Feather Duster Guilt
Jeff Opdyke wrote previously that his family life was so hectic that his wife took a day off work just to catch up on the laundry, then just wrote in The Wall Street Journal:
Finally, Amy and I have hired a woman to help us keep our house clean. That's an issue we were debating earlier this year because, as I noted in the original column, our life is often so consumed by job obligations and our kids' school duties and extracurricular activities that "many household chores get punted from one day to the next...and then to the next."Amy is pleased with this arrangement. (Amy Alkon: especially since she, not you, took the day off to play washerwoman.) But I still question whether it's worth the $75 a week we're paying.
I think his indecision here comes from a question he asked in the previous column:
Is domestic help an unnecessary luxury, or is it a modern necessity?
Look, there are a lot of people who can cook and clean. Only I can write my book and column. Why go all angsty about picking up a rotisserie chicken or hiring a few maids (legal, please!) to sparkle up the house?
Opdkyke, who, despite his protestations of growing up in a family of modest means, seems to have a quaint idea of the fun fifties housewife in a polka-dotted apron pushing the vacuum around in a pair of kitten heels, writes:
I realize that paying for a housekeeper is beyond the pocketbooks of many people, and that this whole debate may feel like an indulgent exercise. I've always thought it was off-limits for me, too. Amy and I both come from a background where the only housekeeper we knew was TV's Hazel. Such lavishness fell to a moneyed crowd, and both of us grew up in neighborhoods where Hazel was more likely to live than work.We still find ourselves stuck in that mind-set. While we've reached a point where we can afford a person once a week, at some level it's not really about the cost so much as it is the perception. Isn't keeping your own house clean part of life? And doesn't a housekeeper imply we have no better use for our money than to spend it on the extravagance of hiring someone to handle our mess?
Or is our mind-set simply too dated?
I talked to several people about this, and to my surprise, they all insisted that a housekeeper was either a necessity or something that was well worth considering.
"It is an absolutely essential investment in the sanity and well-being of my family," says Alex, a friend in New York. She and her husband, John, are a dual-career couple. When the workday ends, Alex isn't looking to put her feet up and relax. She wants to cook for her family and spend time with her daughter. But that doesn't leave time for folding clothes and cleaning the bathroom.
"For us," Alex says, "coverage on the home front allows me and John to do what we do professionally, and come home to a clean house, the errands done, so that we can focus on engaging with our daughter." A few hours after talking to Alex, she shot me an email to say that she and her family discussed this topic over dinner and that all had "agreed that we'd trade off vacations for the family benefit of having a housekeeper help us keep things clean and in order."
You're not a better person if you clean your own toilet. In fact, you're probably a better parent if you don't, if it means you're living your life and spending a little quality time with your kids. (And please note, I'm totally for giving kids chores to do. Builds character, as my father would say.)
I got my kids to pay me portions of their allowance in order to fry the latkes. I earned some nice espresso money, they made dinner, and they risked the chance of a good burn that would have helped learn more about the world. Total win win.
Seriously, it's the best $75 a relationship can spend. Let Alex, John, Jeff, and Amy get themselves another feather duster and use it in the bedroom with their new found time.
jerry at December 16, 2007 9:28 AM
I am a messy person. Not dirty, you understand - just messy. (In my own living space, that is; when I have had roommates, I have kept common living spaces as neat as they preferred.) I find that having a housekeeper actually makes me put MORE effort into keeping things organized and neat...because, while the housekeeper can clean the floors, she doesn't know where everything goes. Unless I want to make it impossible for her to clean, I have to pick stuff up and find a place for it or throw it away. It's been very good for me. :)
I know some people who genuinely love cleaning their homes. I know others who hate it, but wouldn't dream of hiring a housekeeper - not because they can't afford it, but because they feel that they're not being "responsible" that way. I hate cleaning. I choose to avoid martyring myself and use some of my take-home pay to pay for a housekeeper instead of some non-vital good or service. I'm happier that way, and while I certainly wouldn't claim that I'm doing this for altruistic reasons (I'm selfish, people, I really am), my and others' wish for domestic help makes it possible for my housekeeper to make a decent living without having a high school degree.
