Looking at that pile of socks, you might think we love socks. You might think we were out to have all the socks we can.
Socks. Dozens of socks. Big socks, small socks. New socks, old socks. Colored socks, white socks and formerly white socks.
The bane of my existence as the mom of a large family.
Socks Education. I’ve obviously failed miserably in this department.
Years ago, when my family was just beginning I heard a mom of a large family say she solved the Sock Issue this way: white socks for girls, black socks for boys. It sounded so brilliantly simple. I vowed then and there to do the Black Socks for Boys and White Socks for Girls system. All these years later, I can’t remember how many children that clever mom had, nor what age spread of children she had. This, however, I can guarantee: she did not have fourteen children ranging in age from three to twenty-one.
And I bet she didn’t have a child who chronically wore socks that look like this:
I have one son, who shall remain nameless, who I am convinced puts on a pair of socks and simply keeps wearing them until they rot off his body. You know, sort of like medieval peasants used to do? Perhaps he is just a history buff in the making, trying to live as authentically as possible. I’m kind of afraid to ask…
*sigh*
Sock Issues are what separate hardcore mega-family moms from average large family moms. How do I know this? Recently a friend (and mother of six) commented on Facebook that she combats the problem like this: if she sees a child’s sock lying around, she calls them, right then, to come pick them up. Problem solved.
But here’s the deal, if I found a stray sock or two or two dozen lying around, I would have no idea who that sock belonged to. I have three little boys who all wear the same size socks. I have three girls who wear the same size socks and two more younger girls who wear the same (different) size. I have solved the teen boy Sock Issue by simply buying black for Enoch and white for Judah. But that only solves the problem for those two.
I have seriously considered, renting the socks out to my children. Keeping them all in an undisclosed location and handing them out for a quarter a piece, or in exchange for a pair of dirty socks…but I just don’t need one more thing to deal with during my busy days.
There is nothing quite as demoralizing as completing a load of laundry and being left with several dozen matchless socks. Okay, if I strain I can think of a few more demoralizing things, but not many.
This, my friends, is a pile of sad, lonely socks:
Socks that I threw ruthlessly, with reckless abandon into the garbage yesterday. Sure, one or two had mates, but they also had HOLES and I cannot stand one more day in this house facing a mountain of stray socks that is higher than my mountain of matched, hole-less socks.
We shall overcome!
Last weekend I headed to K-Mart and bought $48 worth of socks at their buy one get one half off sale. Looks at those dozens of clean, new socks. Socks with mates! Socks in pristine condition!
Who needs a date night with hubby, where there are clean, matched socks to fold?
Just look at that!
There is no longer any excuse for my children to run around sockless or in socks with holes.
All is well with the Baker’s Dozen crew.
I’ve tried giving each of them those net bags you zip delicates into an launder .. . except they didn’t really bother with them much. Reminds me of a Diary of A Wimpy Kid scene where the kid gets given some laundry basket that looks like a basket ball hoop to get him to put his dirty clothes in it . . .so he says “I just dump it on the floor and it comes back clean and folded.” (Mom not amused). I have family of three kids and when I imagine my sock prob. multiplied I break out in a cold sweat. But I do have one other good use for lone-socks-that have-lost-their-pardner or gotten too small: keep a few, clean, in a pile, and whenever anyone has an earache, fill with room-temp. hunks of onion (half a medium-size onion) for each sock. Knot shut. One over each ear, held in place with ski band or (pref cotton) hat all night. This usually banishes the earache!
I hate laundry and socks. So what I did was buy the same style sock for the boys, in different sizes but all the same style. Then i showed the little boys how to find their size – fits on your foot. And threw them all into a basket. Un mated. Now they just dig until they find a matching size but even if the sizes are wrong the sock looks the same. No sock mating for me. One gets a hole I chuck it. There are always socks. If I had girls in the mix I would buy them a different style but do the same thing. I also keep the socks by the door we leave – easy to put on.
I have a large basket of clean socks. It sits in the middle of the living room. Every day I tell my kids if they are looking for socks, check the basket. I do remember shouting, very loudly and passionately, “I refuse to match socks for nine people!” a few days ago. I thought I had a system to help me figure out what sock goes to what kid, but I’ve completely forgotten it; I think it had something to do with color. I’m so glad mis-matched socked are “in.”
Hey, how did your boy get my boys’ socks?
So funny, so true! I have 12 at home and am in the exact same boat. Mismatched socks is the fashion in our home. Thank goodness for Fred Meyer’s November 50% off all socks sale.
I actually do rent out wool camping socks. I keep them in a trunk in my closet and hand them out one pair at a time in exchange for something important to them as collateral. Other than that, I’ve mostly given up on socks that aren’t mine or the baby’s.
I only have 7 kids, but one wears the same size as me, two wear the same size as each other and the others can’t stand the feel of socks and pull them off and leave them laying around everywhere the minute they walk in the door.
I’m still convinced that the only solution to the sock problem is to move somewhere warm enough to not need socks.
