You probably think this is an analysis of the ways sexism has affected families for generations. How little girls grow up being told to do the dishes, laundry and baking. How my mom kept the home running while a man went to work at his blue-collar job to “provide for the family,” as if she wasn’t equally providing.
The fact is, all those things are true, but this is not that kind of story.
My mom was a stay-at-home mom. A homemaker, nowadays, though the past culture hadn’t been as kind about her choice. She had three kids, two with a disability that required a cacophony of pills and treatments to live. She’d sanitize the living spaces like an ant carries crumbs back home, diligently and with others in mind.
She raised the three kids tirelessly until it was two adolescents with an illness left after the third had gone to college. She’d evolved her parenting to meet the next growing needs. Now, the goal was to prepare the two kids with Cystic Fibrosis to care for themselves, or more specifically, their disease. Hours of technique classes on how to sanitize, use, and store medical equipment. Countless reminders to take pills when they ate. To start their morning routine breathing medicated fumes before they went to school. And they’d do this all over again when they got home.
And she’d prepare for the next day, all over again.
My mom chose to go above and beyond. She carried the foundation of the house on her aging shoulders, keeping it steady while her family walked around on the wooden floors. A sentence fit for Kronos without the heinous crimes.
I benefitted from her courage to choose my health over her original life trajectory.
Yeah, I’m one of the children with Cystic Fibrosis who knows how to take care of myself now. It was different from my brother, who had learned how to cook, clean, and other things a parent is supposed to teach their child before they venture out on their own.
My mom taught me how to survive my own body, even though I didn’t learn the extracurriculars while I was at home, like the aforementioned cooking and cleaning. She had been so focused on balancing a family of five’s lives, that the survival skills needed for those without a progressive disease were deemed as less important than my critical routine. After all, you have to be able to digest food before you can even think about creative ways to cook it. And you have to be alive, before you can even toy with the idea of cleaning a kitchen.
But she taught me how to fold towels.
She’d pull the warm clothes from the dryer, putting them on our worn leather couch, accessible to our little white dog begging for the clothes’ warmth. The dog would curl into the fabrics, and my mom would smile, pat her head, and sit beside the pile. She’d grab the remote, click on her mom’s favorite soap opera, and mindlessly fold.
Until one day, she handed me a tan bath towel. Large, with a rough texture.
I can still remember her walking me through the steps.
“You put these two ends together, seams facing each other.”
“Then you fold it in half.”
“Like a hamburger?” I asked, based on a memory of construction paper projects from elementary school.
“Like a hamburger,” she affirmed.
“Then fold it into thirds and place it on the table.”
I showed her my attempt. She said, “Not like that,” but we laughed.
And I got to be a part of the balancing act for a short afternoon, monotonously folding while making fun of a decades old show.
And when I went to college years later, I was prepared to call insurance companies, make doctors’ appointments, and take medications. I also knew how to fold. Of course, I eventually learned how to cook and clean from friends and the vast knowledge of the worldwide web.
But laundry makes me think of my mom.
The delicately folded linens represent the weight she carried, the elegance with which she carried it, and the care she put into each and every single task.
Even something as “menial” as laundry.
Mattie Paige (she/her) spent her formative years reading evocative and heartbreaking stories from her school’s library. Upon moving to the big city to pursue her BS in Psychology, Mattie grew to feel most alive when she wrote. This experience heavily influenced her propensity to write vulnerable pieces delving into the dark and often repressed emotions humans feel. Lo-and-behold, her debut poetry collection, The Woman, The Love, The Death was born and published in 2025. Coupled with her experience living with Cystic Fibrosis, these opportunities led to her flash fiction piece, “My Good Friend, Death,” being accepted for publication in Wishbone Literary Magazine. When not writing, you can find Mattie with a coffee in her hand, a romance book on her E-reader, and her partner and dog cuddled beside her.
Instagram: @authormattiepaige