My mother will do my laundry when she's here visiting, despite the fact that I ask/tell her not to.

Actually, let me amend that-- I'll do the laundry, but she'll commandeer the folding because she knows I hate doing it. I still tell her to leave it alone, but she's incapable of doing so so I just gracefully acquiesce and try to make sure as much of it as possible is done before she comes to visit.

Yeah, I had to do my own laundry from about 13. The one time my mom tried to do me a random favor on a college break and do my laundry she threw all of it in the dryer and shrunk several line dry only shirts.

To be fair to my family, both my mother and sister did my laundry when they came to stay with me. My mother did it because she feels sorry for me, and my sister was doing laundry anyway.

But iron??? Hells to the no. My mother clearly explained she didn't feel that sorry, and I don't think my sister irons.

I did bring home dirty laundry in college, but I still had to wash it myself. Only difference was that at home it was free!

I did at one point own both an iron and ironing board, but at some point I decided they weren't worth moving and left them behind at the old apartment. Everything I own which requires ironing also requires dry-cleaning.

I wouldn't think it was so weird, except that he a) maintains a separate residence and b) washes his clothes at his apartment and then brings the dry clothes to his mom for ironing. My boss is incredibly high energy though, whereas my mom is a "fall asleep on the couch after work" kind of person.

I iron almost every day, but mostly because I drip dry everything, including dry clean only items that I have hand washed. You really need to iron things that have not been in the dryer. I also have to re-iron the backs of my dry clean only skirts that I re-wear, because sitting all day makes me have a wrinkly butt.

When I go to visit Mom, I'll sometimes volunteer to do her ironing for her. I don't mind ironing (I actually find it rather soothing), and I just get the board set up in front of the tv, put on a movie, and start pressing, usually finishing up the basket (Mom lets ironing pile up until she absolutely has to do it) after a few hours.

I wouldn't think it was so weird, except that he a) maintains a separate residence and b) washes his clothes at his apartment and then brings the dry clothes to his mom for ironing.

It's bananas all the way around, I'm sorry. Unless she LOVES IRONING.

As kids, we were taught how to do the laundry in reverse order; first, folding (pairing up socks when we were preschoolers), then throwing things into the dryer, then how to separate the loads and do the wash, and then, finally, ironing by the time we were 12 or so.

One of my friends in college said that she found ironing calming, so whenever she was getting stressed out about a test, she would go around to all our rooms and collect any wrinkled clothes and iron them all for us.

I have mentioned this in here before, but I find it fascinating that my parents (like everyone in college with them in the late '40s-early '50s) mailed their laundry home each week in specially provided packaging. [link]