Binary Parenting

Son #1.

Owen came home from college with a suitcase full of unwashed clothes. It’s not that he expected me to do his laundry—my one Absolutely Right Parenting Act was to teach (and require) my boys to wash their own clothes once they entered middle school.

So anyway, Owen came home with a bunch of dirty clothes because he’d run out of money for the washing machines in the dorm. Pleased to have him home, I scoop up a heap of utterly rank jeans and corduroys and say, “I’ll start these in the wash for you.” Owen leaps up. “Noooo! Not those jeans!” I pause.

“They have holes in the crotch,” he explains. “Washing makes the holes bigger. So I never wash them.”

“Owen,” say I. “It's time to buy new pants.”

“Why?” he asks, utterly perplexed.

Son #2.

I find a pile of clothes that Hugh plans to try to sell to Plato's Closet, a teen clothing resale shop. In the pile, right on top, sits a brand new flannel shirt, tags still on, that I'd given him for Christmas--that, in fact, he'd picked out for Christmas. I demand to know what he's thinking.

"Well, it's about to be summer so I'm not going to wear a flannel shirt," he says in one of those "like totally, duh" tones of voice.

"Hugh. We have closets. Save it for next year," I reply.

He stares at me, horrified. "Like I'm going to wear last season's clothes!"