Let Alex, John, Jeff, and Amy get themselves another feather duster and use it in the bedroom with their new found time.
Exactly! To take Amy's point a bit farther, there are a lot of people who can cook or clean, but, assuming a monogamous relationship, only your spouse should be putting on the French maid outfit in the bedroom. Insisting on spending time on cleaning the toilet when you could be gettin' busy instead seems rather foolish to me.
marion at December 16, 2007 10:04 AM
Granted, I am not paying much (mostly trading some sorely needed handywork), but I am paying one of the grandmas from church to come help out when momma and the new baby come home from the hospital. It won't be a long term thing, just some help until the c-section heals up nicely. But it did get me thinking that we might go ahead and get someone over every couple weeks to help with the deep cleaning.
On the one hand, it is an extravagance, on the other, it means a little help with our transition to another family member and our new homeschool lifestyle. Wonderfully, I can trade the help in our home, for a fairly large number of small handy-jobs in the helper's home. On top of that, I can bring the five (almost six) year old to do the handywork with me.
Even if I didn't have the opportunity to trade, I would spend the money. Especially in the beginning, as the recovery from the c-section is kind of rough and help is cheaper than taking off from working. And having to spend far less time on the deep cleaning is well worth eighty bucks a month. It's really about what the time is worth. The more time I can spend with my family, the better. And until the new member is old enough to help (or at least scoot around better on his own), I want to focus less on the household chores and more on my kids and partner.
The other thing to consider is, how much wife makes, compared to the cost of the hired help. I am guessing she makes more than seventy five bones a day, so it is probably well worth hiring someone else to take care of it for them. I used to do my own vehicle repairs, until I realized that compared to what I was losing in wages, it was far cheaper just to take it in for repairs.
DuWayne at December 16, 2007 10:37 AM
"Unneccesary luxury" is redundant. That's what a luxury is, something you don't "need." We live in a society with division of labor. We pay someone to do just about everything for us. Someone built our house. If we go to a restaurant, someone cooks our food. If we eat at home, someone picked the lettuce, packaged it, trucked it to our grocery store. Someone raised the sheep, sheared the wool, spun, wove, sewed, packaged, trucked our clothes to us. And that's a good thing. Ted Kaczynski did everything for himself. Look how great that worked out.
The only reason to feel guilty is that your housekeeper has a job that sucks more than you. And even though I hate it when Rush Limbaugh says it, there's your liberal guilt. Just make sure you treat your housekeeper well and pay fairly.
Clinky at December 16, 2007 10:51 AM
Before enlightenment chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. -Wu Li
Most of us don't have people begging us to do our day jobs... In fact we have to sell ourselves in order to do the work we want to do. I'm not fanatic about this, but there's a lot to be said for dealing with your own dirt. One of the best things about the habit of cleaning up after yourself routinely is that it weakens the natural fantasy that your filth is someone else's responsibility. It ain't.
(Moderately dirty bachelor here. You can eat in my kitchen without fear.)
Crid at December 16, 2007 10:53 AM
I don't have dirt, really (Gregg calls my mess "cute"), but my house can look as if it's been ransacked by home invasion robbers.
Amy Alkon at December 16, 2007 11:04 AM
For heaven's sakes, if you can afford household help, GET IT. People first, and that means getting the help you can to free you to be with your kids and do your job. It's not as though you're demanding the government pay for it. And if you pay fairly and on time, you have no reason to feel guilty. Being a good employer is also a virtue.
Breeder+5 at December 16, 2007 11:31 AM
Amy, you're pretty much describing my home. Dirty? No. Messy? Yes indeed. Except when the housekeeper is coming over.
DuWayne, you're a good man. Which reminds me of another one of my bugaboos. For most of human history, new mothers lived with or very close to older women - their own mothers, aunts, mothers-in-law, etc. - who helped with new babies, just as they'd been helped in turn. It's only in the last, oh, 50-75 years that we've introduced the "innovation" of having families with at least one person still physically recovering from childbirth have sole care for their infants, and I don't think that's a positive change. Women get frantic about feeling that they're failing their newborns...well, we didn't evolve as creatures who were supposed to take care of newborns solo! DuWayne, what you're doing is replicating a behavioral pattern that humans took for granted until relatively recently. Good for you (especially given the C-section, yowch).
