I’ve been saying I wanted a “Maid” for years. And years. I’m pretty messy. Always have been. I’ve gotten better over the years, but not a whole lot better. I do clean my house. It just doesn’t stay clean for very long. In fact, my sister posted this on my facebook wall the other day.
Now, that being said, my house is not always clean. Sure, the dishes get done every day, the trash gets taken out and I even try to vacuum the main living areas two or three times a week. But, just trying to keep the toys picked up is a full time job and my baseboards and bookshelf have been dusted, like, twice since we moved in this house a year ago. We’re a messy family. All of us. And my husband, God love him, isn’t much of a cleaner. (Which isn’t all that bad considering he also never gives me a bad time about the house being messy) The result of us all being messy and me being the only one who cleans, means I make 25 percent of the mess and am expected to clean up 100 percent of it. Sometimes, I don’t get to everything.
Not long ago, I was convinced I should have had the time to do it all. I wasn’t earning a paycheck. I was home all day with Logan. Not only could I not afford a housekeeper, but I really should have been doing a better job cleaning the house myself. Hiring one was out of the question. Then, later, when I did start working again, I worked part-time and at night. I was still home all day with Logan and I would just have to learn to be better at keeping up. That’s what good mothers and wives do, right? They manage to do it all, do it all perfectly and maintain a fantastic house. Thinking I could justify a housekeeper meant admitting that I wasn’t good enough at my job as a wife and a mother. So, I didn’t hire one. I kept spinning my wheels, trying to keep up, convinced that one day I’d be able to do a better job.
I’m sure I didn’t get these ideas from thin air, either. We, as women, are hard on one another. We often believe that a housekeeper is reserved for those women who have nothing better to do with their money, not those of us who live in the real world. They were for those women who live a charmed life and surely not the kind of life I live, filled with worn in furniture and home accents from Wal-mart and Target. Or, as a good friend of mine’s husband likes to say, those women who don’t take enough pride in their own homes to clean them themselves. How many times have I, myself, said, “Yeah, well, of course she can do that. She probably has a freakin’ housekeeper. If I had a housekeeper, I’d probably have time to do that too.”
The truth of the matter is, with a little time management, I probably could keep up. I could have kept up back then. I could spend the time cleaning my own ceiling fans and wiping all the cabinet faces. If I tweaked things just right, I could get to the fingerprints on the back door and the TV in my bedroom more often. The second truth of the matter is…I don’t want to.
There it is. That’s the truth. I. don’t. want. to.
I work 5 days/25-30 hours a week. Add that together with Logan and Brodie and you get well over 40 hours. My husband is at work when the boys and I are home. I work 8 hour shifts on Saturdays and Sundays which, of course, are his days off. When I AM home with Jeremy, I don't want to waste time cleaning. I want to spend it with him. Or, you know, taking advantage of the fact that he's home so I can talk on the phone for an hour. I work through Brodie's naptime. I work through Logan being at school. On the two days a week I AM home for naptime, I want to spend it napping, too. Or reading. Or catching up on my DVR. Or writing this blog. I DO NOT want to spend it cleaning. But…I still want it to be cleaned. And, I’ve decided there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with wanting someone else to dust so I can spend Tuesday evenings making pizza for dinner with my kids.
When I started thinking about the idea this time, I wanted to find out the low-down on housekeepers. What they actually cost (Way less than I thought) and what they actually do. So, I got in touch with a fellow mommy friend of mine. She is the mother of a pre-schooler and twin one year old girls. She had a housekeeper when she was the mommy of one and worked outside of the home and she still has a housekeeper now that she stays home full-time and is the mother of three.
She actually told me that her housekeeper is the most important person in her life. This statement alone is funny and God love her for saying it. She followed it up by saying that she functions better in a clean environment and that her housekeeper is a sanity saver. That second chunk is significant. I’m sure “The most important” is a bit of an exaggeration, but in order to function correctly and be the wife to one and mother to three that she is, I’d be willing to bet the housekeeper really is in the top 10. She also added that hiring a housekeeper was the nicest thing you could do for yourself.
I’ve decided to take on this attitude. The thought that hiring someone to do the stuff I don’t want to do, don’t make the time to do, is really just a nice thing I’m doing for myself and my family. How is it different than taking my car through a car wash or having my awesome, yet overly talkative, gardener edge my lawn? I get to have clean bathtubs and fingerprint free door jams while my books, DVR and blog (Oh, and children and husband) don’t get neglected either. It’s a win-win.
I don’t expect the housekeeper to be a magical cleaning fairy who picks up Jeremy’s dirty socks or keeps my dirty laundry all in one place. I know I’m still going to have to keep the dishes put up and the floors vacuumed and the toys put away. I can manage that. I mean, realistically manage that. I also get that a housekeeper is a luxury and I can only pay someone to do so much. Trust me, I get it. I also work in an industry where depending on people to indulge in luxuries keeps my power on. People don’t go out to eat, I don’t get paid. The way I see it, I’m really just passing that along, right?
The bottom line is this...I'm hiring a housekeeper! My house will be cleaner. I will be happier. This is good news.
Happy Wednesday (Thursday)!
