The Missing Laundry: The College Effect

By Tina Case of Parent Grapevine

I saw a comment on a friend's Facebook recently that I immediately understood. She wrote "The laundry is making me sad this morning". Hey, it's not that either of us loves doing the laundry, folding it and putting it away. What's making both of us melancholy is we have our oldest child away at college for the first time and there are many things noticeably different. Including a lighter laundry load. Something's definitely amiss.

The laundry load is a TON smaller. For years I've been used to having a minimum of one load a day and often two during the diaper years and soccer season. With five people filling up the hamper, it's downright odoriferous in the laundry room. But with my first full month as the parent of a college student, I'm amazed to realize how much one child contributed to the family pile.

In addition to the lighter laundry load I've also noticed we don't use up milk quite as fast. I used to purchase two gallons of milk a week and sometimes that wouldn't be enough. But now the milk isn't consumed quite as quickly and there are fewer glasses to wash besides.

When my husband is traveling on business our family size dwindles from five to three. During the day the house is achingly quiet. It makes me appreciate having our golden retriever even more during those times.

And like that lighter load of laundry, the load of responsibility on my shoulders as a parent is lightening up a bit as well. Once a child goes to college, they are making decisions all day without parental interference but hopefully with parental influence. (That is, unless you are a helicopter mom which I wrote about in an earlier blog). Skype and cell phones keep us connected. But that doesn't make up for the changes at home, the lighter loads, the milk that lasts longer and (gasp) the empty bedroom. But when they come home that all changes and the load and the laughter fill the house once again.

When Tina isn't sitting by her window wondering where the time went, she's often caught with a camera in hand taking photos with her business partner and blogging buddy, Kristina. Share in their latest blog, Moms Who Click, as they build their photography business one click at a time. They can also be found sharing parenting stories on their personal blog, the Parentgrapevine.