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It's all a matter of words. What is the correct way to describe those workers who are employed in other people's homes? Well, auntie – no surprise – has a very strong opinion on this.

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auntie's back

Some people lack certain skills and not all of us are fortunate enough to have friends or relatives willing and able to help us out in those areas.

Much milder cases of organisational dysfunction are very common.

How I'd love to find a site without the ideological baggage and disregard for the environment that contaminate the flylady site! (though she has helped me keep my kitchen sink clean - although even there she assumes that people have diswashers...

[ 03 October 2005: Message edited by: lagatta ]

About midway through, KFP says:

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Perhaps I'm naïve and cheeky, believing as I do that within one's own home one should clean one's own dustbunnies. But that's another matter.

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Well, no: that's obviously the heart of the matter, what provoked KFP's sniffy challenge to his "friend," or host, at least, and it was his host he wanted to get at too. In order to do that, he was willing to use a word that most domestic workers would indeed take as a dated insult.

So KFP is dishonest as well as rude.

I used to feel guilty about asking anyone else to help me much at all, but I got over that. I was forced to, by a catastrophic illness in the family and by the combined pressures of work, aging, personal responsibilities, and persistent cat poo (which I do clean up m'self).

As RB says, there are a lot of other things many of us can't do on our own -- prune a tree, eg, or repair the leaky foundations of a house, or lift another person in and out of a bathtub alone. It has never occurred to me that I was insulting an arborist or a contractor or a homecare worker to hire her or him for that work. Why the automatic assumption that domestic work is less to be respected? Oh, yes ... I remember ...

It is true that most domestic workers -- like all homecare and most health-care workers -- are not being paid fairly for their work and are denied the respect and status they deserve for taking on some of the toughest jobs we have to offer. So we should start by changing our own attitudes to the work they do, and support them in organizing for change.

I do consider that there are many things wrong with the way that we organize work right now -- no question. We would all probably be better off if we shared the tougher jobs more generally. But that takes systemic change, deeper change than most people, caught on their own little treadmills, can be expected to be responsible for all on their own. And it is simply not logical to decide that there is something intrinsically shameful about the tougher or more banal jobs.

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As RB says, there are a lot of other things many of us can't do on our own -- prune a tree, eg, or repair the leaky foundations of a house, or lift another person in and out of a bathtub alone.

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Well there's where the "sniffy challenge" comes from: doing one's own dishes doesn't require expertise, a professional certification, or the strength of two.

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:
I doubt that it's too often because you lack the physical strength or necessary skillset to move a broom back and forth.

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[ 03 October 2005: Message edited by: Amy ]

There are good arguments against able-bodied people hiring underlings to clean their shit out of their toilets. (Obviously this doesn't apply to people who have impairments that make it difficult or impossible to do so.)

One of those arguments is that if your house is too big for you to keep clean, then maybe you've got too much house for what you need, and maybe you need to downgrade to a size you can handle - maybe you don't NEED that suburban sprawl house for you, your spouse and your one or two kids since you aren't able to take care of it.

Another argument is that if you just don't LIKE cleaning your own shit off your own toilet, then what makes you think that's fulfilling work for anyone else to do? You're too good to do it yourself, but your cleaning lady isn't? (And don't get on my ass about "cleaning lady" - almost every person I've ever known who has had a cleaner calls them "the cleaning lady" or "the maid", whether they're progressive or not.)

Another argument is that if you feel you just can't clean up after everyone in your family, or you're having housework battles with your spouse (and this is especially true of some wives who finally throw their hands up in understandable frustration at being expected to do the "double shift" simply because they're female), then maybe you've either got too much stuff, or you have to find a way of sharing the tasks around the house with the rest of your spoiled family. It ain't all that radical for a woman who feels like she's at the bottom of the domestic chore pecking order in her house to try and find someone outside her home that is even lower than her on society's pecking order to do it for the family instead.