Good luck with those new socks! 😉
I have a sock policy in my house. If it isn’t in a pair, I refuse to wash it! Once they get desperate for clean socks, they went in search and balled up a pair. Now it is an automatic habit, they take off dirty socks and roll them into a ball as they take them off. I un-ball as I put them in the machine and hang them together as a pair. When is bring them in dry, they are checked for holes and balled up before they come inside.
Ha! Ha! My son thinks having large holes in his socks like that is cool. He’s 12. I’m not sure where he gets this idea. Maybe his friends, who knows.
I’ve heard (but never tried) the delicates bag works well, just hang it on the back of the doors with names or different colors for each kid and they have to put both inside and you just wash them in the bag, then both are there. The theory behind this is great but I’m pretty sure my kids would never get them put in the bag.
Add this to the fact that my niece visits regularly and always leaves her socks at our house, inside or outside they are always here when she leaves. if they are left outside our puppy usually chews them up or separates them and it takes us a bit to find the second one. If we find them both and they are salvageable she denies they are hers. So I always end up with extra socks that don’t even belong to us.
hahaha, i had to laugh so hard when i read this post!
we’re only two in our house,, but we both let our socks lying around occasionally. however this was never an issue with our big dog, as he never touches our stuff. we adopted a small dog from romania in november – and she’s all in for socks. wherever you leave a sock lying around- be sure that she will find it- so she’s actually educating us 😉
she loves socks…and whenever i stumble across single soks without a partner, i give them to her 😉
I’m one of 10 and we each had our own type of socks (mine were white with gray toes, next sister had white with pink toes, etc). We went through allllll the megafamily systems before landing on that – lingerie bags, sharpie symbols, sharpie tick marks added when they got handed down… And as for unclaimed mismatches, my mom would call us all down, put leftovers on the kitchen table, and nobody was allowed to leave the room until every article was claimed!
2 babies wear the same size, 3 & 5yo wear the same size (boy & girl), 6 & 7 yo wear the same size (boys), 9 yo wears 1 size different to me, just enough so you don’t notice until it’s on your foot. Got white socks for girls and black for boys, grandmothers felt sorry for poor children “forced” to wear plain socks and bought packs of patterned socks with characters, favourite colours etc for birthdays and Christmas and big kids all need black socks for scouts. one of my babies (2 year old, but a baby still imo) has ankle-foot orthotics and needs long socks but has feet the size of a newborn so finding socks for her is a nightmare, keeping track of them is worse (she pulls them off and chews them). I HATE socks.
I’m almost embarrassed to tell this. Just this morning, I decided to clean out the towel drawer in the kitchen. (you know, the one where you keep T-towels and hot pad holders)…anyway, I got to the bottom and way in the back there was one teeny, tiny, pink sock for a newborn. It belonged to a granddaughter who I took care of everyday for three years after her mom went back to work. And who will celebrate her 9th birthday next month, and her parents moved to Utah six years ago…sigh.
This is hilarious!
Let me tell you – its the same in our house with only four people – but obviously not in the proportions that you write about. and the worst culprit is my husband .-)) Seemingly dozens of unmatched lonely dark socks……
One of my boys just informed me that “Mom, did you know that when you spell ‘socks’ out loud you get a Spanish sentence meaning ‘this is what it is?” (Eso se que es).
Yup. A pile of ’em, that is what it is.
Lol this reminds me with just two kids, we had this issue. My mom had to sew colored thread into the toe so we’d know our socks. It didn’t matter, my sis kept stealing my socks lol. I moved overseas and she pillaged them while I was gone lol!
I refuse to match socks. Only got 2 kids, but always have lots of single socks. I just put all the socks in one place & if they find a match it’s a bonus, otherwise they wear odd ones & don’t seem to care!!!
We are a family of 5 and socks are a big issue in our house. Recently I posted on Facebook that if I had the money I would just throw away my socks everyday and buy more. I can’t stand folding them. I have a bucket that all of the socks get thrown into once they have been washed. I always plan on folding them but it never gets done. Then in the morning as we are rushing around to get out the door I have to dig through this bucket to find all three of the kids socks. Ugh someday they will be able to get themselves socks right?!?
I’m having this problem with my 2 grandsons. They are ages 3 and 1, in different sized socks but sometimes it’s hard to tell which kid they belong to without holding them up to a foot. And with my kids I assigned them each a color, but with the little boys lots of other people buy for them so I have tons of cutesy socks and can never find a match. I’ve taken to throwing any 2 socks of similar size at them and if anybody notices I call it a fashion statement.
Wait! Don’t throw that pile away, I think I see some of my unmatched socks in there!! lol I love your rent-a-pair idea 😀 Every now and then I will gather the kiddos and play a rousing round of “Go Fish” sock style. I was hoping it might make them more enthused: “Do you have a medium sized, black with a green stripe?” “Go fish!” Uh, yeah, it didn’t work too well. . .
Hilarious comment!
