This week, encouraged by my husband and my mum, I rather bravely and abashedly asked online if anyone local could recommend a cleaner. I got lots of messages, plus a stranger commented that she didn’t have a recommendation but I needn’t feel embarrassed about employing someone. How lovely of her. (Especially appreciated as my other recent posts in local groups have been received with angry criticism from utilities workers and vegans, but that’s another story.)
Getting a cleaner to me feels like admitting failure as a female. Perhaps I am conditioned by Disney films in which beautiful princesses dance around keeping tidy houses aided by woodland creatures. Every man’s home is his castle, but I wonder how many men scrub their own castles, and how many rely on female scullery maids? This weekend, I reflected with a friend on whether there was anything biblical in the culture that says that housework is a female occupation. She pointed me to Titus chapter 2 in which older women should “urge the younger women to ... be busy at home” but pointed out that being busy didn’t have to mean being busy cleaning. She voted for a cleaner too. I think I’m busy enough.
More thoughts on Disney here: https://sarahhadfi.wixsite.com/website/post/on-identity-and-representation
But I am also very conscious of the decision we made that I should work part time so that I have capacity to keep things running smoothly at home. Which I then don’t.
I have a glorious non-work day in which to focus on the house. In reality, this day is truncated by the school run, used to run all the errands (visiting the pharmacy, making collections), spent on food prep like batch cooking or setting up for hosting home group, eaten into with lifemin and emails and more recently some online courses I’ve been attending, and allocated for important catch-ups, like a scheduled Skype lunch with my mum. Plus if I'm honest I am just easily distracted and not very efficient. So then sometimes it’s an hour before pick-up and I look around in despair at the still dirty house and wonder where the day went.
I love our lovely big new house. But I clearly hadn’t done the maths and worked out that when your house is nearly three times the size of the last one, it will take you nearly three times as long to clean. Plus our old house had forgiving laminate floors which only required a quick sweep; this one is covered with dratted cream carpets, including in the dining room, cream carpets which are just not compatible with three boys and wellies and spilled drinks bottles and food. Then there’s the conservatory which is apparently a breeding ground for spiders and resets itself weekly with dramatic cobwebs like fake Halloween scenery, and the fact that the boys like to wander round with our new mice, dropping wood shavings and tiny poos all over the floor.
So this week I admitted defeat and posted online and was contacted by various people/companies including one which asked about my house and requirements (4 beds, 1.5 baths, 2 hours a week please). And the reply? “It will not be possible to clean a house of that size in two hours a week.”
Oh the relief! Oh the validation! The problem isn’t me – even the professionals can’t do it!
Meanwhile, my lovely husband with the pragmatism that comes from being male, has Amazon ordered a robot vac to help keep us on top of the dratted cream carpets, and spoke to our next door neighbour, who has someone come round for four hours at a time and will put her in touch.
So wounded ego salved, I now apparently have time to blog.
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