I'm not fanatic about this, but there's a lot to be said for dealing with your own dirt.
Yes - it makes me cranky. It doesn't make my housekeeper cranky. Also, I live with two adorable but totally helpless creatures that shed a LOT. I feel no guilt about having someone else help with my mess. And, though kids can certainly do chores, the amount of help that they can provide is inversely proportionate to the mess that they can create. Parents with two small children are cleaning up the dirt for two more people; if they can get someone else to help with the dirt so that they can bond with the kids, I think that's a good development.
marion at December 16, 2007 11:34 AM
The agonizing about the concept of having someone clean up after us seems darn silly. Guess what, people clean up after us all the time. Work in an office? There's a cleaning crew that comes around every night. Go to movies, concerts, or sporting events? There's a cleaning crew that works for the theater or arena.
Further, feel funny about paying someone to do something you could do? Well, do you feel funny about paying someone to change your oil? After all, changing oil is a pretty easy job. Dirty, yes, but not hard to learn how. What about store-bought baked goods? You got an oven so you could bake all you need.
When it comes hiring someone to clean your house, the only agonizing should be:
(1) Can I afford it?
(2) Is it worth it? (Is there enough work to justify the cost.)
(Disclosure: I had a cleaning woman the second time I lived in Seoul, Korea. It cost $100 a month and she gave me 1/2 day per week. The main reason I hired her was to dust. The air pollution in Seoul is bad, very bad, and everything inside your place would become coated in dust from that pollution.)
David Crawford at December 16, 2007 12:41 PM
> Go to movies, concerts, or sporting events? There's a cleaning crew that works for the theater or arena.
I'm intrigued. What kind of a mess do you manage to make in a cinema? You surely can't mean the WORST kind of mess left by sad old guys after porn flicks??
Stu "El Inglés" Harris at December 16, 2007 2:28 PM
I'm intrigued. What kind of a mess do you manage to make in a cinema?
Take soft drinks, candy, melted cheese, pizza, slushies, and the umpteen other potentially sticky things sold at the concession stand. Put them in the hands of people sitting in a dark room who are not paying full attention to them. Bingo, you have a super-sticky, super-messy theater. To make it worse, most people just leave their trash at their seats. Movie theaters can get very, very messy even without the, erm, detritus of porn flicks. In fact, I'd say matinees of kids' movies would probably be the worst to clean up after.
marion at December 16, 2007 3:30 PM
Hmm. The presence of hired household help has nothing to do with how your kids are raised, relative to their becoming good citizens. At what point do you plan to say a family with household help "leads a life of privilege"? It's common enough to see this attitude in the class wars.
So let's not minimize the idea that one's offspring might lift a finger to maintain the household.
I must remind you all that your household help must be referred, your computers passworded, your personal papers and firearms locked down in order to nullify the great increase in your liability to identity and other theft. No, your housekeeper doesn't have to do anything but talk.
Radwaste at December 17, 2007 2:23 AM
I grew up in a household where my mom and I did all the inside "work", and my dad and brothers did all the "outside" work. Until I decided (at around age 10) that I wanted to mow the lawn, too! Twice a year my mom would get outside help, for maybe one or 2 days, to do the really big spring cleaning, and winter prep chores, washing windows, cleaning out the attic and/or basement, stuff like that. She and I did pretty much everything else. So that's the way I do it today. I do the bulk of the cleaning, with my daughters' help, on Saturday mornings. Dusting, vacuuming, washing the floors, giving the bathrooms a good scrub. We do laundry 2 or 3 times during the week, in the evenings. I have a friend whose daughter goes to school with my older one, and I'll call her (she's a professional housecleaner)a couple times a year, when I need to get the really heavy stuff done. The rest of the time, between me and the girls, we can keep up. It's not rocket science.
Flynne at December 17, 2007 6:09 AM
> Take soft drinks, candy, melted cheese, pizza, slushies, and the umpteen other...
