I have always seen hiring house help as a very bourgeois thing to do. Only people who lived in lavish homes had people to clean them.
I should be able to keep my three-bedroom abode relatively clean with no assistance, paid or otherwise, right?
Well, the last few months, cleaning has dropped down on the list of priorities, sandwiched somewhere between ‘remember to book my dentist appointment’, and ‘ok, let’s talk about maybe getting a dog’.
I knew it was bad when my husband remarked one morning, ‘are we ever going to clean this bathroom?’ Consider warning bells sounded.
Unfortunately, schedules be as they may, the answer to that question became a resounding no. When we started looking a week into the future to schedule an obviously much-needed bathroom overhaul (among other things), I knew we needed help.
But the idea of hiring someone felt like a mammoth failure, like my inability to keep up with the needs of my home was going to be trumpeted through town, and a public flogging would commence. After all, I only had one messy toddler, and a husband with whom I should be able to kick mildew’s ass on a regular basis, right?
I started discussing the subject with my girlfriends. Turns out, I am not alone in the land of the continuously disheveled home. My friend Mellissa has a cleaner to come in twice a month to clean her house, top to bottom. My friend Rachel has the same. And a couple more were seriously looking for someone.
Ok, forget the perceptions, inferences, and the ‘I’m Superwoman’, can-do attitude. Because sometimes, you just can’t.
So on my friend Mellissa’s recommendation, I called her cleaning girl, and less than a week later, walked into a refreshingly clean home. Floors shone, and the bathrooms sparkled. And I happily sighed in the knowledge that the constant burden of feeling like I was always a step behind, had been lifted.
Sometimes it’s not about what you can do, but about what you can do to help yourself. A thought even more pronounced as I made a date with my husband and son, instead of with my toilets.