I only match hubby’s and the youngest 2 kids. When sorting laundry, all socks get thrown in one basket by the kids. I fish out ones that I know who wears them and throw them into their clean laundry basket. If I happen to find a pair, I do match them. Otherwise, the socks are back in their room and they can match their own.
My kids like to do strange things like wear their socks without shoes in the muddy back yard, then leave the socks either in the yard, or drop them on the west (open) porch. If only they would drop them on the east (enclosed ) porch, now the new laundry room. 😛
I need to buy another door latch for my older washer, then I can run both at once. However, I can not hook up my second dryer until we can afford to have a sub panel for the laundry room added to the electric service. Soon it will be spring, I can hang laundry on the line again.
You had me at the kid who will wear a pair until they rot. I have two of those. TWO. What did I do to deserve this?!?
And we do the lingerie bag here. One bag per room. I refuse to fold them, or to see them all over the floor after laundry time. So they go into the bag, get washed in the bag, and I never even touch them. One tip, though: I keep a set aside, brand new pair for each younger child hidden in MY drawer. That way, if we’re going to the doctor or shoe shopping or something, I have a backup for that kid. (No, I’m not joking…)
Why have I never thought to do this? Thank you!
My mother had only three children, but she had completely given up on socks before I reached kindergarten. She bought only white socks of the same style for all three of us (two girls, one boy.) If we wanted special socks, that was our responsibility to buy and keep together. All of the socks were kept in a laundry basket, not folded or matched. If a sock had a hole, she threw it out without regard to its mate. Since all of the socks basically matched, this wasn’t a problem. If you could find two socks and both socks fit, that was considered a pair. We were not allowed to touch her socks or my fathers socks- she washed their clothes separately to make sure that we did not. When I was in high school, I remember sneaking into my parents’ room to steal my dad’s supercool argyle socks and getting into serious trouble for this.
I have only one two year old boy, but I don’t even bother matching his socks. As long as he is wearing two and they both fit, I don’t worry about whether one is dinosaurs and the other is striped or whatever.
I know who has black for the boys and white for the girls… the Duggar family… I think 19 kids… 😉
Oh! I am so there!!! And I only have eight children. My husband routinely “loses it” because he can’t find a pair of clean socks. We have seven boys and one girl. I even have to hoard my own socks- and NOT because of my daughter – but because those boys will where ANY socks – holey, mismatched, too big, too small – doesn’t matter!
And I do know how to spell “wear”
You had me laugh, laugh, laughing!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for sharing!
I have a friend who has a pool table and the pockets were made of crocheted cotton. It was getting old and balls fell onto the floor through holes in the pockets. I offered to fix them and they said to do it any way I chose… You guessed it. I used socks! by hand sewing them around the bar the pockets originally hung from. It looked so cool and will last another generation.
Ahhhhh Renee. You are the one person who got me to laugh out loud today. Thanks!!! 🙂
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2570995/Gwen-Stefani-Gavin-Rossdale-welcome-son-world.html
Did you see this? A new Apollo 🙂
A couple of my friends pointed that out and said, “she must be a blog reader” 😉
Ha! The “socks education” wordplay didn’t strike me until the second time I read this post. Cracked me up!
All is well for now,,,,,,,,,I have the same problem. And I love having matched socks but in our house if they are both socks, they are a match! 🙂
Wow, this post was kind of like therapy for this Mama. We have 12 in our home, and I work really hard at keeping the socks in decent order. Renee, I could have written your post. My kids about died laughing, especially when you posted a photo of our 12 year old son’s foot and sock with holes! Ha! And after reading the comments, I am wondering why I work so hard at socks….
My boy going on Teen Missions is EXACTLY like you son… wears socks till they rot off or I rip them. I make him wear black socks so I don’t have to see how dirty they are!!!
Hmmm….I think I really need to just dump the huge overflowing basket of mismatched socks that we’ve accumulated over the years. Thanks for the motivation! Socks are definitely a struggle, and I’m looking forward to summer when they aren’t needed everyday!
This is how I handle socks (and all other laundry). First I sort out and put away my clothes, my husband’s clothes, and the baby’s clothes. Then I take all the girls’ clothes and give them to one of my daughters. I get all the boys’ clothes and give them to one of my sons. Then I close my eyes, stick my fingers in my ears, and assume that surely all those clothes got neatly folded and put away correctly. It’s like magic!
BTW, why is it so impossible to find a package of newborn socks where every pair is the same??? All I can find are packs with six different pairs, so when one gets lost – ie, two minutes after you put it on the baby – the other is useless. Infuriating!
I’m a bit late to the party, but my ( doesn’t always work) system is to write the owner’s initial on the sole of each sock.
the other system I have that occasionally works. is a different type of sock per child.
one has white anklets, one has white sports, one has black anklets, one has white dress socks and one has black long.
i only have 5 children though.
1 boy and 4 girls.
we tipped out our odd sock basket the other day. there were toddler socks in there. we haven’t had a toddler for 4-5 years 🙂
Bernadette,
We have done this with varying success with dots on the sock (one dot for oldest child, two dots for next child, etc). Right now we are doing the “different socks for everyone” method.