When I was growing up, the idea of paying someone to clean the house or do yard work was unthinkable. This was due, mostly, to the fact that my family was pretty poor – it was a luxury we couldn’t afford. But, there was also a cultural or psychological element – my parents were both of the “why would you pay for something that you can do yourself?” mindset. In my father, this was attributable to his general fix-it philosophy – he’s a man who actually likes to tinker with things. My mother’s situation was more complex: Raised in a traditional Southern family – but not a wealthy one – she inherited the idea that a real woman should be able to keep her house spotless, her children clean and well-dressed, put a full meal on the table every night, and keep everyone happy. But, being a twentieth-century woman, she wasn’t allowed to pay anyone to help her – that was a sign of weakness. These untenable standards had the effect on my mother that they had on so many women: depression, sense of failure, resentment, etc. Despite the fact that I closely observed how she suffered trying to do everything herself, I still absorbed the idea that domestic help was an indulgence reserved for the rich and spoiled – not for the likes of me.
Recently I found myself talking with a group of other female faculty, representing many different departments and disciplines from across Unnamed U. Somehow the topic of housekeepers* came up – and suddenly all of these women began to admit (there is no better word for it) that they had housekeepers and were so grateful for their labor but also incredibly guilty. The conversation took on a distinctly confessional tone, as they reassured each other that it was perfectly okay, that they are professionals with many responsibilities and duties, that they can’t be expected to do it all, etc. It was a little awkward when I said that I don’t have a housekeeper – but it was quickly explained by the fact that I don’t have children – all of these professors are also mothers, which was a major plank in their explanatory discourse.
This is all to say that I’ve been thinking a lot about hiring someone to clean my house, but it’s a fraught issue for me.
On the one hand, I can muster a number of arguments against it:
The Marxist in me recoils at the very idea of participating in an exploitative practice in which I would use my economic privilege to have someone perform labor that I could totally do myself, but I just don’t want to do.
The new age-y/ yogic / Buddhist in me questions whether I am letting my possessions define me to the extent of paying someone else to take care of them – and instructs me to scale back my life if it has become that complicated and over-burdened.
The Feminist in me is practically not even speaking to me, because she knows that domestic labor is unfairly distributed not just on women, but on immigrant women or women of color, the working poor whose lack of opportunities are intrinsically linked to my own class and race privilege.
And, the completely shy and socially embarrassed part cannot imagine letting a stranger into my house to see my dirty, slovenly ways.
All really good reasons for NOT hiring a housekeeper.
On the other hand, I’ve become increasingly frustrated and impatient with cleaning my own house. It’s so time consuming that I usually do a shoddy job – just good enough to get by – so the house is rarely clean enough to invite anyone over, we generally don’t have guests over and, when we do, we have to do a marathon cleaning first. Meanwhile, Golden Boy and I snip at each other about the necessary duties, and get outright surly on the days we set aside to clean. (I should mention, for the record, that GB is really great about do his part – often picking up my slack when I’m particularly harried.)
The Marxist in me says: why not redistribute the wealth in a very direct and immediate way by hiring someone to do certain labor, but treating them with respect and paying them a living wage?
The new age-y/ yogic / Buddhist says: maybe you’d actually have time to do yoga if you didn’t feel obligated to make time to scoop cat boxes, do laundry, and other tasks everyday.
The Feminist says: You should not be enslaved to some oppressive ideal of womanhood that expects you to do it all and well. Admit to yourself that you have made certain lifestyle choices such as putting your career before other things, and one of the costs of that is that you cannot keep your house spotless. And, if you pay another woman well and treat her with respect, why shouldn’t she clean it for you?
The shy part of me says: Fuck it! Who cares? At least the kitchen floor will get mopped every once in a while.
As always, I am a divided subject.
So, I appeal to the wisdom of the interwebs – and particularly to you, professional women who are also caught in the family/work bind: Do you pay someone to clean your house? How do you explain the choice to yourself? Are you guilty about it? What do you recommend that I do?
* I’m not entirely sure what the appropriate terminology is — that’s how alien this whole thing is to me. Is it housekeeper, maid, domestic help, or something else? I dunno.
22 comments
Comments feed for this article
November 13, 2009 at 4:20 am
New Kid on the Hallway
I don’t, because we don’t have the money now, but as soon as I’m working full-time (& since NLLDH works full time), and we can afford it, we plan to get someone in to clean. Funnily enough, I grew up with the stay-at-home mom who took care of everything to do with the housekeeping (cooking, cleaning), but I think what that impressed on me was that it really *is* full-time job to do that and do it well. (Also, since my parents had a really traditional division of labor, I think I grew up thinking that if you had a full-time job outside the home–like my dad–then you didn’t have to cook/clean. Of course, that was also because he was a man who grew up during a time when men didn’t do those things, but I didn’t pick up on that so much.)
