A little housekeeping October 26, 2011
Posted by mareserinitatis in family, personal, societal commentary, work.Tags: economy, housekeeper, jobs
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I’ve finally broke done and done something I never thought I’d do: I hired a housekeeper.
Between working a PT job, teaching a class, working on a dissertation, running kids to various activities, helping with homework, and training a giant puppy dog…well, I got just plain desperate. Unfortunately, this desperation was coupled with guilt: there are other things I ought to be spending that money on. Maybe I should be saving it.
A while ago, someone told me that in other cultures, people who are wealthy are looked down upon if they don’t have a large number of household workers. Interestingly enough, it’s not because they’re viewed as less wealthy but as less willing to share their wealth in a healthy way: by giving people gainful employment. In other words, if you have a bunch of money and don’t use it to give people jobs, you’re kind of being a jerk.
I’m trying to use this train of thought to make myself feel better. Granted, I don’t think I’m wealthy, but isn’t giving someone an income a good way to spend money? When I think about it that way, it makes it feel like a very good use of my money.
Thinking about it in broader terms, though, I think that’s essentially what’s wrong with a big portion of the US economy…those who have the money are not using it to create jobs, despite all the cries that taxes and everything else is burdening these poor people so that they don’t want to create jobs.
But really…that’s what’s going on. And I think the rest of us are starting to get very sick of their hoarding.
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I think it’s wonderful! Good for you!
Earlier this year my counselor told me that it’s important for your own mental health to do things for yourself. She gave me homework to do something for myself that I would normally not permit myself to do because I didn’t have time or didn’t think I should spend my money on it. So I started schedule a massage for myself once a month after payday. I always loved massages but felt like it was frivolous. Now I see it’s not frivolous to take care of yourself.
I’m realizing that when I get too overwhelmed, I just tend to shut down. I’m trying to juggle a lot, and so, yes, it has become a necessity.
Not only is this something I need, but I want my kids to live in a clean house and my husband to not be so overwhelmed, either. At this point, I do the cooking, but he does a lot of the ‘maintenance’ housecleaning, like dishes and laundry. He’s feeling overloaded, too. I’m gone a lot of evenings, so he’s also dealing with kidlets.
So, if this is what we need to do to keep our sanity, so be it. It’s nice to not wake up berating myself for all the things I didn’t do and to be able to focus on the things I need to do.
That’s awesome. I have been considering the same thing for quite awhile but just can’t justify the ongoing expense as a single income (parent) household. I will get there though! I did invest in a couple handy floor cleaning robots though. The vacuum has lost it’s value (too slow and breaks down a lot) but the scooba, oh my! I love that little guy.
There’s no way I could have afforded this when I was a single mom. In fact, at that point, I was working two jobs, and one of them was doing custodial work at a business.
You do what you can to get through…I feel for you.
We spend money on all sorts of conveniences in life. Cars instead of buses. Electric lights instead of candles. Cell phones instead of land lines. Getting domestic help is just one more on the list.
It’s a huge change in mindset for me, because growing up, I was more worried about whether or not I was going to get a next meal. Housekeepers were things that only ‘rich’ people had. Of course, when you’re that poor, your perception of rich is very skewed.