Does anyone actually leave shit in the toilet for someone else to clean up? I sure never have. Everyone I've ever talked to about having domestic help has agreed: you spend a bunch of time the night before getting things presentable for the person who washes the floors.

I, of course, would call a person working at whatever job they are doing by whatever title they wished to be called. Therefore, I wouldn't call a domestic worker "the servant" in their hearing. (Then again, maybe they might bristle just as much at "the cleaning lady" or "the maid" although that is the generally-used term.) I'm not going to demean someone by making political statements about their occupation using terms to describe them personally, in their presence, that they don't appreciate.

The truth is, I have mixed feelings about the whole question. Personally, I would feel much more demeaned by cleaning someone's toilet for money than by having sex with them for money. My first visceral reaction is that cleaning up an able-bodied person's messes (especially the real "dirty" stuff like pubic hair and bathtub grunge and icky stuff on the toilet) is inherently degrading. (Please note that I'm not including cleaning up after people who can't clean up after themselves - there's a difference in attitude between the idea of cleaning up after someone because they can't do so themselves, and cleaning up after someone because they feel they're too good for that sort of thing so they'll pay you to do it instead.)

And yet, I find my own reaction interesting - I can use all of the same arguments I use in favour of seeing prostitution as a potentially honourable profession (and not inherently degrading) to justify people hiring (mostly) women to clean up their personal grunge. So I guess I figure that if a person is paid well to do the job, and they are treated with respect, then who am I to say it's degrading? I would find it degrading and icky but a lot of women wouldn't.

So, really, more power to them.

[ 03 October 2005: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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(damn, I forget her name, the woman who wrote Nickel and Dimed)

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I mean, even able-bodied people still need eight hours of sleep a night, as it were. There are limits to what any single person can do, able-bodied or not. And for most people, doing whatever they do for money requires following an employment logic that they are not fully in control of themselves.

I'm sure there are people for whom never having to do a lick of domestic labour is just one of the perks of a privileged life, but I should think that that is a small minority in the current economy.

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And for most people, doing whatever they do for money requires following an employment logic that they are not fully in control of themselves.

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I suspect that for some people it's economics. Their time is worth, say, $50/hour to them, so if they can pay someone to scrub the latrines for $15 then they're better off applying themselves to their usual endeavours and paying someone considerably less than what they make to look after the domestic stuff.

To tell the truth, while I can appreciate that there aren't enough hours in a week (I work two jobs myself, and I cook and clean) I have to wonder: if your neighbour told you that his mother comes in twice a week to wash his skivvies and do his dishes and make his bed and pick up his socks, wouldn't you snicker?

Why is it any different if it's someone else's mom, and he gives her money?

I used to live next door to a family who had a pro dog-walker. Gorgeous woman -- six feet tall, model-slim, spiky hair a different colour every few weeks -- wowser. She walked (probably still does -- I just don't see her any more) seven or eight dogs maybe five or six times a day, all at once, and they definitely knew she was leader of the pack. Even before I got to know her a bit, I could see from the way she radiated that she was one of the healthiest, smartest people I'd met.

In the dead of winter, I would watch her sitting on a camp-chair in the back yard next door, tossing snowballs for the dogs, and the pack all bounding through the deep snow after them. She was laughing; they were happy; and I was happy, watching.

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Originally posted by chubbybear:
Ok. Let's admit it and be honest shall we? If you pay someone to clean your poo from the toilet and walk your little puppy around the park we are talking about servants, and pardon me but you have become the people you pretend to hate.

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I've been in a position to pay for domestic engineering (my fave of alternative 'housewife' terms) and have even had the justification -- too busy, too stressed, too whatever. But I've never been able to bring myself to do it. It's some kind of class-queasiness.

I have dropped laundry off at the laudromat to be washed and folded for a couple of bucks a pound.

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if your neighbour told you that his mother comes in twice a week to wash his skivvies and do his dishes and make his bed and pick up his socks, wouldn't you snicker?

Why is it any different if it's someone else's mom, and he gives her money?