November 13, 2009 at 4:22 am
undine
I’ve never had a housekeeper, but every time I scrub floors or clean the cat litter, I think to myself, “I’ll bet Famous Female Scholar X is writing right now instead of cleaning.”
November 13, 2009 at 4:38 am
clio's disciple
I have not hired cleaning help myself, but have seriously considered it as a new homeowner. I’m pretty definitely going to hire someone to do the bulk of the yard work next spring and summer. My parents, while not exactly affluent, did hire a woman to come in once or twice a month as they got older and less willing/able to do the vacuuming and dusting and so forth; the person they worked with ran her own cleaning business with numerous clients. I think she was doing OK for herself.
November 13, 2009 at 4:40 am
squadratomagico
I do have someone who cleans my house, every other week. She cleans surfaces only: floors, countertops, shower/bath surfaces, range, &c. She does not do laundry, cat boxes, ironing, or dishes. In fact, I make sure that the surfaces in my home are free of clutter before she arrives, so she can clean them all without having to move stuff.
I hire the woman directly as an independent contractor (i.e. she gets the full payment, rather than half or more going to an agency) and because she is, frankly, unskilled in the broader labor market, yet making about $20 take home an hour. If I am out of town and cut her day, I pay her anyway in advance because I suspect her family may depend on a regular pay amount. I also give Xmas extras, etc.
I also grew up in a home where cleaning was (nominally) my mother’s responsibility… but she sorta sucked at it. She did not work outside the home (at least, not until my late teens), but it was clear to me that she found it oppressive — in fact, I was recruited to do a fair amount of it myself from a young age (always hated struggling with the vacuum as a kid!) I don’t feel particularly badly about hiring the cleaning woman I have, since I know I do play a part in helping to support her family. Given the economic system we have — exploitive or not — that’s a pragmatic good.
November 13, 2009 at 5:11 am
Flavia
I don’t, but I would — and when I have a bigger place/more money, I will.
Maybe relevant, maybe irrelevant anecdote: I have a close friend — another single, childless academic — who felt incredible guilt about hiring a housekeeper, in part because she grew up poor, and her own grandmother spent her entire worklife cleaning houses.
When she finally admitted to her grandmother that she hired someone to clean her apartment, her grandmother started crying — not because she was upset, but because she saw it as a sign that her family had finally arrived. She didn’t really understand what her granddaughter did for a living, or why she’d gone to school for so long, or why she wasn’t married with kids — but she got what it meant that she could afford to hire a housekeeper, and was proud.
(I’m not sure that actually made my friend feel any better. But. Anyway.)
November 13, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Friday round-up: heads up and screens down, boys! edition : Historiann : History and sexual politics, 1492 to the present
[...] Bittersweet Girl wonders: can you hire someone else to clean your house and still be a good Marxist feminist? I say yes–it’s either that or 1) quit my day [...]
November 13, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Belle
I’ve often wondered if I could find a ‘wife’ I could afford. Because for me, it’s a full time job to keep up with all the house/animal/yard stuff, and that was what my mom did. I want more than cleaning help (although that would be quite wonderful and maybe enough); I want somebody who’d do lots: take the animals to the vet/groomer, do the shopping (because I hate shopping for anything), take care of the paperwork, keep the house cleanish, listen to me dither, laugh at my bad jokes, etc..
I do see your points, but think that had I money enough, I’d certainly have some help doing stuff. Commenters above have said the things I’d tell self when the doubts creep in.
November 13, 2009 at 2:38 pm
Ink
We hire a very affordable cleaning crew maybe twice a year, before we have visitors. (They are both male and female at this company.) With everything going on, it’s really hard to keep our house superclean. Ok, clean. So before someone comes to stay, I feel obligated to at least try to pretend…
But I understand all of your arguments and go through them myself before making the Help! We Need Assistance Cleaning! call…
November 13, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Lucky Jane
One of my senior, single, female colleagues has sung the praises of cleaning services since I met her, and I’ve gotten so accustomed to the practice that I found your colleagues’ shame surprising, BSG. There’s no shame in hiring people to do things you don’t want to do, or can’t do because other duties demand your time. Can’t most jobs be described as such by people higher up the pecking order?
I’ve never hired a cleaner, but only because my space is small, I’m not there much, my never-to-be-diagnosed OCD prevents me from making too much of a mess, and, although I’m not interesting, I’m paranoid of someone going through my stuff. Whenever my landlord has work done in my apartment, I still feel a faint sense of violation. If I buy a house, I may or may not change my tune.
