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Ah yes, you just put the clothes in and press a button. No sorting by colour/fabric beforehand. No taking out one load and putting in another. No hanging out clothes (if you dry them on a line outside) or putting them in the tumbledryer (if you don't). No putting them away afterwards. Just folding them and that's all! 🤣
I agree that modern automation and white goods has made a vast difference to housework (honestly, the dishwasher we finally got a few years back is amazing) but there still remains some work, and it's not just "five minutes a day".
In fact, for a while, housework went up because of automation and convenience products. Now instead of one day a week for laundry, you would be doing it every day because now you could change your bedsheets and clothing more than once a week. And now you would change clothing and bed linen and so forth more than once a week, because you weren't dirty and lazy were you? And now you vacuumed the house every day because you aren't bringing the rugs out to hang them on a line and beat them. Same with this - you do all this because you want to provide a clean, welcoming home for your family don't you? If they get sick (from unspecified illnesses) due to the dirty house you live in, well... what a failure as a wife and mother, yes?
(This also gave rise to the advertising staple of the clueless husband/man of the family who had to be guided through the tech wonderland of modern cleaning products. And also some that wouldn't fly nowadays).
So swings and roundabouts.
For the vast majority of modern clothes in modern washing machines, this is not necessary. Our detergents are a lot better and our dyes stick on way more.
That's like, a minute or two.
If you don't use the technology then it doesn't save you time.
Literally again, another few minutes (honestly probably more like a single minute if not less but let's count going to the laundry room and back)
Again, another few minutes.
It went from a day of exhaustive and attentive work to barely anything.
Unless you have a massive family, you aren't doing laundry everyday. Five shirts, five pants, five underwear would not fill up my washing machine. What a waste. Put them in the laundry hamper and do it in batches like everyone else. We get 3 days worth I would say but obviously depends on the circumstances.
And if you choose to change bedsheets every day then you're overdoing it. That's just OCD.
Completely unnecessary unless you're tracking in mud.
Yeah this suggests you do have some sort of OCD issue going on then with it. It is not ordinary to change bed sheets and vacuum daily.
I know several women who do vacuum daily. I know several who change bed sheets weekly. As convenience improves, standards go up. Now that it's easy to do laundry, you should do laundry. Playing on fears of infection and social fears of being perceived as dirty or careless was a huge range of advertisements aimed at housewives from the 50s onward.
Today we don't give a damn if a shirt is ironed or not, but it was used as a tool of judgement - are you letting your husband and kids go out in clothes that are not sparkling white? Are you a proper wife and mother? Creating perceived needs and playing on them is what advertising is all about.
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