Notwithstanding the labour issues here, or the class issues, or the race issues, it's just really hard for me to respect someone who can't seem to cope with their own basic needs like that. Disability not included, of course.

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No, Mr Magoo; I would not snicker.

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And, really, paying someone to service your computer or your furnace is not the same as paying someone to clean your house. In the one case, you're paying a specialist; in the other, you're hiring a servant.

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Originally posted by skdadl:
See, I just don't agree. I can't service my furnace because I never learned how to service a furnace: girls my age didn't learn that. But my tech adviser can't work my sewing machine, and I can.

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I am saying that I don't think so. I think people think that for one of two reasons: either work that they haven't learned to do seems mysterious to them (a human universal), or they have been socialized to think that laying tiles requires more attention than cleaning a house.

When I was in Edinburgh, I lived in an international students' residence that paid for cleaners to come in once a week. I wouldn't have paid whatever extra the rent was for that service if I had the choice, and I felt somewhat strange about having a cleaner* come in. For one thing, they didn't always actually do that good of a job. There was mould left on the bathroom tiles that I would have bleached/scrubbed away myself normally. But I also felt that I was paying the same (exorbitant) rent regardless, so I shouldn't have to pay again to buy cleaning products to do someone else's job properly. But explaining that conundrum to others makes me feel like some sort of a rich bitch caricature, saying "It's so hard to find good help these days." It's not someone I wanted to be for obvious reasons.

I think the debate in this thread is somewhat related to the "cult of the job" thread. There's an automatic discounting of some types of jobs such that it becomes impossible for anyone to imagine doing them unless they are forced to from economic necessity. That doesn't resonate with me. I actually enjoy some types of cleaning (tidying and organizing storage especially, and vacuuming) and I can appreciate that there is a certain level of exclusiveness to the cleaning tasks we hate. A friend of mine from high school, for e.g., worked for a fire, water and sewage clean up company. It's at the scale of a problem (in particular with sewage disasters) that you can appreciate the effort and sacrifice that goes into cleaning work.

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But that's where you and I differ sometimes, Mr Magoo. I think that people are different.

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I think we both agree that people are different. What's more, I think we probably agree that not all "differents" are equal. If we disagree, it's on which "different" should be respected and which shouldn't.

Sorry, but grown men letting momma come in to do their laundry? Awesome.

I had a friend whose mother did everything for him when he was young. When we'd be hanging out in his room, reading comics and such, and he needed to blow his nose, he'd get a clean sock from his drawer, fill it with snot, and toss it on the floor for momma to pick up and launder. Touching a dinner plate after having emptied it was beneath him. Cleaning anything other than a car? Not for the likes of him!

As far as I'm concerned, we all have to live, and we should all have some basic idea of how to accomplish that. Those who refuse to take on the menial chores of their own existence must, by definition, be pawning those chores off on someone else. Someone who, frankly, has no more interest in picking pubic hairs off the soap than they do.

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Originally posted by skdadl:
I mean, even able-bodied people still need eight hours of sleep a night, as it were. There are limits to what any single person can do, able-bodied or not. And for most people, doing whatever they do for money requires following an employment logic that they are not fully in control of themselves.

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I'm not sure that argument works, skdadl. You'd have to believe that people (who can afford maids, remember) are REQUIRED to work 14 or 16 hour days, and literally have no time for housework. Do I believe that? I'm not sure I do. Everyone doesn't have a choice about whether they can find employment, but I think most middle-income-and-higher people have a choice about whether or not they have to work 72 hour work weeks. Are we therefore saying that people have an excuse to hire people to do their grungework as long as they're working excessively in pursuit of the almighty dollar? That doesn't sound like a very progressive argument to me.

I remember a long time ago, someone wrote to auntie talking about how her boyfriend was involved in a million causes, and because he was so busy doing all that Very Important Social Justice Work, he had no time to clean up after himself around the house. His time was way too valuable for that - so it fell to her.

