Does Ironing Make You a Better Mother?

I loathe ironing. Seriously. Its the one chore around the home that I just can’t get behind. Almost everything else can be streamlined and co-ordinated, but not ironing. Its fiddly, its time consuming and it really irritates me. I find that most of the time clothes don’t really even need to be ironed. Just hang them up once you’ve taken them off the line and they’re good enough.

My Mother in Law thinks differently. I was rushed down to Perth a few weeks ago with Threatened Preterm Labour and my husband asked his sisters if they could look after our cat while we were away. What a mistake that was. My dear Mother in Law saw this as a prime opportunity to rearrange our house to how she thought it should be. The best part was when she did the washing claiming that she was trying to make things easier on me. Except she never washed any of my clothes (So I still needed to do a load anyhow). She did however, take every single item of my husbands back to her house so she could wash and iron it. She even went as far as changing what drawer his undies were in.

This isn’t meant to be a rant about the monster in law; but her obsession with all things ironing must have triggered something in me. Two nights ago I found myself in Liam’s nursery meticulously ironing all of his clothes. Even his singlets. Like I said earlier, I hate ironing. I won’t do it for my husband, and I used to barely do it for myself when I was working, but here I was at some obscene hour of the morning slaving over the ironing board for a person who really isn’t going to notice at all if his pants have a few wrinkles in them!

All I can account this insanity to is the burning sense of pride I feel when I think of Liam. I’m proud that we’ve come this far, and I imagine that this feeling will only intensify when he does decide to arrive. There will be nothing wrong with him in my eyes – he’s going to be the most perfect little human in the entire universe – and I want the rest of the world to think that too. So I suck it up and iron his clothes. When I’m finished and they’re hanging in the closet looking nice and flat, I guess I feel proud of myself too.

Ultimately I don’t think ironed clothes really matter all that much, and I most certainly don’t think that ironing makes you a better Mum! I just need to take one glance at my husbands mother to see that. While she may have ironed everything down to his underwear, she has never been there for him as a mother should be, and if I ever find that ironing Liam’s clothes means that I miss out on spending quality time with him, it’ll be the first thing to go! My pride will never be stronger than my love.