There's always something to do around the home and if you expect to live in an unattainable magazine spread, then you'll never leave the house and you'll never be satisfied. It's easier to keep things in order when you live alone. When you live with other people, you can only be responsible for your things; have control over your personal space, like your room for instance. You need to negotiate the standards of the common areas and how you share the space. As it should be. You're not responsible for anyone else's mess. Obviously young children are dependent on you and the irrational little buggers refuse to negotiate. If you are the only adult in the house, you're it. It's hard until the kids are old enough to help out. Socialising children to participate in the running of a household and to become independent is extremely important. If there is another adult in the house, then all the work should be shared. It shouldn't even be a question. If you are an adult, then you need to know how to be self sufficient in all aspects of running a household.
Unfortunately, the division of domestic labour is still extremely unequal. Women still end up doing the bulk of household duties, regardless of whether or not they have children or work. Research shows that the financial independence of women alone will not decrease how much work they do around the house. A shift is needed in the gender ideology of men. They simply need to do more household tasks and child care to catch up.
There also needs to be a cultural shift. Pay attention to advertising. When ever any kind of household cleaning product is advertised, it almost always depicts a woman doing the task. Except this ad from India, which is an excellent attempt at addressing the issue. This kind of sexism is not only degrading to women, it is patronising to men. There are men out there who live alone or share with other men and shock horror, THEY DO HOUSEWORK.
One solution is to hire a cleaner; someone that can do the ongoing tasks to keep a household running. This is another added cost and seems to be a band aid solution to the issue. I used to be a cleaner. I worked for an agency that sent me out to do child minding and home cleaning. I enjoyed it. It was a no pressure job, while I was in between jobs. It was casual employment, so although I didn't get any benefits like sick leave or holiday pay, the work was well paid and flexible. I never felt demeaned. The houses I cleaned were generally very nice and belonged to employed people with families. I folded washing, vacuumed, cleaned the bathrooms, dusted and tidied up a little. I had three hours or so to do it in. I almost felt like I was ripping them off because there really wasn't that much to do. These days you can hire a cleaner to do an end of lease clean or to stage your home for selling it, but when there are adults and older children living in a home, why aren't they doing it?
Personally, I couldn't imagine hiring a cleaner. I just don't see the need. Maybe because I did it for a job and it would be like hiring myself. There are two adults and we live in an apartment. I have three daughters, but even if they were sons, I can't imagine them growing up not participating in the household tasks needed for us all to stay fed, clean, clothed and somewhat ordered. I don't just mean cleaning their rooms either. I envisage them having a go at cleaning the bathrooms or picking up and folding the washing (or putting it away, which is the bane of my existence!) I have fantasies of us living in a house with a yard and spending a day tending to it as a family.
Maybe I'm delusional or idealistic, but does it have to be an unrealistic dream? Teaching my kids that it's their responsibility to contribute to the smooth functioning of their home is instilling life skills that they are going to need when they are independent. Gender shouldn't even be an issue. Everyone needs to know how to function as an adult. Everyone should be able to do things like sew on a button, get stains out of clothes or the carpet, throw out rotting food and wipe out the fridge, change bedding and towels, empty bins, put up a picture, change a light bulb, mop a floor, operate a stove top, keep a plant and a pet alive, cook a meal, buy groceries, air out a room by opening a window. These things aren't just for aesthetics and comfort, they keep us well and allow us to function as civilised and mature adults.
When I was a cleaner I thought about why they hired me, these fairly middle class people with businesses and nice houses. Why were they happy for a stranger to come into their home, touch their belongings and do the things that we should take pleasure in doing because it's caring for our intimate environment. It felt like these people couldn't be bothered doing the basics like washing up their breakfast dishes or scrubbing the skid marks out of the toilet after doing a poo. Did they see it as a task below them? I don't buy that there isn't time. There's time. You make it. You prioritise. If you run out of undies, you put on a load. The house doesn't have to look like a catalogue, it doesn't have to be spotless (I dust by blowing on the furniture....with my mouth!) However, if everything has a place; if the bathrooms and kitchen are hygienic; if you have clean clothes and towels and the fridge and pantry are stocked so you can prepare healthy meals, you can still have a life. You can still work or study all day, you can still go out to restaurants, you can still spend whole weekends out of the house or week days where you only use the house to sleep and shower. You can still have a full life and run a functional home. It isn't difficult to clean as you go. To keep things ordered and to be aware of the needs of the household as a communal space. The more everyone contributes, the less there is to do. The expectation should be that it's everyone's responsibility. Why would you want someone else doing that for you? Isn't there a kind of satisfaction from taking care of the space where you live; your home. Not in a Stepford wife kind of way, like the mundanity of house work is meant to give us an organism. It isn't. It can be relentless and time consuming and aggravating. Especially when it isn't shared or it is taken for granted. However, in the right context, it's simply taking care of the place where your security and comfort reside and the things that make up whatever it is that you define as home. There's whole industries based on styling or interior decorating or feng shui or whatever. It's not hard to see having domestic skills as an opportunity to do it yourself. It's something everyone should take pride in. You groom yourself, why wouldn't you groom your personal living environment?
My one and a half year old twins already know that when they finish eating, they put their plates on top of one another and move them from their high chair to the table. It doesn't help me much, it's not cleaning up, but it's a subtle message of 'when you finish with your plate, put it up.' They also have their toys in storage bins and know how to pack up. It's a game, but a very important one.
The biggest issue people have is clutter. We buy heaps of crap we don't need and we run out of places to put everything. We don't need much. Travel is a testament to that. How freeing is going on holidays when you only live with what is in your suitcase and you don't miss anything? I have become a chucker. When I rented I moved regularly; 13 times in 10 years. One year I moved three times. It was exhausting and heart breaking, but in a way, liberating. It allowed me to go through all my belongings regularly and throw out the crap. I've lived in my current home for eight years. A lot has happened in that time. I traveled with my partner. We got married. We had three kids including twins in three years. We have accumulated a lot of crap. This year I'm being ruthless. I am a vigilant present door bitch with the kids. I know their grandparents adore them and want to shower them with gifts to watch their little faces light up, but I've set limits and they have started buying them things to play with when we visit, which means it stays out of our place. I sound ungrateful, I know, but the relationship with their grandparents is built on everything else, not toys.
I'm not against the cleaning industry, but it feels a bit classist. Cleaners are usually women, migrants, single mothers, students. I wouldn't want to rob them of a livelihood, but maybe then the industry needs to be valued more. Certainly for cleaners who clean public places, wages need to be increased and attitudes need to change. Nothing shits me more than watching how the custodians in food courts are treated. People leave crap all over the tables expecting the cleaners to pick up their garbage. Recently the cleaners in Parliament House in Canberra went on strike over wages. Considering the extravagance some politicians get away with, raising their wages to match the importance of the work they do isn't a big ask.
Maybe we need a cultural shift on a bigger scale. Raising kids to be conscious of their living environment, picking up after themselves, being responsible for their toys and tidying up, not being destructive and seeing things as disposable, pitching in around the home. Surely this will lead to functioning adults who respect the environment and the planet. Who live responsible and respectful lives towards places and people who maintain places. It's definitely a 'think global act local' moment. Cleanliness, conservation, recycling, good hygiene and health, a reduction of consumerism and waste, equality in the distribution of domestic and menial labour, the gender pay gap. It all starts at home.
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