Auntie, if I remember correctly, wasn't all that sympathetic about this fellow's time management choices, and didn't think it was a very good excuse for sticking someone else with cleaning up his share of the mess. Most of the folks posting to that thread didn't think much of it either. No one was making the excuse that he just didn't have enough time - they said (and rightfully so) that it was HIS CHOICES that led to him not having enough time to do so.

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Originally posted by skdadl:
The claim was that there is some essential difference in the level or quality of work involved.

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What I was trying to get at is not the level or quality of work, but the role of the 'employer'. When my computer goes weird on me, I call a guy and he comes over and he tells ME what's wrong, how long it will take to fix, and consequently how much I owe him. He charges $80 bucks an hour, well worth it because the computer is my living.

If I engaged a cleaner, I'd be telling him or her what needs doing, directing the cleaner to do what I want them to do, what I think is important. I'm not hiring the cleaner as a specialist, someone who is doing what I can't do. I'm hiring someone to do what I don't want to do. And at a rate that is sufficiently less than what I can earn in the same length of time, so that it makes economic sense.

Maybe lagatta's employment of a cleaner or organizer is more like my employment of a computer guy -- it sounds like she is consulting a organizing specialist and is willing to pay someone to do what she cannot.

[ 03 October 2005: Message edited by: fern hill ]

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I suspect that for some people it's economics. Their time is worth, say, $50/hour to them, so if they can pay someone to scrub the latrines for $15 then they're better off applying themselves to their usual endeavours and paying someone considerably less than what they make to look after the domestic stuff.

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The claim was that there is some essential difference in the level or quality of work involved.

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But there is. fern hill talked about the difference between cleaning the floor and fixing a furnace or a computer, that one is skilled work and the other is not. You refuted that by comparing fixing a furnace and sewing something on a sewing machine. It's apples and oranges.

Any able-bodied person can clean a floor. Any able-bodied person can clean a toilet. It's not skilled work, any more than dressing oneself in the morning or locking the door behind you when you leave the house. Fixing furnaces, sewing (or tailoring), and fixing computers are skilled work which require specialized training.

Housecleaning is basic picking up after yourself. It's a basic life skill. I don't think most able-bodied people who hire maids do so because they just can't quite figure out how the whole mop on the floor thing works, and it's just too technical for them to wrap their brains around it.

That's where I think your analogy breaks down.

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Well geez Magoo, I hope the cattle and hens in your garage and your backyard crop of vegetables and grains are gonna tide you over the winter.

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That is also not the same thing. Not everyone has acres of land to pasture animals and grow vegetables, and not everyone has the specialized training to do so. But everyone with a home has a bathroom, and can easily figure out the business end of a broom or a toilet brush.

[ 03 October 2005: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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You know, I always hafta snicker at those people who can't deal with their own basic needs in food staples.

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I'd love to grow my own food, if I owned the necessary land.

I do, however, own a vacuum cleaner. Not much excuse for me to not use it, eh?

See the difference? I'm not arguing against all division of labour, and I'm not arguing that anyone should do something that's just not possible for them. But honestly, who doesn't own a rag and some Comet? Who simply cannot pick their own pubies off the rim of the toilet?

I think that's really the achilles heel of any "who has the time anymore?" argument in favour of hiring someone: apparently people strapped for time only lack the time to do the really shitty stuff.

That was the point of the forty-hour-week (and is now the point of our chip-chip-chipping away at that standard).

Gee, I just don't believe in punishment, y'know? If you read the stats, you conclude, as even the economists do, that it is very hard to run a working-class family these days on less than two incomes. Average real wages have barely held over the last generation -- that is an economic revolution, whether people want to recognize it or not.

It has meant massive social reorganization, particularly in the lives of women.

Also, it's not working class families who are hiring maid services. Well, okay, I guess if you include highly-paid "working class" people, then I suppose that's not true. But if you're one of the "highly paid" working class, then no, you don't need two incomes, both with 60 hour work weeks, to get by.

