The art and science of housework

It is widely recognised that housework is a much maligned activity - very few people admit to liking it, and for most of us it is one of those chores that gets in the way of life.

I am certainly not a fan of housework (as my family can attest) and often pay someone to do it for me; but as I was vacuuming this morning it occurred to me that maybe, I was selling it short as a task of the nurturing economy.

For those of you who haven't heard me on this theme before - the nurturing economy is the work of being human, caring for others in all it's forms. This has traditionally been the work of women, and more frequently now the elderly, and is work that used to be unpaid and even now - where it is paid - is low paid. I have argued and continue to argue that in our drive for economic productivity - particularly the drive to have women returning to the work force - society has ignored the fundamental requirement of time such work takes. It would perhaps have been OK if an increase in the working hours of women had led to a corresponding decrease in the hours men worked so they could fill some of the gap. But no, men continue to work 50-60 hour weeks, and so do many women.

The obvious consequence of this is the rise in services to fill the gaps, early childhood services, before and after school care, cleaning and gardening. While acknowledging that not all families can afford such support, these services are not total solutions. And that's without touching on the hidden gaps of adults too tired to contribute to the vast array of voluntary services that enrich and support the life of our community.

Which brings me back to my starting point of my underestimation of housework in this equation. Over the 30 odd years that I have been responsible for the task for myself and others, there have been a number of highs and lows. In fact sometimes I think my rather slack approach has damaged my self image as a capable and competent person. It's as if when I hear congratulating me on a piece of work I have a mental tape playing reminding me of the state of the oven. My reflecting this morning started with a memory of a photocopy of an Australian Womens Weekly article from the mid 1970's, that was included in the resource material I acquired at an antenatal class with my eldest child. Basically it was a 45 minute routine that could be managed while the baby was napping that got your house in reasonable shape in case of unexpected visitors.

While some of the basic expectations of women have changed, the underlying principles are still incredibly practical and unconciously I had followed a similar pathway this morning. The focus is on the public face of the house and it identifies the key issues that tend to make us react with "not clean". Anyway from there my mind meandered to how hard it is to have a cleaner who cleans as well as you do, and the different feel when you have cleaned your house yourself. I am not surprised, but am comforted by the impact of order on the living in my house at the moment, simply because I currently have the luxury of time to sift through, de-clutter and organise while keeping the basics done.

I think one of the biggest differences between the cleaner, and someone with an emotional connection to the house doing the task, are the little finishing touches and extras that you do when it is your own space. It could be flowers, the sorting of craft materials and books into appropriate spaces rather than just stacking them, but the sense of making a home out of a house is an art and a skill which add to the quality of our lives in unexpected ways. And because it is such undervalued work, while uncomfortable in its absence, it is difficult to name and find the time to address.

A word of wisdom for those younger women...

Or may be this post should be titled - "Dear men - tip one on how not to drive us crazy when it comes to housework."

We all know the term "boy look" don't we? You know when a male of any age or stage asks you "where is..." and you say "look there..." and they say "I can't find it" and you go and there it is - if not exactly where you said it was within a 10 cm radius. The kind of thing that makes most of us want to scream with frustration particularly if there is any suggestion that their inability to find it is because (a) you put it away, (b) you didn't put it away or (c) they don't think that is the best place to put it.

And of course that lack of competence seems to inevitably play out into other aspects of household management. Yesterday it struck me that maybe part of the core of "the boy look" and "the boy clean" is a fundamental lack of appreciation of household management as a planned sequence of tasks. So for instance my "helpful" male cleans up around me (and my daughter) when we are in the middle of cooking - this invariably leads to him putting things away before we have finished using them and almost as invariably creates a burning desire to attack him with the sharp knife which he has just helpfully put in the dishwasher 30 seconds before we reached for it.

So anyway - we have painters coming to our house prior to our new carpet being laid. In order for both these tasks to be completed some bookcases need to be moved. The carpet layer will move them as they go on the condition they are empty of books. So yesterday I suggested to my dearly beloved that we pack the books into some old packing boxes for the duration based on the information already mentioned. Oh yes he thought that was a good idea...

So what happened? In the afternoon I was clearing out youngest child's bedroom which involved implementing the logical process of checking that DVDs and games were in the right covers before they were packed away, that library books were sorted out so they could be returned rather than put in the boxes for a month collecting overdue fines, that clean clothes and dirty clothes, summer and winter clothes all had their appropriate home. DB came in to help and what does he start to do? Repeat the task already 90% complete with the DVD's which included asking me where the cover was for the one that I hadn't already found, put books in the bookcase and then put the library books in the bookcase. Hello - which part of "we're packing the books up so we can move empty bookcases did we miss here?"

Anyway to my tip - Boys please learn to walk in to a significant cleaning task and ask "what's the plan?" and then "which bit do you want me to do?" OK I acknowledge that in a perfect world you should have an itemised household management list in your head as well and I shouldn't have to ask or direct but sometimes you have to go with the flow. I also think it's a two way thing and in this respect we can be just as guilty walking into a task they have started and applying our approach without checking first. The main point is - the whole thing will go a whole lot better and a whole lot smoother if one person has a plan and the other person cooperates>