My flatmates and I hired a maid that comes once a month. We did it mostly because it was easier to have her clean our common areas than for us to try to divy the tasks up fairly. We still had to clean up after ourselves, but she did the deep cleaning. I think we pay her $75 for about two hours work. And she usually brings another person to help. So I guess I feel like it’s a decent job for two people.

And neither one of us is comfortable paying someone to do it. It’s not guilt, so much as it is not wanting to feel like we’re taken advantage of someone.

Some people have mentioned classism in this thread but no one seems to see the implications in regards to the points that have been made.

You are not going to see rich, well educated people working as house cleaners or gardeners. However you are giving people a job. It may not be a great job but it beats the hell out of not having one. If the work cost more, less people could afford it. Those who got hired would happier but less people would have jobs. It is a job that requires little education or aquired skills so the barrier to entry is low. That means supply will always outstrip demand. That is a recipe for low wages.

You may feel guilty about taking advantage of people but undeniably, not doing so just means that they will have less money to feed their family. It is classist, to allow your guilt to make life harder on people struggling to get by.

If you want to make a difference, respect their work, be nice and give them a great Christmas tip.

Point taken, Sally. But….while both men and women may look at their place and say, “yeah, it could use a good cleaning,” it doesn’t seem to get into the identity of men the way that it does to women. We tend to be socialized to have the cleanliness level of our living space be a reflection of who we are, to a level that men don’t. Men have to be damn near repulsive before being labelled as a “slob”, whereas a woman living with a little bit of clutter—no filth, just clutter—is readily labelled that. Or worse, labels herself that. And I’ve seen that all my life, growing up around women who worked outside the home for at least 40 hours a week! I can’t remember a time I’ve walked into the house of a woman who hasn’t apologized for the level of “mess” in her home—even when there’s no mess, just typical signs of being lived in (like, shoes by the front door, jacket hung over the back of a chair, stack of papers and stuff on the kitchen table—that sort of thing)! No, I don’t think the onus should be on the woman—not at all. I’m just recognizing that the double-standard does exist, and since this is a problem that disparately affects women, we would be doing ourselves a favor if we would adopt a reasonable standard for housecleaning—which probably means taking on less of a load for ourselves and demanding more out of male housemates.

But also, while I’m sure it makes sense for you, it presumes a lot about other people’s situations.

I’m not trying to presume everyone’s situation, just the “average” situation. Folks who work an incredible amount of hours and/or who travel a lot, or who have caretaking responsibilities for ill or disabled family members, or who are ill or disabled themselves, or who have a very large family, have a nonstandard situation. I’m just thinking that for most able-bodied folks who work forty hours a week, if they just cleaned up after themselves, they could save themselves the cost of hiring the work done.

I wonder if there’s a way to encourage efforts to unionize cleaning services.

Sure! If you are in the market for a cleaning service, call up SEIU, or in some areas the Teamsters, and ask if there are any in your area. If you like their work, recommend the service to friends and neighbors.

first of all, the fact that margothe works taking care of “stacy’s children,”, not the children of stacy & her husband. we aren’t even told the husband’s name, so inconsequential to the story is he. this reinforces the notion that is only middle-class women who are served by domestic help, and not the men they are married to (assuming they are hetero & not single mothers).

secondly, the main thrust of the article is how margothe must leave her children for up to 11 or 12 hours at a time in order to go to work at a job that makes money for the family. the fact that the job she is doing happens to be helping to take care of a middle-class white woman’s children makes her situation no different than if she were going to work at a job in food service, agriculture, hotel-cleaning, factory, teaching, nursing, secretarial work, or any of the myriad employments that women engage in outside the home to earn money for their family to survive financially.

however, it seems to be that the reason this article is written is precisely because of the type of work she is doing, not that she is out working at all. and that speaks volumes about our attitudes towards what is acceptable for middle-class women. if stacy did not hire her to help her take care of her kids, what would margothe do? would she stay at home with her kids? or would she go find another job somewhere else?

the real problem that i see, and one that is only touched upon lightly, is that she is not paid a living wage, nor apparently, health benefits,. that should be the larger concern, regardless of whether her job is as a waitress or a nanny.

I don’t think it’s a feminist activity to pay substandard wages to have work done that we feel is beneath us

Ok, see, this seems to me to be a totally loaded way of putting it. When you pay someone to do something for you, I don’t think it’s generally taken to be a sign that you think that thing is “beneath you.” For instance, I’ve never heard the act of getting someone to paint your living room described that way, and most people certainly could do their own interior painting. When most people take their cars to a car wash, it’s because it’s more convenient, not because they think washing their cars is “beneath them.”

It’s true, though, that it’s a big problem that women who work in homes generally aren’t unionized. Men who work in homes, as plumbers, painters, etc., often are. I wonder if there’s a way to encourage efforts to unionize cleaning services.

My boyfriend and I have been discussing paying someone to clean our home once a month and we both have problems with it. We feel like we should be able to do it ourselves, but we never seem to find the time. And neither one of us is comfortable paying someone to do it. It’s not guilt, so much as it is not wanting to feel like we’re taken advantage of someone. We don’t want to go with a service because we know the actual workers make very little and don’t have benefits, but we can’t afford to give someone health care ourselves. And while I can rest assured knowing that the man who did our plumbing was a union member and therefore paid fairly, I haven’t seen a single unionized home cleaning service anywhere.

I have yet to read a story about how terrible well-to-do males are for having to pay others to repair their cars, pour their driveways, paint their houses, or install their ceiling fans (good thing too. I’ve been paid pretty damn well over the years for doing electrical work, and I’d rather not see some of the hazardous “installments” done by amateurs who didn’t want to admit they were in over their head).

I don’t presume to know whether stories of female guilt for hiring domestic help are more prevalent than stories of male guilt for hiring help for mens traditional chores. But I know there is male guilt (once agian, I simply don’t hang in the circles where we discuss children–let alone whether a mother is bad to hire a nanny). A lot of men do feel guilty for having to hire gardeners, electricians, and car repair people. And like La Luba says, it probably leads to a lot of faulty work for those that attempt those things themselves. Hey, I admit to incorrectly installing a set of brake pads on my car (I actually bought the wrong model and tried to grind them down so they fit–bad idea!).

Anyway, I do think the guilt comes from our notion of traditional roles. The interesting aspect about this though is how it has changed. I think men and women are sharing these roles more now, and we are becoming more of a service economy, so we are now paying other people to do these jobs. And geography is probably the biggest factor in this change. New York and San Francisco and other wealthy urban areas probably see men and women more willing to share chores and they are wealthier and so they probably outsource the work more.

Like Robert said, there’s an unrealistic image of cleanliness foisted on to women that we shouldn’t buy into (and I do mean buy—it’s designed to make us buy more products). Fuck that. Our ancestors had dirt floors.

I guess on the one hand I see where you’re coming from, and on the other this seems problematic. For one thing, it makes women completely responsible for the problem, and it gives their male partners an out when it comes to doing their share of the housework. If the problem is just that women have unrealistic standards of cleanliness, then why should a guy have to give in to his partner’s pathology and scrub the bath tub? It’s her fault for caring whether it’s clean. But also, while I’m sure it makes sense for you, it presumes a lot about other people’s situations. I’m sure there are people who hire cleaners to keep their McMansions spotless, but I don’t think that accounts for everyone who hires a cleaner.,