherwise she has to be aware, set times and make commitments. “Hey, my clothes are in the dryer but I’ll be home.by 6 and I’ll get them then. Does that work for you?”
Your daughter is 19 and this is the right time for her to be looking for independence. This is an important learning moment about boundaries, respect, and care for others.
I say NAH, have some respectful communication, or just hand her this comment.
Lol, so she thinks she’s grown now, learning all those fancy words at university (which I’m sure you’re paying for).
If you continue to tolerate her ridiculous demands, they’ll only increase as she figures out what she can get away with.
She can call her own shots when she’s paying her own way. You shouldn’t let an entitled 19 year old run your household.
There’s no solution where she isn’t mad at you, but that’s what being a parent is. She has to respect other people in the house.
wtf is happening to kids these days. NTA. i had no ideai turned into the get off my lawn guy but i’m sick of pretending this is normal. tell her to grow up and go to a laundromat or something.
I’m not saying this is a *good* solution, but one could remove the pegs without touching the clothing…
NTA but if she is crying about this boundary and is advocating so fiercely for it, I imagine something happened regarding her laundry and she is feeling vulnerable.
As an example, the first time I lived on my own, someone I did not know went through my clothing and picked out all of my dirty underwear (they left it in a pile in my room that i never wouldve made). I felt so violated and had no idea who did it or why, and I felt extremely sexualized and vulnerable. All I can imagine is someone looked closely enough at my clean and dirty piles to figure out what underwear was dirty. Did they sniff it? Did they steal some? Did they jack off to it?
Do you think something victimizing happened and she is feeling vulnerable about it? I’m even considering if there is abuse happening and clothing may show the signs (rips in underwear, blood on pants or underwear) that she is trying to hide.
I work in social services so my brain goes to worst case scenario. I hope nothing bigger is going on but I’d encourage you to ask, or refer her to supports like therapy.