The opening scene of Jane Hamilton’s novel, “A Map of the World” depicts a woman at home with two small children: beds are unmade, dirty dishes in the sink, stinky diapers to be disposed of.  In the story, the woman goes upstairs for some small errand, I forget what, and gets distracted looking at a map that she once perused with fantasies of travel. Meanwhile, one of the toddlers, a neighbor’s child that she is babysitting, wanders out of the house and down a short path to a pond where she drowns. The husband has been trying to make a go of their dream “family farm,” which of course is very labor intensive.  The child dies; the dream evaporates.

“Clearly she’s depressed,” said one vocal member of my book group, “She let her house go to pot. She’s lost her self-respect, and doesn’t expect anyone to visit.” This seemed to be the consensus of the group, intelligent and self-respecting women in their fifties and sixties.  “Maybe not,” I ventured. “Maybe it’s just not that important to her.”  I was not quite forty. I had a number of friends who didn’t bother much about housekeeping;there were so many other things to do and think about.  They didn’t identify with being “good housewives”.  Thus ensued one of the most interesting discussions we’ve had in book group: the significance of housekeeping.  Who does it and how?  How important is it? What expectations and attitudes did we learn from our families? Somehow I couldn’t imagine a group of men, even those who read the same book, having this discussion.  If I labeled my blog entry “Housekeeping, a Feminist Issue”, how many would read it?

Let me say upfront that I believe housecleaning should be paid for. We’ve had a Brazilian woman and her daughter clean every two weeks for the last ten years, for a reasonable rate. Funny thing, I never saw it in my future, and most likely would have disdained the idea. Cleaning was not an issue before kids. This idea came first from my neighbor who had hired these cleaners and wanted to refer business to them. It coincided with our tenth marriage anniversary, a gift I wanted more than a weekend away — housecleaning for a year. Our twenty-first anniversary has passed, and they’re still coming, through trips to Brazil, two grandchildren, citizenship. It’s been so  mutual, that when we talked about cancelling their services as a way to save money for college bills, we decided against it. We might be able to keep up the cleaning, especially with one boy less; but they need us too, for income and the transition to the American way.

Still, there is the need for daily cleaning and picking up.This, I see, is the issue that divides and separates generations and“types”.  Over the years, I’ve found that there are some families who simply do not host events, in part due to the fact that their house is always a mess.  They oftentimes are happy to bring food or otherwise chip in. A few of my peers have House Beautiful, and I’m not sure how they do it, or why.  But there is a large segment who are always apologetic about the state of their houses. Indeed for them, the conflict is constant, and often has to do with family relationships, i.e., workaholic dads and over-scheduled kids – ours not immune. 

After some debate with myself, I came to peace with the concept of “pickupable” – that is, the main, shared spaces of our house can be picked up in a reasonable time if we find that people are coming over.  This requires about half an hour of going around “tidying” on weekdays after the boys have left.  Before guests’ arrival, there is a short and shared burst of effort.  Otherwise, the boys are free to have messy, but not dirty rooms – no food and drink remnants. There is a kind of “everything has its place system” - which mostly works once it’s been set up.  For the reams of paper that come through, I have the most elementary, colored folder system, and then the large scrap paper pile.  I do a springand fall cleaning, which mainly consists of recycling and getting rid of stuff that no longer has a real purpose in our lives. Hey, it’s not perfect; but we can live with it.

My sister gave me a good perspective once: “If I have a little free time in the afternoon, I’m not going to spend it doing housework. I’d rather read a good book."

Me, I’d rather write.