Beyond Babedom

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Clean Up Woman

Now, here was a surreal experience.

I won a free house cleaning a couple of years ago at a Chamber of Commerce event. Great, I thought. It would be nice to have someone clean my house before the holidays, right?

Wrong.

Because the cleaning service  was an all-male cleaning service. Not only did they not show up when they said they would (a day late; hours past when they promised). And the results were. . . underwhelming. If it hadn’t been free, I would have been really pissed. But I wasn’t surprised.

Not to say men can’t clean. My brother Vincent used to (used to being the operative words) be a maniac about cleaning the house when he was home sick from school. And, of course, there’s Felix Unger. But, in most households, the men do very little of the cleaning. (Of course, in my house, neither do I. But that’s a different subject for another time.)

My point is that even when they can, they’d rather have a woman do it. Not just cleaning. Simply all the stuff that goes into being a “housewife.” Housewife? What, am I married to the house? Well, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know some men do the laundry, vacuum, blah, blah, blah. But be honest: who is really responsible? You know it’s you, girl. He may “help” but the housework is all yours. Like calling service people or ironing or making the grocery list (and actually doing the shopping). Is it because we’re under-trodden . . .  or do we  simply not trust them to do it as well as we do?

Hmmm. Can you live with him being “in charge” of housecleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, cooking and let him make the decisions about all these things?

Now, answer that when you have a houseful of people expected for dinner.

Liar.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 29th, 2010 at 10:29 AM and is filed under men. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  1. Ryan says:

    And the opposite could just as easily be said for all of the ‘male’ jobs around the house that women don’t do- taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, hanging things, painting etc

    • Joann says:

      Excuse me, but I mow the lawn, paint, hang things, take out trash, wash and wax a car, shape the trees, and also clean the house, cook and listen to poor me excuses from men that they had a bad day sitting on their ass behind a desk or just watching tv

      • Ryan says:

        well, i would gladly change places with you- my day tomorrow will start in
        the office at about 630 and will end at about 930 tomorrow night. yes, i
        will be sitting, but will probably be on the phone for over 6 hours
        negotiating. I would much rather be home cleaning and tending the house.
        And, while I do work everyday, I mow, garbage, hang things, and cook…

  2. Well, Ryan, imagine doing all that AND cleaning, grocery shopping, laundry, gardening, painting. . . like most women do

  3. Tony says:

    . . .sometimes a full day in the office leaves you completely Fkd up for the rest of the evening…. not to mention the hostile commute.. yes hostile. And when you get home, you may be faced with 3-4 more Fkd up “pressing” issues, like Pool, Lawn, Contractor BS, Kids BS….and then ONTOP of that, maybe wife also had a bad day and tells you to “heat up a pizza!!” great! lol FML

  4. Ryan says:

    Yeah Lucille. I do. I do it all

  5. Allegra says:

    Vincent was also a maniac about cleaning when we were married — not that I’m complaining, of course, that was one of the qualities I loved about him. But he would get up at 4:30 in the morning to do it, running the vacuum and all other sorts of appliances… maybe a bit too committed to a clean house? I actually felt like a bad wife because he was cleaner than me, LOL! Maybe he’s mellowed a bit over the years…:-)

  6. Barry Jay says:

    Ha HA HA…that’s why Lynn and I (as well as Lucille abd Gary) decided not to have kids….or a pool. All four of us come home and plop on the couch. Lynn pays the bill, does the laundry, orders the groceries from Peapod….and cooks..I do everything else. We both get up at 4:30am, out the door by 5:30, sitting in Brooklyn by 6:45…home by 7.

  7. Pat says:

    sometimes I think it’s not because they “can’t” do a good job, it’s just that in their minds (like in little kids minds too) if they do aq great job then we may expect them to do it on a regualr basis. When I wanted to earn some extra money… one summer I cleaned a lady’s house to get ready for her dtr’s wedding. Besides the usual cleaning tools I brought a toothbrush with me for the hard to reach corners. Right away the lady smiled and turned to her husband and said, “See! That’s the way it should be done, with a toothbursh.” To which he replied, “Fine, go get your toothbrush and I’ll give it a shot.” Men!

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