To feel guilty about getting a cleaner?

[KellyBoo800]

DH and I both work full time, and household work is split pretty fairly. But we both hate cleaning! We keep the house very tidy but it's the dusting and hoovering and mopping that I just can't tolerate. Life is too short!

Turns out that one of the ladies who works for our dog walker (and happens to have fallen completely in love with our dog!) is a professional cleaner. She's coming round next week for an initial chat and then hopefully we we will have her for 2 or 3 hours a fortnight to clean all rooms apart from the bedrooms.

But I feel stupidly guilty about this, like we are failing as grownups because we don't manage this ourselves (we could - we just don't want to!). But I don't feel this way about other people who have cleaners - I think they're smart! But no one I know IRL has a cleaner so maybe I'm worried they will judge us? We're not particularly well off (I earn £36k and DH earns £16k, but both pay off big chunks of debt every month) but I was working from home yesterday and was brought to tears by the amount of bloody dust everywhere!

So I already know IABU because we can afford the £60 a month it will cost us and it will make a big difference to our sanity, and I know I shouldn't give a shit about what anybody else thinks, but I feel I am betraying my council estate working class roots please tell me it will be worth it and that using a cleaner has changed all your lives for the better

[KoalaDownUnder]

I'd be the same. Nobody in my family has a cleaner. Everybody can afford it, well and truly. It's considered the last word in self-indulgence and money-wasting, for some bizarre reason.

YANBU. Get a cleaner. Enjoy.

[formerbabe]

So you'll be providing someone with paid work and you'll be making your life easier.

Win win!

We pay people all the time to provide services for us, hairdressers, dry cleaners, car mechanics, beauticians, etc etc. Do you feel guilty buying their services?

[HmmHaa]

It changed our lives for the better. To me, it is just like having your shopping delivered or using a car wash. Sure, I could do it myself...but if the money is there in any way, what's the problem?

I get no satisfaction from cleaning our house. It is literally a chore. It is also very time consuming. Our cleaner takes two hours to do what would take me four because she is better and quicker at it, but also because she has an empty house and no distractions, so she can just hammer on.

It's bought us back 4 hours at the week, and is one bit less 'worry work' during the week.

Just stop angsting and do it. And book him/her for a Friday! Coming home from work to a clean, tidy house to start the weekend..ahh

[Autumnchill]

I love my cleaner! We both work long hours and want to spend quality time together, not arguing about chores.

Best decision we ever made. Coming home on a Friday when she has been is heaven!

Get a cleaner!

[MauiWest]

you shouldn't feel guilty, you should feel relieved! Life is too short to dust.
If you can afford it, by all means enjoy. If you have to write a list of things you want to achieve in a year and tell your grand children about, would you really include cleaning your home? I totally understand the pride in a lovely home, but never the pride on keeping it clean yourself. Who cares. Enjoy your life!

[Pippioddstocking]

Kellyboo I know what you mean . I work a few extra hours a month to afford the cleaner but it's sooooo worth it. Now I get to come home and relax rather than think " floor needs mopping , stairs need hoovering etc" my home isn't full of quite so many jobs for me anymore , just a place to relax .

[Munstermonchgirl]

Goodness, you both work full time, why wouldn't you?

[heron98]

YANBU.

I pay someone to do the garden because I absolutely hate doing it. It's £20 every so often and I consider it money well spent.

[JunosRevenge]

YANBU

In the not-too-distant past, working women would pay other women to do their washing etc (until we got washing machines!)

I loathe cleaning too. I'd much rather earn the money and pay someone else to do it. It's not that I think I'm better than the cleaner - I know I'm not any better. I just hate cleaning, and tbh I'm not very good at it. It's simply a redistribution of labour. You are working, and so is your cleaner.

If you can afford it, go for it. It may well change your life. It's lovely to come home to a clean house!

