Cleaning House

Chris: Do you want an iPhone? Me: I’d rather have a house-cleaning service. Chris: Should we go to Seattle in the spring? Me: I’d rather have a house-cleaning service (and not travel with the world’s worst 1-year-old flyer). Chris: Should we get new nightstands? Me: I’d rather have a house-cleaning service. After much angst, I have finally hired a house-cleaning service. This is a big deal for me. First, I’m not one to hire somebody to do something I can do myself. I have always done my own cleaning (and Chris and Charlotte’s cleaning, but who’s keeping score?). I have done all my own painting (and that’s a LOT of painting) and car-washing (well, Chris took over car-washing when we got hitched), and Chris does all the landscaping, weeding, and lawn-mowing. And taxes. And investing. So until now, our maid was mainly me. (To be fair, Chris was in charge of floor mopping, stove cleaning, and putting out the trash.) Let me tell you, 3,800 square feet is a whole lot of cleaning, and Mama doesn’t have a whole lot of time. I got pretty frustrated with spending hours cleaning my house instead of playing or hanging out with my baby in my not-so-clean house. Sure, Chris could take half the housework and I could take the other half, but somebody still has to keep an eye on a particular little girl who has quite the knack for climbing, finding, and prodding dangerous things. So what to do? I suggested a cleaning service to Chris. Ever rational, he questioned why we would spend money for somebody to do something when it already gets done for free. My response was calm and well-tempered: “BECAUSE I’M SICK OF EITHER NEGLECTING MY KID OR LIVING IN GRIMY SQUALOR!” It took more cajoling than I would have liked, but I think Chris came to realize that my happiness (and his, if we’re being honest) hinged on me getting some help around the house, in whatever form necessary. The “double day” or whatever you want to call it—the working all day at a job, then coming home and launching child care, housework, laundry, cooking, dishes, prep for the next day—has been taking its toll on both of us. And really, for what? The cost of a house-cleaning service? Our days are long. My alarm goes off at 5:15 a.m. We leave the house at 6:40 a.m., Charlotte is at school at 7:20 a.m., and I’m at work at 7:45 a.m. I leave at 4:45, pick up Charlotte by 5:15, get home around 6:00, feed and bathe the kid, and put her down by 7:00. During this time, Chris typically makes dinner or works. We eat dinner around 8:00 and then begin dinner clean up and bottle/sippy-cup/baby food/diaper bag prep for the next day. Maybe I blog or read a little. We get ready for bed and fall asleep around 10:00 or 10:30. Nowhere in our day is there much time for cleaning, so it gets pushed to the weekend, but weekends are already full with errands, church, and, increasingly, social obligations, like neighborhood get-togethers or birthday parties for Charlotte’s friends. Every family situation with kids has its perks and particular stressors, whether mama works full-time, works part-time, works from home, or is a stay-at-home mum. (And a million other combos with stay-at-home dads, Neanderthal dads who won’t lift a finger, single moms, unemployed moms or dads at home, and so on.) Number of children also plays a big role. Duh. The full-time working mama? Her day is highly structured and efficient, but tight on time. Like her young child(ren), she thrives on routine and predictability. She loses a lot of time to commutes and immense prepping for the next day, but she also gets off the hook for a lot of the day’s diapers and the child’s feedings (and subsequent clean-up). And frankly, if no one is home, nobody is messing up the house. If she breastfeeds and decides to pump at work, she deserves a gold medal and an office with a freaking lock. If she’s one of the lucky working moms, she likes her job most of the time. Finally, if she is one of the luckiest working moms, her income helps pay for some help cleaning the house. This is one of the perks of working. It’s a perk I intend to use. So we have hired a house-cleaning service. I interviewed two, investigated them via the Better Business Bureau, read all the online reviews, and finally picked the one that had the best track record and the happiest customers. Just knowing that reinforcements were on their way to help me as I try to “do it all” immediately put an extra spring in my high-heeled step. Screw being supermom or doing it all. How about I just do the parts I want to do, like making baby food or playing with Charlotte, and the parts I have to do, like raising my daughter and earning an income? I cannot justify putting higher priority on vacuuming the stairs than playing patty cake with Charlotte (her new favorite thing), but . . . you know what? Those damn stairs need to get vacuumed at some point. Reprioritizing doesn’t make squat go away. Unless you pay someone to make it go away. I almost feel defensive as I type this post, like there’s a “tsk-tsk” emanating from my readership (I hope I actually have a readership), tsking that a better, stronger woman would suck it up and just clean, or a smarter woman would manage to concoct a magic potion that Chris could drink so he could finally, for the first time, detect that the furniture has a 9-inch layer of dust on it—without me pointing it out. I get that hiring help is a luxury, especially when so many are cutting back as the economy wallows in crappiness. I also get that I’ll need to cut back in a few areas of ye olde household budget to accommodate cleaners. I’m willing to sacrifice just about anything: shoes (sigh), Kindle books, an iPhone, furniture, trees planted, a deck, finishing the basement, decent wine, and so on. But really? We have everything we need. Cutting back shouldn’t hurt too much. So the cleaners came. And they cleaned. AND OH MY GOODNESS HOW DID I EVER LIVE WITHOUT THEM??? I cannot describe the burden that has lifted from me—I knew the stress of having everything clean and “just so” in the house was stressing me out, but I hadn’t realize to what extent until three very nice ladies in rubber gloves took this stressful part of my life away. Yesterday, as I endured a truly crappy, stressful day at work (and one hellishly long week, to be honest), I thought about what I had to do that night when I got home from work. I suddenly remembered the cleaners were coming. Immediately, my stress level went down a notch. As I came through the door last night, I swear my house actually sparkled. It gleamed. So now, on the eve of a long-awaited, much-needed weekend, I get to enter it knowing that I don’t have to quickly change bed linens while Charlotte plays in the floor, or wait for naptime so I can scrub toilets. I am so excited for the prospect of sitting on the (cleanly vacuumed) floor with my kid, focusing entirely on her with no thoughts of “I should really be swiffering the floors instead of playing right now."