I scrubbed the kitchen counter last night. Not just my usual wipe down with a clean, wet, sometimes soapy paper towel, but a complete scrub with the only non-environmentally friendly cleaner left in my house. I was tired of seeing coffee rings near the coffeemaker. And now they are gone. And my counters gleam. I kept looking at them last night and was appreciating them again today. Though, I should probably be embarrassed that they had gotten to the point that I can see a difference! It made me feel really good--the kitchen is where I spend most of my time and I try to have it, at least, in good working order.
I have been obsessed with housework recently.
No, no, not doing it, for the most part. Thinking about it. Theorizing, analyzing, philosophizing, pondering it.
Two books are at the root of my current obsession: Caroline Davidson's
A Woman's Work is Never Done and Sue Bender's
Plain and Simple (I have a third,
Never Done, about American housework but haven't read it yet). The first book is a history of British housework, particularly its technological advances, from 1650-1950. The second is one woman's musings on her obsession with the Amish and her desire to transplant their calm, orderly, homey work ethic to her own life.
There were several things about housework that I hadn't considered before, namely that for hundreds of years, tending a house involved not only cooking and cleaning and laundry, but also lighting and heating and water delivery, three things we just don't spend any time doing anymore. But as technological advances such as better candles, then gas, then electricity, as well as pumps and then pipes for water, as well as coal and then gas, reduced the necessity of those last three tasks, there was a growing obsession with the first three, particularly cleaning. Having a clean home as a sign or moral cleanliness really got its start in the eary 19th century as people in Britain responded to a growing bed bug problem (and the only way to get rid of them was to clean), the dust and grime caused by coal fires, and the greater number of possessions brought about by growing middle-class prosperity. That women were predominantly--no, exclusively--in charge of housework, however, meant that it rarely received the respect or technological attention it deserved (and servants doing the work received even less respect and often resisted much technological help as a form of tradition and job security, it seems). In fact, only in the area of laundry, which really was back-breaking and constant, were labor-saving devices completely embraced. Though, even when time was saved, other tasks just filled the void--the total amount of housework just didn't seem to change.
Bender considers housework as a spiritual task, akin to those 19th-century angels in the house. While staying with two Amish families, she contemplates how the Amish see all work as a religious exercise, a "hands to work, hearts to God" way of thinking (though, officially, I think the Shakers might have coined that phrase). And there is no division between work and play--work is done playfully, with everyone helping--you've seen that barn-raising scene in
Witness. There is no rushing work to get to play, to do something you want to do. Can you imagine? Without that work-play dichotomy, Bender believes there is more calm, more satisfaction, more contentment in Amish families. But without the Amish religious beliefs pressing her to see the divine in the ordinary and to forgo individuality and false pride, Bender finds it hard to transplant their work ethic and the resulting atmosphere to her harried Berkeley, CA life.
I don't dislike housework. I just like many activities much more. I loved having someone else clean my house, which lasted about a year, even if politically, as a feminist, I had some issues about paying another woman to do the work I didn't want to do. But she did a beautiful job, so much more thorough than I ever do. I swore when I had to let her go (when we needed to save to put a new roof on the house after the storm)--which was incredibly hard for me, as the NYTimes explored in an
article at about the same time--that I would clean the house thoroughly every two weeks (basically, the interval of her visits).
And it never happened. First, I let the dusting slide. Completely. Then vaccuuming became less frequent. I think the only thing I kept up with was sweeping (but not mopping) and the bathrooms, two areas where you can really tell if you aren't doing your work. And why? Didn't I have pride in my house? Didn't I value cleanliness? Wasn't I ashamed of how I (didn't) keep the house? (For those of you who have never been to my house, I'm not talking about a filthy, disgusting house that would be a health code violation, but your usual disheveled family home with extra dust and clutter--nothing like the
people who can't get out of their homes because of garbage and "collections" everywhere.) But, like Bender's typical "English," I preferred to rush or skip certain chores in order to do other things that weren't housework--playing with my kids, running errands, cooking a meal (which would qualify as housework in that first book), or, yep, blogging. I'm in no way Amish, but I think, even for a UU (which is about as far from Amish as you can probably get), there is a spiritual attraction to simple living, slowing down, focusing on the home (I'm remembering my post on
eco-housewifery, so this obsession with housework goes back pretty far), prioritizing family, integrating spiritual beliefs with everyday activities. But how can I reconcile myself to cleaning? And how do you manage it?
I find time to squeeze in toilet cleaning and vaccuum and sweeping. But dusting? Or window cleaning? Or minor home repairs? And let's not even start with yardwork. I wouldn't want to give up the block of time with my kids to thoroughly clean the house on a regular basis. Or give up time with myself doing something I like. And that's where I differ from the Amish--they would never, as Bender indicates, put themselves before work. In fact, there wouldn't be that dichotomy of work and pleasure--they are one and the same divine thing. But it has to be done. And more and better than I do it. One sign of being an adult is knowing what has to be done and doing it even if you don't want to (like going to the dentist or spending money on, say, routine car maintenance). Right? And I want to model that for the kids. I've wondered if the fact that I never saw much less helped my mom around the house--she performed all of her own housekeeping while we were at school--has something to do with the fact that I am not that engaged in the work of housework (no, Mom, I'm not blaming you--Mama helped her folks out every weekend and she's as negligent and even more oblivious than me)--it's certainly not the way the Amish do it, as they have even the youngest kids working alongside the others (solves the "what do I do with the kids while I clean" problem, though). I want the kids to respect our home, even if sometimes, Mama and I disrespect it by ignoring housework and other tasks. We're not particularly "house-proud." Why is that? We love the house, wouldn't want to move, but don't put that much effort into it, not nearly what many of my mommy friends do. I think, in that respect, we're still growing up, from reckless apartment dwellers to real homeowners, in every sense of the word; it's been a slow transition, not in the least complicated by the fact that for the first 3+ years we lived here, we were almost never home because we worked long hours in the city and spent our weekends playing. And we had almost no idea what it really took to run a house. I think we're still learning.
In the end, though, inspired by Bender's musings, I asked myself the question that really underlies her book: what is important to me? For the rule-bound Amish living their religion, work is all-consuming and divine. I realized--not for the first time, but in this context--that my family is the most important thing to me. Creating a safe, happy, comfortable place for us all to explore both our own individualities but also to participate in community is my focus, my top priority. Because second on my list of importance is community. And beyond that, society. Taking care of people, helping them be safe and cared for, through helping out friends and neighbors, to social action and pastoral care through church. And in the end, the house--the housework is part of all of that. If I struggle against it, I'm unhappy. If it doesn't get done, our family doesn't function efficiently or happily. If I do it poorly or infrequently, I'm not helping my children understand their roles in a family or society. So while family comes first, the house--the physical structure and its contents--is central to the family in a way I hadn't quite understood before, even if I've been heading that way for a long time. So, while housework, even the house, will still not be my focus, it's going to be a larger part of our family.
It's a good thing it's going to be spring soon. We have a lot of cleaning to do.
Right after I read Sue Bender's other book,
Everyday Sacred and that other history of housework!