[KellyBoo800]

Oh you've all made me feel so much better, thank you! (I've also just realised I can't remember the last time I hoovered the stairs - how terrible!). I think I might ask her to come on a Friday too for the weekends when DSD isn't here then I can enjoy the cleanliness for longer

I may need to book her in for a big deep clean first - we've had a year of renovations and keeping a clean house has been the least of our worries. Do people normally clean behind the sofas? Or clean skirting boards? I can whole heartedly say I have never done this I am clearly disgusting!

[PaperdollCartoon]

The minutes we can afford it we're getting a cleaner. We earn about the same as you but have high living costs. I don't like cleaning but like my house to be clean, we both clean but both work long hours... don't feel guilty, feel free and happy!

[KellyBoo800]

I just worked out I will have to an extra hour of overtime a week to pay for it (Im lucky enough to work in a job where I do 4 hours of overtime every week anyway and my manager allows me to do as much as I want to). Definitely worth it!

[polkadotdelight]

We let our cleaner go last month as she was so unreliable but oh my god I'm missing her. £60 is a bargain and worth every penny. Do it!

[HappydaysArehere]

Modern life is all about managing your life - some things have to go in order that you can continue without tears. My daughter has her ironing done. She used to have a cleaner until one of the boys took over. He made a great job of it for payment, together with mowing the grass. He has just gone to university so I am not sure what she will do. A busy life needs compromise so put that guilt right away. If I could have afforded it when I was run ragged I would have. Nothing to do about class.

[jeaux90]

I have a live in nanny who does everything in my house (I am a single mum) I don't feel an ounce of guilt. I get to focus on my kid and my career. Enjoy!!

[honeylulu]

We only got a cleaner last year as I thought it was silly to pay for something I could do myself. Also I'm fussy and thought no one could do it as well as me.
But we are both full time and realised we were plonking our children in front if the tv or computer at the weekend so we could clean, and that really was crazy! I see it as buying back time to spend with the family.

[CMOTDibbler]

We have a cleaner - she's absolutely brilliant. Her take on the whole 'cleaner guilt' thing is that a) she likes cleaning b) cleaning gives her a job that has been flexible round her life c) no one talks about feeling guilty for outsourcing plumbing/car maintenance etc and d) men never tell her they feel guilty, only women..

[MatchyMatcha]

It's about valuing the job of a cleaner. Women's work innit so it's not valued.

[KatharinaRosalie]

You are giving someone a job. Why would you feel guilty?

[Bluntness100]

I was brought up in a council house and don't feel remotely guilty for having a cleaner. She comes weekly and it's great. When she's on holiday, it's shit if I have to clean the bathrooms , change the beds or friggen hoover. I really don't like it and quite frankly it's quite knackering.

The house is always clean and tidy, and it's worth every penny for me not to have to spend three hours or so every weekend cleaning.

By the way, ask her to change your bedding. My cleaner changes ours weekly and I love it. My number one job though I hate is changing the friggen beds.

[Booboobedoo]

I am a (mostly) SAHM, and I have a cleaner.

Granted, I have chronic health issues, but as long as I can afford to I would still employ someone to clean for a couple of hours a week.

When I lived in London, I knew lots of SAHDs, and Every Single One Of Them had a cleaner. It certainly never occurred to them to feel guilty about it.

So I now view myself as a Stay at Home Dad, and BANG, the angst is gone.

[redexpat]

YABU. Do men feel guilty? No. Do you feel guilty paying someone to service your car? No. For sending something through the post instead of delivering it yourself? No.

[CQ]

Booboo that's genius.

I need to channel my inner SAHD.

[LegoCaltrops]

I'd have a cleaner in a heartbeat if I could afford it. Don't feel guilty, you're providing someone with a few hours of employment.

[Littlefluffyclouds81]

I have a cleaner.

I'm a single mum who lives in a council house. If anyone (like my dad) says why do YOU need a cleaner, I reply 'I'm in my final year of a full time degree, raising two children single handedly and earning enough money to keep us alive'. Soon shuts them up.

I do feel a bit weird about it though, like I have ideas above my station or something. For £20 a week though, it's so worth having her, she's great.