That's barbaric. No wonder American cinemas smell so disgusting.
Stu "El Inglés" Harris at December 17, 2007 6:20 AM
If you feel liberal guilt about employing a house cleaner, of course you can find chums who will tell you, briskly, to just let the guilt go, enjoy a sparkling home - and give quality time to your kids and spouse instead! (That, I think, is the lesson of Amy's article!).
Since I am a mortified liberal on this subject, I turned into a horrible home help employer. I crossed every boundary, was over-friendly at times, fake stern at others, gave my part-time cleaner time off when she said she needed it, then resented her "taking advantage", loaned another one money and listened to her woes when I should have been working myself.
So I gave up hiring people in the home. My floors don't gleam 24/7, but the teenagers are vaguely trained to pick up after themselves and a few cobwebs never killed anyone anyway!
Jody Tresidder at December 17, 2007 6:31 AM
Radwaste, I don't think anyone is minimizing the idea that offspring should assist around the house, which is why Amy pointed out the importance of chores initially. That having been said, I believe that Opdyke's younger child is about four or so - old enough to help with folding clothes, maybe, but not able to do laundry, scrub floors, clean mildew, etc., at least not anywhere in proportion to the amount that she's causing. The older kid can presumably help out more, but he also has hours of homework every night, and he needs 9-10 hours of sleep. Even if he weren't doing various after-school activities - which we know that he is - he also wouldn't be able to provide a 1:1 ratio of mess-making/mess-cleaning.
I must remind you all that your household help must be referred, your computers passworded, your personal papers and firearms locked down in order to nullify the great increase in your liability to identity and other theft.
My household help comes from an agency that's bonded and insured, and was referred - you are absolutely correct there. As for the rest, unless you're a hermit who never has anyone over at all, the rest should be a matter of course, in my opinion. Keeping private stuff under moderate lock-and-key is a good idea; guests can end up snooping.
Since I am a mortified liberal on this subject, I turned into a horrible home help employer.
Good point. I rarely see my housekeeper, and her payment, etc., is set through an agency. If you can't set up a healthy employer/employee relationship, you'll end up paying for work that doesn't get down. Housekeepers don't work for everyone. Though actually, I think the point of the column is that Opdyke's view of himself as just plain folks isn't disrupted by his ability to, say, buy DVDs, pay someone else to change his oil, or put his kid into expensive after-school activities, but *is* disrupted by paying $75 per week for a housekeeper...possibly because *he's* not the one doing most of the housekeeping, and thus doesn't feel that he's directly reaping the benefits.
At what point do you plan to say a family with household help "leads a life of privilege"?
Relative to the people in the Sudan, ALL of us in the U.S. lead a life of privilege. Relative to Bill Gates, almost none of us do. Do you lead a life of privilege if you hire a teenager to cut your lawn? If you hire people to paint your house rather than doing so yourself? If you hire someone to change your car's oil? By one definition, the Opdyke family "leads a life of privilege" because they're not starving, but by another they don't because they're not carefree when it comes to their finances. As for Opdyke's initial question about whether household help is a modern luxury or a vital necessity...it's a luxury when you're paying for the housekeeper rather than paying for your kids' health insurance. Is it a vital necessity the way that, say, food and clothing are? No, but neither are cable TV and cell phones. If you bring in an income that's well enough above sustinence level that you can eat out on a semi-regular basis, buy consumer electronics, and generally afford "non-necessary" items, you can probably also (or instead) afford "non-necessary" services. The question really is how much you consider your time to be worth at the end of the day. I LOATHE housekeeping. I'm happy to eat at home and forego certain other purchases to have someone come in once a month to help me with it. For others, housekeeping is less loathsome. On the other hand, I have friends who spend money on pedicures; I'm fine with doing those myself. Everyone makes different tradeoffs. Few of us can afford to outsource everything, but many of us outsource some things.
marion at December 17, 2007 8:20 AM
Regarding the life of privilege in the US, many poor people here have TVs and dishwashers.