[ 03 October 2005: Message edited by: Michelle ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:

If it's just about the hours in the week, and NOT about trying to get out of the drudge work, then why don't more people pay the Guatemalan lady to take their kids to the zoo, while THEY stay home and scrape the oven burners with a knife?

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Originally posted by fern hill:

Excellent point, Mr. M. And dog walkers? Don't get me started. . .Why the hell would someone have a dog if s/he didn't have time to walk it?

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Obviously, I should put some thought into this. I hafta tell you, I have had much more enriching experiences over the last few years cleaning up human and animal shit than I have cleaning up some of the shit that people with professional degrees write and publish. I'm not making that up.

Mr Magoo spoke above of granting a certain amount to the logic of the division of labour, and I think that matters too. People really are different. What I find enriching, others wouldn't. Well: pretty obviously haven't.

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Chubbybear, I can understand your anger in general over this issue, but I'm not sure who your post is directed at since I don't think anyone in this thread has been showing any callous disregard for servants.

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Originally posted by skdadl:
chubbybear, if we're talking fundaments and their products, I've already said that I consider self a master-craftswoman on that score. And unlike a lot of people, I'm not disgusted by other people's shit or by catshit or dogshit either.

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I mean, you were already. But that cements it, as it were.

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Originally posted by skdadl:
chubbybear, if you have done that, you are one of my best friends.

I mean, you were already. But that cements it, as it were.

(You wouldn't happen to know anything about cement, would you? I am a dope on cement.)

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As I read her, she has always argued in favour of hiring people on at a fair wage and under good conditions.

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Those are two dramatically different situations.

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But as you say, so are people.

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Another argument is that if you just don't LIKE cleaning your own shit off your own toilet, then what makes you think that's fulfilling work for anyone else to do? You're too good to do it yourself, but your cleaning lady isn't?

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Our cleaning lady comes twice monthly and works in several homes in the neighborhood. That's how she (and thousands of others) earns her living.

Could I clean the house, do all of the yard work and, with a bit more effort, do most of the maintenance around the house? Probably. I simply choose not to.

So, I don't get it. You'd rather have me (and the others in the neighborhood) do those things and leave Julie without a job?

I don't get it.

[ 03 October 2005: Message edited by: Sven ]

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Originally posted by brebis noire:
I spend an average of two hours every day doing household tasks that include laundry, cooking, picking up stuff and cleaning. But I still need a person to come in and clean the whole shebang once every two weeks

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Are we therefore saying that people have an excuse to hire people to do their grungework as long as they're working excessively in pursuit of the almighty dollar? That doesn't sound like a very progressive argument to me.

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Originally posted by fern hill:
I've been in a position to pay for domestic engineering (my fave of alternative 'housewife' terms) and have even had the justification -- too busy, too stressed, too whatever. But I've never been able to bring myself to do it. It's some kind of class-queasiness.

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If you own a business that has a few crappers around the building, must you clean the crappers yourself (because you’re the owner) or are you permitted to delegate that task to someone else?

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Originally posted by skdadl:
chubbybear: about brebis noire: she also has two children, plus she is a veterinarian. The two hours was just the picking-up-around-the-house part.

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Originally posted by skdadl:
But then beyond that, she sounds like a good neighbour to have. A lot of us need those in times when we are living three lives at once, as brebis noire is (I left out the writing part), and too few of us find them.

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Originally posted by chubbybear:
While my previous employment may have paid little, I had the choice of going elsewhere, while others would merely have the choice of being deported.

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Originally posted by Sven:
[QBHave you been assuming that all domestic workers are illegal immigrants? If it's an immigration issue, that's a different topic.[/QB]

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While my previous employment may have paid little, I had the choice of going elsewhere, while others would merely have the choice of being deported.

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Aha. You are talking, chubbybear, about the nefarious Canadian government, and the special rules under which it brings some workers into this country, especially nannies? (I'm not sure of other categories.)

