May 7, 2005

guilt-ridden, but clean

I’m getting a housekeeper. I can’t even believe I’m writing those words, but it’s true! The nice lady is coming tomorrow to assess my house (oh god I have to clean before she comes) and strike some kind of deal about when and how much. I’m very excited, but I also feel a little funny about the whole thing–liberal white guilt meets stay-home mommy guilt.

We’ve been through this before at our house, at least the liberal white guilt part. We’ve had a lawn guy for two years now, ever since Wade pulled a trash can (the big ones that roll to the curb) over his foot and ripped off his big toenail, thus making it impossible for him to either wear shoes to work for a week or mow our lawn. The toe incident was a blessing in disguise; we had been talking about hiring somone to do the mowing, but Wade kept insisting that he could do it himself, which was fine except that I was thinking about filing for divorce because the damn mowing was making me crazy. Our house is on a huge rectangular lot; the actual house takes up about a third of the lot, leaving the rest for the front and back yard. The back yard, in particular, is enormous, which is one of our favorite things about this place. BUT–it took Wade a good three hours (yes, THREE HOURS*) every weekend to mow and edge and do god only knows what else out there. Add to that his countless hours of complaining about mowing the lawn, and the totally crappy mood I was in by the time he was finished, and really, our weekends were fun fun FUN! Ugh.

So after the toe(nail) came off, we hired Luis to come every two weeks. He does a great job, he’s affordable, and (an extra bonus), he’s HOT. I mean really really HOT. Like that kid from Desperate Housewives hot. Oh yeah . . . . What was I saying? Oh the lawn. Right. It looks great.

And now we’re getting a housekeeper, for essentially the same reasons. I can clean the house, I’m even pretty good at it, but I don’t really like doing it, and it’s hard to find the time, since my kids are with me virtually every moment of every day. And from this springs my liberal white, stay-home mom guilt. I’m going to PAY someone to do the dirty work at my house while I hang out with my kids. Now I feel guilty about being priviledged, AND guilty about not being able to keep my home clean (when, after all, my job is to take care of the house and kids). And as if I weren’t angsting enough about this, add the fact that Joanna, the housekeeper (Luis the lawn guy’s wife), has two kids of her own, the same ages as my kids. So then I feel guilty that she will be cleaning my bathrooms while I’m at the pool with the boys. Argh.

But the thing is this: what I really want to do, in this last little window before my boys are in school full-time and I go back to work, is be with my kids, not be cleaning the bathroom while they watch TV. And we can afford this. And–most importantly, and most selfishly–this will help me carve out some time for myself during the day, which I just don’t have now, since I’m always trying to get the kitchen cleaned up or the laundry finished or the toilets scrubbed before Henry appears to announce that it’s 2:00 and his rest is over. By the end of most days, I am overwhelmed and crabby and desperate for just ten damn minutes alone, please! I think having Joanna come and take care of the housework might very well make me a more pleasant person.

I’m getting a houskeeper! Whoo hoo! Okay, now I have to go clean before she comes.

*The summer Charlie was born, my parents came to help us out. My dad volunteered to do the mowing. He was pretty convinced that he could do the yard in less than three hours, and that Wade just needed a better system, although he’s too nice to say that out loud. When he came to the hospital to visit Charlie and me, he announced: ‘I mowed your lawn this morning. And it took me THREE HOURS.’ So it wasn’t just Wade. Luis, of course, is in and out in forty minutes. Go figure.

RSS feed for comments on this post.
TrackBack URI

One Response to “guilt-ridden, but clean”

1. May 9th, 2005 at 7:23 am, ieatcrayonz Says:

   This post is so amusing to me because I recently also hired a maid service to come in every two weeks. I swear my marriage depended upon it. The service doesn’t do as good a job as I would, but it’s so nice to come home to a clean house on Friday and not worry about cleaning a thing that weekend.

   I think more families would be happier if they had lawn and maid services. When you are 80, you will not want to remember how much you had to clean, but how much extra quality time you got to spend with your family. Please don’t feel guilty and don’t feel like you have to justify yourself. And don’t clean before they come to do the regular cleaning!

Leave a Reply