When kids start doing their own laundry?

Seriously, how long does it take to sort clothes and turn on the washer? Recurrence: once a week? And I don't know about your washer, but mine does small loads. This is one of those easy chores that imho all kids should do. I think I was doing my laundry by the time I was 13, my mother being busy and chronically late on everything. I also remember ironing my shirts at the age of perhaps 11 but thank God those ironing days are gone now.

Tashi, I was hoping you'd respond.

How long does it take to sort clothes and turn on washer? Well, just as how long it takes to pick up a few things lying on the floor, or how long it takes to renew an overdue library book! Meaning - actual time is short, but it ends up taking much longer.

So, let's put that aside. Kid should be disciplined enough to do that chore quickly. OK. But, given a teen girl's average pile of clothes - 2 will be dark colored jeans, 2 will be delicate-wash.. just the colors make it two piles. Maybe as a family (of four) we for some reason have fewer dirty clothes... but, every four days or so, I have two reasonable piles.

I may be wrong, but water and energy conservation dictates that we do the family laundry as a unit. We just get all the clothes down, and I, DH do it, or the kids, or them and I. My kids (same age as JAM's ) can do the laundry of the whole family, if needed, including sorting, deciding which do not go to dryer, and folding, plus putting away in each closet.

The way I look at it so far is that - I knew how to clean the toilet (Indian style squatting kind and pour phenyl etc) in India, but did it rarely. Came to the U.S. and have been washing toilets ever since. Knew how to cook,but perfected it only after 2-3 years of independent living. So right now I tend to think if kid knows how to do it, and does it happily enough on occasion, chores becoming a habit can wait. I'd rather spend that time interacting with them, listening to them, going out, or introducing them to other things like money management, forming opinions...

When kids start doing their own laundry?