Amy Alkon at December 17, 2007 8:22 AM
And air conditioners, Amy - don't forget about the air conditioners! (Where I live, air conditioning may seem like more of a necessity than a luxury...but my ancestors lived here without it and somehow managed to muddle through.)
marion at December 17, 2007 8:47 AM
Right. Good point.
Amy Alkon at December 17, 2007 8:52 AM
Radwaste -
I think you missing something in the mix. I compare it to working on my truck. I do upkeep, such as oil changes and the like, because my son can help. But in spite of the fact that I can do most anything that might be needed, I take it to a garage for most repairs.
Say I am going to spend twenty hours on a particular repair (I can do it, just not very fast). The cost of my own labor is going to come out around seven hundred dollars. Compare that to the garage that will get it done in less than a day and charge me four hundred for labor - it's not worth it for me to do it. Especially as it keeps me off the road longer.
The same is true of housekeeping for two income home.
Ironically, my partner does housecleaning when she is working. We decided with the new baby that she would stay out of the workplace for the most part. Even if she hadn't had a c-section and I had to pay out of pocket, we would still be getting her some help for a while. It is helpful that the person who is going to help already got some free labor out of me and we can mostly work in trade, but for the first few months it is jut sensible to get the help.
And yes, it is a privilege. Guess what? I felt privileged before we decided to get some help and I don't feel any guilt about being even more privileged now.
DuWayne at December 17, 2007 10:43 AM
> So I gave up hiring
> people in the home.
Yeah. Twice when I've had the place professionally (and reputably) cleaned, there's been damage that took lot$ of effort and time to correct. Nothing cleans the place faster than knowing a date or family member is coming to visit.
It gets back to what we were talking about last week with phones and cable TV and all that. These services are uniformly cheap. The communication companies have no 'top tier' of service you can buy to make things go well. (If any of them have a reputation for charging more but having discernibly better customer service, I've not heard about it.) And there are probably "worry-free" cleaning services, but their prices are so high that you'd be worried for your budget instead.
If you don't want to deal with them (your communications vendors or your personal messes) yourself, then you'll have to pay someone to deal with them for you. If you're Steve Jobs or any number of lesser businessmen, then you're so used to getting into other people's head and fucking around until you get what you want that's it's no problem to get somebody to vacuum your office just the way you want.
I think it's not worth the cost... Financially it's OK, but I hate having to ride the rollercoaster of anticipation, dissatisfaction, and interpersonal boundary-testing that Jody describes. It's easier just to mop the goddamn floor... (nice Italian ceramic, too, just got it last summer, and chicks dig it,)
Also, of course, the fortitude of my decency and and the shimmering magnificence of my immortal soul are enhanced by this stoic, Zen-drenched approach. So I've got that going for me. And you don't. So know that.
Crid at December 17, 2007 11:31 AM
Again, this stuff can get out of hand...
Crid at December 17, 2007 11:48 AM
I went to a person's house once and she/family were hoarders. Like Oprah-episode-bad hoarders. They kept old food containers. Their collection of Tropicana cartons was impressive. There was just STUFF EVERYWHERE. Piled to the ceiling. Spilling out of cabinets. I don't even know what all the stuff was but there wasn't open space anywhere. I had my first and only panic attack and thought I was going to die there. As in, literally, I felt death was an imminent threat. I left and was completely fine.
I might be a freak though. Sometimes when I needed a break from "college life" I'd stay in while all the roomies went out for the night, pop a bottle of wine, blast Rosemary Clooney and go at the place with bleach and a vac. It was so satisfying and no one could ever accuse me of not carrying my own weight. I found that most people are too messy for me and that I live better alone or w/ someone w/ mild OCD.
Chores need to be distributed equitably among all contributors to the mess according to ability. I guess I'm a commie when it comes to cleaning, not a fascist. Kids definitely need chores. It teaches them not to be assholes and how to live with other people and think about how you may affect others.
Gretchen at December 17, 2007 6:44 PM
Steve Jobs' strength situations, as well as the late retreat, are a sharp memo that hard work and smarts apart from everyone else can’t fundamentally ensure us from plain old disagreeable fortunes.
créer site photo at August 31, 2011 2:10 PM
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