Most of these people are self-employed small business owners doing what they want to do to earn a living.

There is a class divide, and it's growing - it's being reinforced in all kinds of ways, including through domestic servitude, and I think that's an awful thing (again, we can make an exception for disability.)

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Originally posted by brebis noire:

To me, what's important is how people are treated, and how their work is valued, not who is doing what.

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I agree, brebis noire, and I find it a little shocking that a board peopled mainly by socialists and feminists should construe any labour, especially the traditionally women's work of house keeping, as inherently degrading (sorry, Michelle, I'm not just picking on you, but you introduced the phrase and I think it does encapsulate a lot of people's opinions). We validate other jobs that are based on women's traditional roles (childcare, nursing, handcrafts) but not housecleaning?

If housecleaning work is so unpleasant and unfulfilling that we should be ashamed to inflict it on anyone else, why should we then allow people to clean our schools, stores, offices or factories? Why shouldn't we all just stay after work to mop or vaccuum and wash the windows? Surely we shouldn't pay people to collect garbage from the curb when we can deliver it to the waste depot ourselves. And, since any able-bodied person can use a paintbrush or hammer a nail, there's no need for any of us to hire painters or carpenters.

Obviously, I'm exaggerating here, but I think that taking the position that we must perform certain work just because we can gets ridiculous pretty quickly. And most of us have jobs, or at least aspects of our work, that we find unfulfilling but that we perform anyway. I find data entry pretty dull but the salary I get from doing it allows me to pursue the work that I do find fulfilling but that doesn't pay enough for me to live on.

I do pay someone to clean my house (and, incidentally, her hourly rate is higher than mine) and I don't call her "my servant," just like I don't call the person I pay to fix my plumbing or install my light fixtures "my servants". I call the person who cleans my house "the cleaner" (obviously only in the third person - I call her by her first name, as she calls me by mine). She doesn't serve me; she comes to my house and performs tasks for which I pay her, the same as I pay the plumber or the electrician. I can do simple plumbing, and could probably do simple electrical if I had to but I don't. The time it would take me, and aggravation it would cause me, make it easier to hire someone else. Same with the housecleaning: the cleaner can do in two hours what would take me four - she is better at that job than I am, so I am happy to pay her for her skills.

quote:

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Originally posted by brebis noire:
And as for my crack about food - of course not everyone has the land or the machinery to raise their own food, but there's an awful lot of shit and dirt involved in that work and let's just say that the pay is about as crappy as it gets. People in cities and suburbs are so disconnected from this basic reality that from my perspective, it does resemble hair-splitting when people decide that it's virtuous to perform certain tasks for themselves but other types of equally shitty and equally essential work just goes on unseen.

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After that, it may come down to better storage space, if things are still cluttered.

Anywho.

I found the letter refreshing, as it contained that there was a "liberal" out there ready to hit someone.

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Originally posted by andrean:
I agree, brebis noire, and I find it a little shocking that a board peopled mainly by socialists and feminists should construe any labour, especially the traditionally women's work of house keeping, as inherently degrading (sorry, Michelle, I'm not just picking on you, but you introduced the phrase and I think it does encapsulate a lot of people's opinions).

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Well, do note that I said that was my first visceral reaction due to my strong dislike of housecleaning. Later in the post, I conceded that just because my perception of the work is like that, doesn't mean that makes it factually true. ("So I guess I figure that if a person is paid well to do the job, and they are treated with respect, then who am I to say it's degrading? I would find it degrading and icky but a lot of women wouldn't. So, really, more power to them.")

Really, I guess I'm pretty much convinced by your argument, andrean. In this imperfect world, there's a lot of work out there that isn't thrilling. I'm sure there would be people who would absolutely abhor my job (and I've talked to admin assistants who really do) and would much rather be housekeeping instead, whether in their own home or in other people's homes through their own business. Whereas I really like what I do.

[ 03 October 2005: Message edited by: housemouse ]

I have a "cleaning lady" and certainly don't feel guilty about it. She is also a friend, who I met through my religious organization. I don't regard her role as that of servant; I see her as self-employed, like me.

