Day Six of 'The Daily Post'.
When I lived in Scotland, I knew quite a few American families. They came over to do PhDs and took the opportunity to have babies on the NHS. I'm not being cynical - a few of them were very open about how conveniently that worked out for them. One of them shared with me how they enjoyed listening to the local women debate whether it was worth paying 30 pounds a night for a private room in the post-natal ward; she reckoned it would have cost her $5,000 to have her baby in the US.
Let's not get into the health care debate. I'm trying to tell you the story of a conversation I had with a Canadian friend, who was - very tactfully - asking me why British women did so much ironing. The North Americans couldn't understand it. At the time, I considered myself a middle to low intensity ironer: I ironed shirts, tops, trousers, some children's clothes, but not nightwear, bedding, or anything where it wouldn't show. I had friends who ironed tea towels, pyjamas, sheets, towels, the lot (yes, even towels). I was explaining to my Canadian friend how I hardly ironed anything, really, and she replied
"But I literally don't iron anything at all. It's amazing what you can do with a bit of pulling and stretching and smoothing out. This top, for example, I haven't ironed this and I think it looks ok."
That was a seminal moment for me. Before this conversation, I had noticed her top. She was pregnant, and beginning to show, and I had observed that top, thinking how fresh and new it looked, and assuming she'd been shopping and bought some new maternity wear. So there was she, using her cotton jersey top as an example of things she didn't iron, and there was I, admiring the very same top as a pristine garment, straight out of the packet.
I still couldn't quite give up my own ironing habits, although I did try and reduce the amount I did, and I practised that whole pulling and stretching and smoothing out routine. Then when we moved to the US, I decided it was a good opportunity to ditch the ironing altogether, on the basis of 'when in Rome'. And I've never looked back.
In this household, button-up cotton shirts get ironed and trousers if they need it. (Notice how we've moved into the passive voice here, because it wouldn't be strictly true to say "I iron the shirts".) Otherwise, I simply pull and stretch and smooth out, and if the kids' tops and trousers look a bit wrinkled, then I think 'when in Rome', and send them to school anyway. I haven't yet been called in to see the Principal about it.
I don't miss ironing at all. I do miss irony though.
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Ironing is the only domestic chore that I don't mind .. it smells lovely and can be done while telly watching ... but you are right, it is totally unnecessary. The kids actually got me to stop ironing their jeans as they looked too neat:-), now I only do my work uniform.
ReplyDeletethanks for sharing
much love Martine
Ironing - I hate it. I will do my own, and occassionally if we're taking the boys to an 'event' a shirt of theirs, but Husband's? Never. That would be seven large shirts a week plus a couple of pairs of trousers and - well, that way madness lies. And since we cut our cleaner's hours and she no longer has time to do his ironing, he has a stay at home wife and has to iron his own shirts. Irony - I love it...
ReplyDeleteMy American friends here, after having their first baby in an NHS maternity hospital, chose to have their second baby at home rather than go back. Sounds very different from what you were saying...
ReplyDeleteI'm American and I've never ironed. Part of the reason may have been that when I went to college someone gave me a travel iron as a gift. I had it for YEARS! I hated it (and thus ironing). It wasn't until much later that I realized the travel iron did not get hot enough to do anything. I was just heating up the wrinkles. If I had to iron these days, with a proper iron I wouldn't hate it as much (though I doubt I'd like it). My mother, however, does iron everything. Even pants she's going to go shopping in on the weekends. I think, really?! You're just going to sit in the car and get them wrinkly.
ReplyDeleteI mostly loathe ironing though I quite enjoyed doing an hour of it today as it meant I could stand (nearly as good as sitting) in the garden in the early autumn sunshine for an hour, pretending to be doing something useful when I could have stretched, pulled and then spent the hour cleaning bogs and mopping floors and tidying instead. and I like it when it's an excuse to watch the telly of an evening, when I should be as ever, mopping, tidying etc...
ReplyDeleteBut does this not perpetuate the myth that we are very natural fibres in the UK (which need to be ironed) and Stateside it's all man made?
Love
Josephine
There's hope for me yet _ I am normal somewnere int eh world because I ama Brit and I do not iron! Hubby does it......:)
ReplyDeleteDon't do it. Can't face it. Ironing that is.
ReplyDeleteIf you have a good tumble dryer, and you take out the clothes promptly when it is done, you don't have to iron at all. That was always my experience, especially if you use a fabric softener. It's different if your clothes dry outside on the line, but nobody in the States does that as far as I know.
ReplyDeleteAh - there's the problem. Usually the clothes sit in the dryer for hours before I remember - and then they all need to be ironed.
ReplyDeleteWhen I got married, I open a brand new-looking iron that my American husband had been given before he went to college! Decades before!
When we lived in Sri Lanka our 'housekeeper' did the ironing, and as I didnt have enough work to keep her busy all day every day but she needed a full time job, She spun out the ironing & did a batch EVERY afternoon, ALL afternoon. She ironed boxer shorts, knickers SWIMMING costumes,towels, & beinn so humid we wore a lot of 100% cotton stuff & it really needed ironign & needed washing after 1 day in the heat. Actually sh eloved he rafternoons in the kitchen listening to Tamil radio singing along. I used to sneak things out of the basket to stop her ironing them. She would sneak them back again. I hate ironing, & because my husband was in the army he learnt to iron meticulously & my feeble attempts were so bad he insisted on doing them himself (Mwa ha ha! I may be blonde but I'm not dumb....)
ReplyDeleteI was just posting on that yesterday myself! I hate ironing most of the time, and I've been dreading the huge pile of clothes which is kept right next to my sacred computer. I was shocked at first at how many people never iron at all, but now I'm feeling quite liberated, and will only iron the shirts, I think.
ReplyDeleteIota -- I love the ironing/irony pun. Great fun! I think I might need to actually purchase and (gasp!) USE an iron when I move to England this December as we won't have a tumble dryer. I am hoping it will make those crispy winter line-dried towels just a tad fluffier and warm....
ReplyDeleteI don't iron anything. I quit when my second child was born. If it can't be worn out of the dryer I don't buy it. Or I dry clean it. Thank goodness California is casual! I think Brits iron more because they line dry (Or hang things on the radiators when it is wet outside!). My sister has three kids and no tumble dryer; my idea of hell! Oh, and irony. yes. Miss it too.
ReplyDeleteTo bring all my husband's shirts to the dry cleaners (that's what he did before there was 'us') would cost a fortune and kills all the buttons. For the same amount of money, our beloved cleaner magically turns the messy hole of a home into a spotless and representative house AND irons all his shirts, my shirts, my dresses...
ReplyDeleteNope, I don't like ironing either, but I just love to have my clothes ironed.