I’m convinced that the neat-freakiness is a reaction to my upbringing, which continues to fill me with horror. My mom was a bit like yours, except that our house was a complete pit most of the time, thanks to three unruly boys who were encouraged to “Be Boys.” Not being able to keep the house clean intensified her depression, and, whenever my dad called the cleaners, my mom would stay up all night cleaning up before them, ashamed that she had let her household fall into such disrepair.
November 13, 2009 at 4:34 pm
the rebel lettriste
My parents both worked when I was a kid, and my mom still works (dad’s retired.) We totally had a “cleaning lady,” who came twice a month. I think they still do.
Most of these cleaning ladies were Eastern European immigrants, and reminded me of my own grandmother. If she was around, my mother would make lunch for them, on the days they worked, and we would all sit down together and eat. We employed the same one for many years. There are portraits of her in our family photo albums, now that I think about it.
Right now, my partner and I do the cleaning. We also both work, and there are babies a-coming. We won’t be able to afford fulltime childcare, and so will have to toggle our schedules so that somebody is always home to care for kids. And goddammit, I am paying for the house to be cleaned 2X/month, because ain’t no way we’ll be able to do THAT too.
And p.s., I have worked as a maid. It wasn’t fun. But it did teach me to clean, and to have immeasurable respect for the labor of cleaning.
November 13, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Teri
We waffled about all of these issues for years, but now that we do hire a housekeeper, I only regret the years when we didn’t. It has improved our marriage ten-fold — we just don’t bicker as much when the house is reasonably clean and we don’t have to do it. My husband stays at home, but has health problems; I always imagined that his stay-at-home status put him pretty much in charge of the stuff that my mom was in charge of back in the day. He didn’t quite see in that way. He does all the shopping and the cooking, but none of the routine picking up and almost none of the child care. Having someone else do the real cleaning (and another someone else do the lawn and the major hedge trimming) has been completely worth it as a marriage-counseling substitute.
I’m a professor, too, BTW, and the way we chose a housekeeper was to ask around among the underpaid, largely female custodial staff at my university. We pay around $20 an hour, which is dramatically more than they get at my place of employ, and I really get to know and trust them as friends, which helps me to advocate better for their union when I do administrative stuff on the job.
November 13, 2009 at 7:10 pm
bsgirl
Wow. This is all very interesting. I really didn’t expect there to be such a consensus on the positive side of this issue. Lucky Jane’s comment that she’s surprised that my colleagues were guilty is sort of surprising to me — is it really such a neutral activity? For me, it’s loaded with all sorts of guilt and uncertainty — at least from the perspective of not yet having ventured down this path. Maybe, once my house is spotless, I’ll feel differently.
Thanks for all the feedback!
November 13, 2009 at 9:46 pm
bardiac
I was loaded with the same guilt and such when I hired a housecleaning service, but it was great to have my house really clean twice a month. (And knowing they were coming, I cleared up stuff before, which also helps.)
I assuaged my guilt by using a local small family business (husband, wife, adult daughter) who paid decently, including benefits.
It’s not in the budget at his point, though. Alas.
November 14, 2009 at 3:54 am
lesboprof
We hire people to do all the things we don’t want to do. Our neighbor, a young man who is married with a small child and his own business, does our yard work… the extra money goes to extras he couldn’t have otherwise. A local woman who runs her own housecleaning business has her folks (many of them her family) come to our home once a month for the serious cleaning (mopping, dusting, bathrooms). I have no guilt around this–my partner and I are both busy with work and we hate cleaning and yardwork.
My only issue is that I HATE being home (or visible to my neighbor) when these folks are working. I feel terribly guilty about not working alongside them. Of course, often when I am here, I AM working, but it is on the computer and not cleaning or doing yardwork. That said, I still try to hide or be gone when that work is happening. I think this is less about class issues and being a bad feminist than about flashbacks to being a kid and needing to work alongside the rest of the family instead of reading!
November 14, 2009 at 6:05 am
Terminal Degree
I started hiring a student to clean once a week while I was a freelance music teacher. When I had so many students that I just didn’t have time to clean, I found myself turning away work so that I could take care of my apartment. Economically, this made no sense, and I realized that I was actually LOSING money by doing my own housekeeping. I could pay a student the going rate in my area and I could make $35 MORE in that same hour. So by hiring someone to help, I got to do what I have been trained to do, and do well, and I was ahead financially for the hour. I felt a little awkward about it, but it was SUCH a relief to have a tidy house, and I’m much better at teaching than at cleaning!
When I landed a t-track job, I was overwhelmed by the course prep during the first year. So again I hired a housekeeper, and doing so kept me sane.
I don’t feel apologetic or awkward any longer; there aren’t many jobs around here, we pay well, the housekeeper needs the job, and we need the reduction in stress. The most awkward thing I’ve encountered is that in the small town Southern culture here, employees use “Miss” and “Mr.” with their employers. I’ve told our cleaning lady, who is my age, to call me by my first name only, but she won’t use it.
