I hate housework. (Hey, Im a guy) I dont like doing them, I am not a slob but you can never call me a neat freak. There are certain things that I may tolerate that certain “female” type persons would go ballistic over. I am not talking gross, filthy, disgusting, smelly stuff but old letters, computer disks, remotes and dishes and stuff lying around where they arent supposed to be. I dont vacuum all that often. Minor stuff really but my wife is a neat freak and her complaining about drives me batty.
Now we both work. We are both tired at the end of the day, we sometimes take turns cooking and the kids does the dishes and cleaning up. We have a gardener come everyweek to keep the lawns looking presentable (yeah I hate gardening also…) We do housechores on saturday which always seem to get put off with other things called “fun stuff” or errands.
Now heres the kicker. I suggested we get a cleaning lady. Like the gardener, she’d just come by once a week. I see ads all over for them now. (God likes to speak to me that way) and I just asked my wife if she thought it was a good idea if it wasnt too expensive. She went ape over this. She will have none of it. She grew up in a big family, everyone did their own thing and they were too poor to afford a maid and she isnt going to start now. What will her brothers and sisters say about her, what kind of example are we setting for our kids and all of that.
well I instantly shot back with my most intelligent retort, “hunh?..wha what??!” (Hey… I am a guy)
Anyways, her whole passionate objection to the idea kinda caught me unawares. I just thought everyone would think its a good idea. …the kids thought so but they ran away when their mom had her conniption. So is my wife part of some group that think that a double income family should suck it up and do their own housework?
Well I’ve seen a few threads on cleaning ladies and I’m a stay at home mom and I’d love one… I’m beginning to think it’s affordable too depending on how often I’d have her come in!
Well I’ve seen a few threads on cleaning ladies and I’m a stay at home mom and I’d love one… I’m beginning to think it’s affordable too depending on how often I’d have her come in!
I could probably afford one, but for one thing I think it’s sort of degrading to pay someone to clean up after you, and secondly they are CLEANING people, not decluttering/organizing people. I do clean stuff when I have the time to organize everything and do it right. If I have to “pre-clean for the cleaning lady” according to their schedule it’s really going to be more work than doing it myself.
voguevixen, I don’t pre-clean for my housekeeper. And its her chosen profession (she makes $25 an hour and has a waiting list - she made $32k in her former profession). Somehow, a job that pays $25 an hour doesn’t sound too degrading to me.
(Now, I’d never hire Merry Maids - that’s degrading).
My husband has a conniption fit when I suggested getting someone to come in every few weeks. “We should clean our own toilets!” “It’s bad for the children to think they aren’t responsible for their own messes!” etc.
However, he wasn’t willing to do it himself, it was supposed to be my job (I’m a stay at home mom to 3 pre-schoolers).
On that particular argument, he lost, I won. We have our cleaning lady.
Hubby and I considered it, but I don’t want anyone seeing how messy I am. I’d feel so weird about a housekeeper seeing my clutter and general slovenliness that I’d have to do a full-house-scrub-down before I could let her in the door, thus, defeating the point.
The only objection I might have is the idea that someone would be really intimately involved in our home, moreso than a gardener is. During the Christmas season (I work in retail) I take the laundry to the Drop Off service, but I do all the underwear at home because I feel weird about having someone else folding the grundies.
When I was a kid we (Mom, Sis & Me) lived with my grandparents. We had a cleaning lady. She came every other week and believe me we had plenty of responsibilities in between her visits.
I am a terrible house cleaner. Even when I do my best, it’s still not really good, and I hate doing it. I would have loved to have a cleaning person (don’t care if it’s a lady, a woman, a man, whatever), and for several years now could well have afforded it, but my husband does not want a person outside the family being in the house, especially if we were not there.
Once, when I was recovering from surgery and was physically unable to do the really big jobs, it was o.k. to have someone come in since I was there. For a while, one of my daughter’s friends in high school did cleaning for us and that was o.k. since we knew her and she was there anyway with our daughter after school. But then she went and graduated h.s., went to college and has better things to do!
Now hubby is retired and theoretically handling these things while I am at work. Yeah, right. But at least he can’t complain any more.
Ohhh. Exactly the opposite in my house. I’m the guy who works 40+ hours per week while the SO stays at home with the 3 years old. She will NOT let me hire a cleaner even though she bitches when it comes to housework.
I can’t wait until I can afford to hire someone to come in a few times a month and do the things I never get to. I wouldn’t expect someone to wash my undies or dishes, but the mopping, tub-scrubbing and dusting would be fabulous to have done!
Goodness gracious! Having a cleaning lady is my fondest dream!
I see nothing at all degrading about it. I see it as being efficient. A cleaning lady can come in and clean the whole house in a few hours without distraction. In my experience, they are paid well, and the good ones can pick and choose their clients.
As far as having a “stranger” in the house–well first of all, we always have people coming and going. I don’t feel my house is very private. It was the same way growing up. Besides, the cleaning lady very quickly isn’t a stranger any more.
Maybe it depends on what you grew up with. We always had a cleaning lady, so it’s just seems normal to me.
I would feel very, very weird about having a stranger come into my house and clean my stuff. It does seem to me that the average family ought to be able to clean up after itself. Of course, I’m not a neat freak–as long as things are relatively hygenic and not too cluttered, I’m cool with it. Obviously, YMMV.
But it’s the little things that’d make me appreciate a cleaningpersonage. Like not having to spend some of my free time scrubbing a toilet when I could pay someone a reasonable fee to do it for me. Isn’t that what capitalism is all about? Are ya some kinda Commie?
I’m far to finnicky about my clutter to let anyone else touch it. The bathroom is about the only place I’d be comfortable letting somone else clean, there’s nothing in there I really consider personal. Everywhere else though and I’d just be ill at ease having a stranger poking around. I’ll just keep on scrubbing my own toliet every six months, whether or not it needs it
It wouldn’t bother me in the slightest. I wouldn’t need one–I tend to do general cleaning (vacuuming, dusting, toilet-cleaning) on my own. However, it would be nice if I were busy working a lot, or had an infant/toddler, or both. My parents had one until my sister was five. It was just a matter of my mom not being able to work and take care of a grade schooler and a toddler and cook and clean. As soon as it got to the point where I could start helping out and my sister was sleeping through the night (she didn’t until she was four or five, because she was sick so often), we took care of things.
