to think posters who say ....

[troisgarcons]

"get a cleaner"
"get an au pair"
"get an ironing lady"
"a nanny is only 24K per annum"

Really need to get a grip with reality and realise those people who work might actually need to work and dont have excess cash to pay for domestic staff? So it's often a stealth boast comment designed to make those who are stressed out actually a whole lot more inadequate than they are already feeling.

I realise this a foreign concept to some. The "having to work" thing. But if you are cash flush and able to employ a Lituanian doormat maid you would have already covered that base and installed her in the garage. Quite possibly you wouldnt be posting on here to vent your speen and admit you are having difficulty coping.

Fabby

My mums cleaner would never clear up someone's mess. She was employed for 3 hours a week to clean not to tidy up after people.

I wish I had a cleaner but dh refuses point blank. Main reason I wish we had one is that the only thing that would make him pick his socks up off the floor would be a cleaner coming in (he needs shaming into being tidy).

AnyFucker I know I am! But I like my my house clean, not just half arsed clean when the DC do it

And thankyou - I have a really good life, a very enjoyable one where I don't think about cleaning bogs unless I come on here - it just happens to be a tiny part of life that is highlighted on this site when 'help' seems to be required to scrub your own familys skidmarks off the bog or cleaning your own home

sparkle, toilet was Freudian slip, surely? The job that people would most like to have someone else do!

if the shitwork is done equally in your house, dm then you have no reason to react agressively to my post

Spermysextowel Perhaps!

blimey, who has £100 1 monh spare? If I did I would be paying off some of my debt, not empploying a cleaner.

I'm not acting aggressively anyfucker.
You made the generalisation i'm just correcting you.
But there again i'm not too important to scrape the skidmarks off the family toilets am I?

did I say I am too important to scrape skidmarks off toilets ?

please show me where

and ffs is generally thought to be aggressive, particularly when the point you are countering was made in a perfectly reasonable way

I never leave skidmarks on the bog for the cleaner. I have some pride.

If "ffs" offends you then I could say your nickname offends me

Assets I think if anyone deserves to leave skidmarks it's you. Could you blame it on DC?

I hope those are not chocolate ones niceassets.
That would be a waste and a crime :)

Chocolate whats? Can't see it on bloody phone!

dm I would say you were the touchy one

mine was a general comment, yours was a name checking personal one

with a ffs thrown in, which incidentally doesn't offend me

but it does have a tendency to amp up the aggression when it wasn't there previously

You know Andy Warhol said in his autobiography that no one should have to clean up after anyone else and US presidents should be photographed cleaning their loos, just to show there's nothing 'low status' about cleaning?

It would be great if life really was like that - everyone working part time, equal distribution of wealth, etc. ...

But since it's not I see nothing wrong in paying someone to help keep your home clean and in good condition - if you're working.

Love the way women still manage to backbite other women about this, though: rich enough to pay a cleaner, so must be a skanky, selfish, status obsessed bjitch. Does this criticism extend to men who are busy working 14+ hour days, btw?

My boyf has the same cleaner as me. Never once seen him being judged for it.

If you can afford to have a cleaner/ironer/other indoor help and it makes you happy why not?

Would anyone say you were a lazy biatch because you had someone come once a month to clean the windows on the outside? No, they'd just say "oh yeah, the window cleaner's been, we can see out again".

I dont get this requirement for any form of domestic martyrdom - if you want to do it yourself, that's fantastic; if you'd prefer to outsource it and thus employ someone, that's also fantastic.

I can't say I've seen many posters blithely say 'get a cleaner'

I do see a lot of 'if you can afford it, get a cleaner'

So on that basis YABU. It's a perfectly reasonable thing to suggest, as long as you acknowledge it may not be financially possible.

But Plump what if you're not working. Does that mean you can't have a cleaner?

We British women are serious martyrs you know. In other countries most have a full time live in maid and pay her about GBP180 a month to work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week to do all the cooking, cleaning, ironing and child care. In India a lot of average income people have 5 maids. It's only in the UK that we women are expected to work full time, have babies and breastfeed for a year, cook Jamie Oliver 3 course meals everyday, have a spotless house and crisply ironed clothes whilst bringing up polite, well educated and rounded children. It's unbelievable the pressure we have on us. I know because I have lived in different countries. Other women around the world have lots of family to help them and live in communities. they have a saying that it "takes a village to raise a child". We are left to get on with it and are berated for trying. I'm surprised that we are not also made to wear hair shirts ;)

I don't liven the UK so I can employ help cheaply and without conscience. The bottom line is if someone else does the donkey work you can get on with the more important stuff like taking your kids out and spending time with them rather than spending 10 hours a week ironing and cleaning.

Depends whether or not you can afford it, I suppose, Spermy.

Sorry, without conscience doesn't sound very nice! What I mean is that I do not feel guilty about hiring someone to do my drudge as I do not feel under peer pressure to do so. I'm sure if I was back home I would have my friends and relies calling me Lady Muck behind my back and saying - who the hell does she think she is!! My MIL did actually tell me once that everyone around the world does their husbands shirts, why can't I?

So what do you do for the other 158 hours, MrMamma?

Sorry Plump, I thought that 'if you're working' meant that those who are SAHMs shouldn't have a cleaner, regardless of affordability.