If you feel really awkward about having a housekeeper, you can decide that there are certain tasks you’ll do yourself. For example, ours doesn’t change the kitty litter unless we’re on vacation.
I’m in a very poor part of the country, and there aren’t a lot of jobs here. Our housekeeper is putting herself through community college by cleaning houses. She has a GED, so simply put, this is really the only only way she can support herself and her daughter. When she eventually finishes school and lands a better job, we’ll be cheering for her.
One thing I’ve learned from my prior life as a self-employed music teacher: there are NO sick days, holidays, or vacations; those days are simply days *unpaid.* For example, my housekeeper and I both got sick this week and missed some work. My paycheck and budget won’t look any different this month–sick days are factored in. Her budget, on the other hand, will drop by over $150 this week from all of the houses she missed.
And when my husband and I are gone for a a few weeks at Christmas and a month or two in the summer, what should we do then? I always give her a Christmas bonus (since we’ll be gone for a week or two and December is a rough time to have a budget tightened) and to have her come in at least a few times while we’re gone in the summer to clean up after the house sitter. That way at least she gets *something* while we’re gone. I also make sure to tell her as far in advance as I can when we’ll be gone so that she knows how to plan.
November 14, 2009 at 6:07 am
Terminal Degree
Yikes, that comment got long. Sorry to hijack.
November 14, 2009 at 1:38 pm
brian
I never thought of hiring someone to clean my house and as a lawyer whose primary practice is representing low-wage workers it just felt wrong. I then started living with someone who has a physical impairment that does prevent him from doing most household chores and he was unhappy with my standards of cleanliness–in fairness, most people would be–and he insisted we hire people to clean. My one condition was that we pay them on the high end of the going rate.
The area we live in cleaners are predominately Latina and after the first time they cleaned and my first reaction was how nice it was to have a clean place. Twice however I was home when the women were cleaning and a very pregnant woman was cleaning out the cat litter box. I told her that she wasn’t responsible for cleaning the cat litter and she was fine with that but it still bothered me that I was paying someone to do something that could be unhealthy. The second time I was home one of the woman dropped and broke a glass and she could not stop apologizing. I told her I have broken several glasses and it was not a problem. She continued to apologize and promised it would not happen again. It was clear that no matter what I said she was worried that she would be fired.
Not sure what the lesson here is but it did make me realize that even paying well does not completely remove the inherent exploitative nature of the relationship. It may feel even worse with the obvious gender issues of 2 men of hiring women to clean up after them.
November 14, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Jennifer
It doesn’t seem any more or less “exploitive” than paying someone to cook and clean up after you (going to a restaurant).
November 14, 2009 at 4:02 pm
brian
I agree that it is not all that different, especially since restaurant work can be extremely exploitive, but hiring someone in your home certainly feels different.
November 14, 2009 at 3:08 pm
What Now?
Such an interesting conversation. BSG, the conversations back and forth among the various parts of you echo the same internal conversations I’ve had over the years, but maybe without the Buddhist piece and with the addition that, in my family, cleanliness equates to moral goodness.
I would really love to hire a housecleaner but simply can’t afford it right now while D isn’t bringing in any income at all. But having to clean our own house, and disagreeing about how and to what extent that should be done, does add strain to our marriage, no doubt about it, and maybe we should find a way to afford it just for the sake of our relationship.
November 17, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Miss Ann
This has been interesting. I’m a grad student, so I’m at home a lot, and thus I don’t know what life will be like once (hopefully) I get a job and am busy outside of the house. But I feel like my standards are pretty low, tidyness-wise. I grew up in a house where my mother was the high-power professional and breadwinner, and my dad worked but also helped out at home, but they hired someone to cook and clean and look after me. I feel like my own ambition is to just do it myself, and live a messier, more bohemian life than my parents did. But maybe when I have a job and fancy colleagues to have over, I’ll have to clean up more. I don’t know. It sure does seem like a bother. Are the colleagues the main reason to worry about this kind of thing, do you think? It’s not like my home is a disaster, but dust on surfaces and cathair on the couch — well, c’est la vie.
November 19, 2009 at 4:55 am
David
Hi. Just stumbled on this blog. Interesting. I don’t get why it would be considered exploitation to have someone clean your house. My wife’s mother was a cleaning woman, and it’s honorable work.
With that said, we certainly don’t have someone come and clean the house. I’m a professor, and my wife works too. But I’d be tempted to clean your house if you paid me $20 an hour, tax free. : ) Now if you’re trying to get enough research published to get tenure, it’s reasonable to get all the help around the house you can. But otherwise, unless you really hate housework, why not do it yourself?
Although we do go out to eat once a week, which raises similar issues. Everybody has their own priorities.