Division of Labor




Things can get pretty messy at our house!



Despite my husband's and my own modern thinking about our roles as husband/father and wife/mother, the division of labor in our home has fallen along traditional gender lines.

He handles most of the outside work; I, most of the inside chores. Unfortunate for both of us and our three sons, I'm not really good at the inside work.

First, I'm not a good cook. It's true. I get it done. No one goes hungry, and our meals are generally nutritious and, except for a weekly pizza night or restaurant visit, home made. I have a few really good go-to recipes that make everyone happy, but anytime I try something new, the whining is deafening. For the most part, I can't blame them. When company comes calling, it's Kevin in charge, and I'm demoted to sous chef/dishwasher. I consider myself the "Monday-Friday Cook" and let Kevin hold the "Weekend Wonder Cook" title.

House cleaning is a different story. I am actually quite good at it and enjoy an orderly, squeaky clean home. Unfortunately, I don't get to enjoy that very often. Some time after son #2 came along, the mandatory floor-sweeping, counter-disinfecting, dish-washing, laundry-folding, bed-sheets-changing, and so on, took so much out of my day that I ran out of time to actually clean the house. You know, wipe down the floorboards. Wash a window. Clean a bath tub.

Which is why I finally broke down and hired a cleaning service. Or at least I thought I did. Looks like we were one-and-done. That's not a good sign about the condition of my home.

I hired this lovely woman through the recommendation of the previous owners of my house. She quoted me a price. It was too high. We negotiated and settled on an amount I felt I could live with, even if it meant giving up my Starbucks habit. It would be worth it.

She and a friend came last week. I was sooooo excited. The boys were excited. They understood that Mommy might be a little happier and more fun if she weren't freaking out about how dirty the house was and how much time she had to spend trying to clean it. I am constantly reminding them that the more time I have to clean up after them, the less time I have to play with them.

The two women worked up a good sweat working the house top to bottom. They kept coming to me asking for this product or that product that they needed to get the job done right. Most of the items I found for them under a sink or buried in the basement, but I didn't have a certain rough-sided sponge they wanted to clean the tub.

The conversation about the sponge went pretty much like this: Nice Cleaning Lady, "No, it's a sponge with green on one side, kind of rough, you know." Me, "Hmmm. No. I only have these sponges for the kitchen." Nice Cleaning Lady, a bit disgusted, "Then, how did you ever clean your bathtub?" Me, "Ummmmmm?"

I couldn't admit that I'd obviously been cleaning it wrong, when I actually did clean it, all these years.



Less time spent cleaning=more dancing!

At the end of the four hours, my house was definitely in better shape. I paid the Nice Cleaning Lady, and she told me that she underestimated how much time it would take to clean my house, and that her price had to remain at her original suggested amount.
I like a clean house, but I also like heat, electricity and cooking gas. It was just too much money for me to pay. So I thanked her, sat down on my clean couch, picked up my clean phone, and started calling for other estimates.

In fact, I just met with a woman who quoted me half of what the first woman wants. We'll give her a try next week. I just watched her drive off in her Lexus. House cleaning pays pretty well indeed.