Perhaps it makes a difference that I worked as a cleaner myself in the past, both in homes and in a women's shelter/daycare. There are also a lot of cleaning aspects to my present work. Interestingly, I had no problems cleaning up the piss and shit, but hated cleaning ashtrays with a passion. Now those are GROSS. Gag, gag.

I do think the worst aspect of cleaning is people's attitude towards you and it. People frequently have very unrealistic expectations. When you hire someone to clean for three hours, what you get is three hours of cleaning. You do not get a bathroom that looks brand new, if it isn't. You do not get your house cleaned of every speck of dirt (unless you have a house small enough that three hours will do it; unlikely.) And as for people's personal papers, oy, let's not go there. You mustn't touch them, but somehow they must be made clean and neat.

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Originally posted by Ferdzy:
...is the money fair...?

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I feel a good deal of this having "help" is status, the middle class mimicking the upper classes. Unless you live in a 30 room country estate or in a palace, I hardly think you need hired help. What you do need is to manage your time wisely.

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London alone now has an estimated 250,000 immigrant cleaners. An industry once dominated by white working class women is reliant on cheap foreign labour.
(snip)
"Many buildings today are now cleaned for the same amount that they were ten years ago. All that has happened is that labour costs have been driven down and cleaners have to do a bigger area than a few years ago... We would not survive without them and I think everyone recognises that this whole industry needs them."

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[ 04 October 2005: Message edited by: aRoused ]

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Originally posted by FabFabian:
Unless you live in a 30 room country estate or in a palace, I hardly think you need hired help. What you do need is to manage your time wisely.

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There is a significant difference between "need" and "want".

There are a lot of things I don't "need" help with:

1. Cleaning the house
2. Changing the oil in my vehicle
3. Washing my vehicle
4. Painting my house
5. Doing basic plumbing and electrical work
6. Maintaining my bicycle
7. Making all of my own meals
8. Laundering and ironing my work shirts.
9. Refinishing our wood floors.

And on and on...

But, in most of those cases, I simply don't "want" to.

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How can a person conclude that you must do all of the mundane tasks around your home (like housekeeping) yet have no quibble with someone coming into your home to take care of your kids?

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Because you can do your housekeeping anytime (before work, after work, weekends, some of each) but you can't look after kids just between 5 and midnight. They need to be looked after while you're at work, whereas the laundry doesn't.

Living overseas, I have come to view house cleaners in even a more broader sense. I employ one. Yosoma comes to my house twice a week. I could go on about how I treat her the way I would want to be treated, etc. etc. etc. but the realities of the situation are that if I wasn't employing her (along with her other "families"), she would be working in a sweat-shop factory pumping out Gap clothes without the benefits of vacation pay, sick pay and Christmas bonuses like she currently gets. She would be working longer hours for an employer that didn't give a rat's ass about her.

Yes anyone can clean, but not just anyone can do it well.

I am currently employeed as a cleaner in two town buildings and have worked as a "housecleaner" in the past.\

Is working in a building above working in a home or are they both demeaning mundane jobs?

It is interesting to me that I can go through a house someone has just cleaned and make it look completely different and yet be told I have no skill set.

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Originally posted by Debra:
Seems to me true progressives would realize all types of work are equally worthy.

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Originally posted by skdadl:
Which thread are we posting what sort of views on?

sk "interested but confused" dadl

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to respond to an earlier post, i really wasn't trolling for a fight, i honestly wanted to hear what the good auntie had to say as i was quite conflicted about the conflict.

auntie's response left me disappointed, i don't feel like she answered my question and introduced some bad logic by saying that the domestic worker helper-out people could be working in a sweat shop. i think's that's know in the illogic business as a "false dichotomy". i don't dispute the fact that there are worse jobs but that cleaning someones house is serving someone and that empowering language only manages to shield the employer (and everybody else) from the ugly truth.

auntie, you say "the word “servant” is demeaning; “domestic worker” is infinitely preferable" but you don't explain why. I worry that it's just a semantic sleight of hand. please, dear auntie, tell me WHY i'm wrong, not just that i am wrong.

as for the rest of the comments, i'm making my way through them and will hopefully have some comments. so far i feel that intelligent comments have supported enough of my postion making me feel that it's not as cut and dried as auntie tried to brow beat me into believing.

though i love her dearly.

