Yesterday marked a banner occasion in my household. We finally sprung for a maid. The initial cleaning was yesterday, with a plan to have someone come every two weeks. The topic of maids has been a constant around here since, oh, roughly 2005. And everyone I know (consultants, doctors, lawyers) with two working adults in the household has some level of professional housekeeping. So what has taken us so long?
It is not like I'm oposed to domestic outsourcing in principle. I do it all the time. Child care, meal preparation...But somehow a maid sounded like an extreme luxury. (Yes, I'm officially bourgeois and terribly conflicted about it). I guess that it has to do with expectations. Child care is a no-brainer. I can't be two places at once and my job frowns upon conference calls in cube-land, so a crying infant under my desk is certainly out of the question. Meal preperation was a little trickier. I found Lets Dish and the prices were more than reasonable for the food that I received. A week's worth of meals was roughly equivalent to what I normally spend at the grocery store, plus all the thinking was done for me. All I had to do was assemble and cook. A personal chef, they are not. But a definite time-saver. So why was I so reluctant with getting a maid?
Some of it is cost. It seems outrageous to pay someone $100 to vaccuum my house, when I could do it. Also, I felt like I SHOULD be doing it. Like cleaning builds character. Also, I was raised that if I made the mess, I cleaned it up. But, the bottom line, with two (more than) full-time jobs and a 9-month old who has recently discovered the culinary delight that is dog hair freshly scraped from the carpet, now was the time to call uncle and get some help.
I'm still a little queasy about the arrangement. (I could have dusted and vaccuumed, dammit!) But, wow are my faucets clean...
I think the hard part to swallow is the knowledge that you have to be at a certain income level to be able to afford a maid. Every working mom -- from single mom holding down two jobs to overpaid professional with a stay-at-home husband -- needs some kind of childcare. It's an unavoidable expense, and everyone has to figure out how to do it. But your average single mom can't afford to have someone clean her house on top of that, and has to suck it up and do it herself. So knowing that, in the back of your mind, makes you feel like a jerk.
ReplyDeletePlus, somehow I feel like the women who generally do this work (yes, this sentence is full of stereotypes) are immigrants, and they are somehow being screwed by some system somewhere. Case in point -- one of our kids' daycare teachers asked if she could clean our house. There are a lot of issues here: a) she's not getting paid enough to watch my kids (which is a hugely important job, from my perspective) to have enough money; b) she's having to do this work on the weekend, outside of her normal job, so she gets zero time to rest; and c) I happen to know that she was a certified high school teacher in her native country, so I feel like she shouldn't be house cleaning.
However, is it completely bourgeois of me to look down on housecleaning? Realistically, these women are doing a good thing by themselves, earning money in a free market system.
Hmm. I feel all conflicted now.
Also, some days I think I should be able to take a tax deduction for all of these services as the cost of generating income. As in -- if I didn't have to work ridiculously long hours that kept me out of the home and prevented me from doing this work, I wouldn't need to purchase these services. It's the same rationale as deductions for childcare.
Also, and perhaps this is the subject for the topic of another post, but I am beginning to feel very conflicted about the tax system in general. I am perfectly happy to pay more in taxes if I earn more than others. I believe in safety nets. What I (vehemently) object to is the idea that, according to the rest of the country, I am "rich". I live in a metropolitan area where the cost of living is outrageous; I have to pay hundreds of dollars every month in student loans which were required to generate my current income (and which I cannot deduct); and I get very few services from any Government. Sigh.
Well K is for Katherine's response is probably more nuanced than mine, but here are my thoughts on Idgie's post:
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I wasn't raised right, but I definitely have none of these conflicted feelings about hiring a housekeeper. I think it's the first of the domestic outsourcing I paid for (with not having kids and all) as an adult. It was an easy decision. Before my fiance and I moved in together (at the time my boyfriend), it was clear no one was going to sign up for cleaning the toilet. I don't mind vacuuming and he doesn't mind cleaning the kitchen, but no one wanted the bathroom. At our combined salaries, it seemed like an easy decision to pay to never have to fight about it. I'm not kidding. I see the check to the housekeeper as paying for the lack of argument, not so much the cleaning (although I agree that the sparkling faucets are nice). So, Idgie, I don't know if you are conflict-free in your house, but maybe if you think of it that way, it will help you as well.
Playing devil's advocate to K--
ReplyDelete"But why do you work at all? There's important work to be done raising your children! You've made selfish choices living in a high cost of living area. Live in Oklahoma/Ohio/other vowel states and raise your kids. Then you don't have to fret over paying someone to do your job for you. A woman's place is in the home. Also, Obama was born in Kenya."
I can't think of a good snappy comeback. The truthful answer is that a) I'm good at what I do, b) I'm a rung-grabber and always want to be the best at what I do, which requires working in a major metropolitan area, and c) I really, really, really want my daughters to see that women can be smart and successful outside of the home just as well as men. Fact of the matter is, I'm NOT a good housecleaner -- my faucets DON'T sparkle -- and I *am* a good lawyer. So why can't I spend my life doing what I'm good at?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I need to start a movement as cool-sounding as "birther".
I love that this thread indirectly references 2 of my daily links!!
ReplyDelete