I hate a lot of household chores [see name of this newsletter], but few of them feel as Sisyphean as laundry. Especially when you’re not only stain-treating, washing, drying, folding, delivering, and putting-away the largely civilized laundry of adults but also stain-treating, washing, drying, folding, delivering, and putting-away the wholly uncivilized (and sometimes wholly unnecessary) laundry of small children. Small children who are prone to stripping in the middle of the kitchen simply because sartorial inspiration strikes. Small children who play several dusty, sweaty sports with professional enthusiasm. Small children who are potty training! Laundry is never “done” and the unending, cyclical nature of laundry often sends me spiraling into fits of existential despair.
Not so for this cheerful, laundry-loving lass!
In this obscene bit of spon-con for Christy Dawn (a brand for which an entire WTF tome needs to be eventually penned), momfluencer Johnna (“Mother | Naturer | Nurturer/🌲Raising four girls in the woods/🍴Recipes/ 📝Homeschooling /🌾Florals /🤲Peaceful parenting”) unironically frolics with absolute delight while hanging her aesthetically pleasing neutral colored laundry on an aesthetically pleasing laundry line in a sunlit glen.
Johnna’s #laundry4eva Insta reel hits many of the sweet spots of “ideal mom” lore.
She is barefoot and outside so she is “natural.”
She is non-disabled, thin, and conventionally attractive according to Western beauty ideals.
She is white!
She is “pure” and unsullied by the supposedly corrupting influence of urban life because she’s not throwing her kid’s urine soaked sheets into an unromantic basement washer and dryer unit; she’s jauntily clipping her adorable cream-colored onesies onto a clothesline to dry in the sun the way God surely intended (with a hand in her pocket no less!)
She is well lit.
She is smiling.
She is using laundry pins and those laundry pins are obviously made of wood.
She is “soft” and “feminine” by virtue of her $278.00 “Summer Strawberry Creme Dress” and her blonde waves.
She is engaged in domestic labor and not only is she not complaining about, she is fucking ecstatic about it.
She is selfless and uninterested in the market sphere since her spon-con isn’t financially benefitting her but is going straight back to the ultimate mother, Mother Earth (“Use code 15JOHNNAH to get 15% off and any ‘profits’ * I make from the affiliate code are donated directly back towards land regeneration.”)
*These quotation marks are doing a LOT of work.
As is typical with these types of posts, most of the comments are fawning.
Some examples:
“Wow ur so pretty”
“Laundry has never seemed more peaceful than this clip✨”
“So fun and cute!”
One comment reads as follows: “I’d do laundry more if it meant hanging it on a beautiful line like this ☺️ such a pretty place,” to which I say, REALLY?
Would you do more laundry in such a pretty place if you were burnt out by managing childcare, domestic work, your external employment, and your laundry basket was overflowing with Frozen-themed t-shirts? Would you do more laundry in such a pretty place if the sky was overcast and your mood was shit? Would you do more laundry in such a pretty place if your children were attempting to crawl back into your womb and/or yank the laundry (neutral-colored or Frozen-colored) down from the line and into the dirt? Would you do more laundry in such a pretty place if you were wearing threadbare sweatpants from college and hadn’t washed your hair in three days?
Would you do more laundry in such a pretty place if no one was watching?
Or would you just do laundry per usual (pretty place or not) because laundry is a necessary part of adult life incapable of being rendered sublime by virtue of expensive clothing, wicker laundry baskets, no-makeup makeup, or even sunshine.
Because here’s the central WTF of this reel. It erases the labor part of domestic labor by imbuing the labor of laundry with Insta-filtered fantasy. It erases the importance and value of a mother’s time by making laundry look like a fucking spa treatment. It upholds a harmful ideal of motherhood by making a daily chore look like transcendence that any soul would be lucky, nay, blessed to achieve.
Gosh, if I buy one of those magical Strawberry Creme Christy Dawn dresses (which I'll have to start a gofundme for), is it possible that I can turn ALL my household chores into this happy kind of dream?! Or does this shit only work for laundry?
I’m now hung up over here on her home birth post, where she describes the experience as “pain free, joyful and calm.”