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Originally posted by Debra:

It is interesting to me that I can go through a house someone has just cleaned and make it look completely different and yet be told I have no skill set.

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Unless you live in a 30 room country estate or in a palace, I hardly think you need hired help. What you do need is to manage your time wisely.

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Wow! Great to see you have pat assessments about other people's lives. Remind me to consult you anytime I need smug answers to a life dilemma.

I live in a 2000 sqf place with my mother. She is so finicky about cleanliness that our place must be cleaned every week, even if there is only a sprinkling of dust. And brother, I mean *cleaned*: scrubbing, vacuuming, tidying, washing, ironing, dusting, the whole bit. If you walk into our apartment, it is showroom clean, anyday of the week. She likes it this way, and says it focuses her to have a spotless space. Fine by me, since she works 80 hours a week in her home office.

Divided between two people, the task is still time consuming and tedious. Who is anyone to judge if we make the decision to hire someone? Our place will never be a sty, because we do a lot of intraweek maintenance, and we pay well. Furthermore, we give great references which is important in the domestic worker industry. Both of us know what the job entails and are accordingly grateful.

Moreover, I've often wondered if I could pick up some side cash by cleaning. I've done it in a commercial setting, and cleaning homes is like a second nature to me. I'm very detail oriented.

I expected better of auntie, but she had herself a right little temper-tantrum there, didn't she? I wasn't aware that "servant" was considered an insult, but she used quite a few actual insults in response. Who's the real boor here?

I also think it's odd that no one considers the host's reliance on violence worthy of mention.

This auntie column annoyed me so much, I registered just to write about it!

[ 27 October 2005: Message edited by: Vivian ]

I think one of the big problems with this whole debate is that most cleaners are not like Craig or any of the others who happily own their own businesses and can charge the prices they deserve to be paid. Most cleaners work for companies and only a fraction of what the home owner pays for the service. Likewise, the people I've known who clean in an industrial or commercial setting (from maids in hotels to night cleaners in office buildings or fast-food places) rarely make more than $10/hour.

But maybe they'd rather be doing that than slinging coffee like I am?

[ 27 October 2005: Message edited by: shaolin ]

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Originally posted by shaolin:
Then again, I also get angry when people leave old gum on the side of their saucer for me to have to get rid of

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*guilty compulsive gum chewer* And I thought I was so virtuous saving the trees by not using a napkin!

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Originally posted by shaolin:
Likewise, the people I've known who clean in an industrial or commercial setting (from maids in hotels to night cleaners in office buildings or fast-food places) rarely make more than $10/hour.

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Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin servitium condition of a slave, body of slaves, from servus slave

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*guilty compulsive gum chewer* And I thought I was so virtuous saving the trees by not using a napkin!

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Originally posted by shaolin:

I'm all for not wasting a napkin - just throw it out instead of leaving it for me to scrape off of the saucer!

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Originally posted by shaolin:
I think one of the big problems with this whole debate is that most cleaners are not like Craig or any of the others who happily own their own businesses and can charge the prices they deserve to be paid. Most cleaners work for companies and only a fraction of what the home owner pays for the service.

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Why don't most cleaners do what Craig and the others did, start their own business and "charge the prices they deserve"?

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Why don't most cleaners do what Craig and the others did, start their own business and "charge the prices they deserve"?

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My guess is that most cleaners don't have the ability to quit their job, coast on their savings, and try to start a viable business. Or maybe they don't have the time to keep their job while putting in the extra time to start a viable business.