Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 ··· 7 8 9 ··· 21 22

Original poster

to NOT want a cleaner?

529 replies

OrkaLiely · 01/03/2012 19:30

it seems to be very common on MN; paying another person to clean your house. Why can't the adults in the house do it between them? And once the kids are old enough to hold a duste,r teach them to help out as well.

I'd hate someone else in our house cleaning up our mess. It sends a bad message to children too. And no-one in this age of dishwashers, washing machines, vacuum cleaners is too busy to do it themselves.

OP posts:

kerala · 03/03/2012 00:25

Yes but why do it when you can pay someone else to? Don't have one at the moment but if you are a working parent I would think it odd not to have a cleaner.

Original poster

OrkaLiely · 03/03/2012 00:31

Only on MN could someone think it's odd not to have a cleaner

OP posts:

CotesduRhone · 03/03/2012 00:35

I take your point about teaching children to clean, actually. I hate cleaning and will eventually definitely get a cleaner.

But if I had children I'd make them do it instead.

PorridgeBrain · 03/03/2012 00:40

Well it doesn't when you have older children who can chip in and/or play idependently to allow you to get on with it on top of all the other household chores. ATM I have two young children at home who don't want to play independently, they want mummy to play shops and schools and games with them or I have one that wants constant cuddles and I mean constant! Why should I deprive them of that? The reason I got a cleaner was because I was always saying to them 'I can't do x right now,I have to do y' and I didn't want their childhood memories being that mummy and daddy never spent any time with them, they were always too busy like my childhood memories.

Like I said everyone's circumstances are different, I really don't understand the need to be so judgey about other peoples lifestyle choices and over something so trivial.

SlinkingOutsideInFrocks · 03/03/2012 00:56

Wow, I can't believe so many people have come on to defend their having a cleaner?!

Nobody goes to their grave wishing they'd scrubbed the grout more regularly.

overthehillmum · 03/03/2012 00:57

Some times i threaten to sack my cleaner, she does more than I want, i pay her for 2 hours a day, twice a week, she does 6 hours a day twice a week, I'm raging about it, I said "mum, stop it" but she won't....Gawd, it does my head in......love her loads though.

Glittertwins · 03/03/2012 05:41

OP - how do you know how long it should take then? How about other things that need doing on a weekend like shopping, cooking or do you buy ready meals that don't require anything else but chuck in a micowave?

"all get stuck in" so you think we should make 4 year olds get the corrosive cleaning fluids out, maybe tie dusters to their knees and ankles so they can dust as they hare around with their toys. Maybe we could get the cats to hang on to the end of a broom and use them to sweep up??

Our cleaner gets a damn sight more done without anyone in her way than we can with 2 cats/children underfoot. The children already tidy their toys up as nursery also labours that point with them, we clean up the kitchen as we go, keep things moreorless tidy too so where's the bad lesson being displayed about not doing things ourselves?

runningwilde · 03/03/2012 06:04

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by Mumsnet.

SuiGeneris · 03/03/2012 06:08

OP: you might not be too busy and enjoy it. Your choice. To say no-one is too busy is ludicrous.
Both DH and I hate cleaning, washing, ironing and are much less good at it than our cleaner. Plus, we have very, very little free time and during that time we prefer to focus on DS and tasks that cannot be delegated rather than on something that is done much better and more efficiently by someone else.
There are only 168 hours in a week. We work for around 60, spend a further 60 sleeping and getting ready, about 14-16 for cooking and eating, which leaves 32 hours a week per adult for admin, seeing friends and family time (although meals are also family time). Are you seriously suggesting that we allocate more than 30 per cent of that limited free time to something we hate, when it could be spent with DS??

SuiGeneris · 03/03/2012 06:16

Plus, the time it takes to clean and iron properly depends on your standards, the size of your house and what you need done. It might not take you a long time in your house. It takes a very long time in our house. And for both of us, getting a cleaner is something we did with our very first pay-packet. Others buy clothes or go to the pub or buy ready-meals or whatever. We buy time. What's so odd about that?
Different people, different priorities. I make our own bread, you iron your one clothes...

FootprintsInTheSnow · 03/03/2012 06:53

Keeping the kids on the hook to clean their rooms is one of the benefits of having a cleaner to make the whole house nice one day a week.

They understand 'your room was tidy when you came in - please put away toys after you've finished with them to keep it that way'. However, when the standard starts to slip - as it inevitably does during the week when I'm trying to tidy and clean at the same time as they play - they find it overwhelming to know where to start to clean - and inevitably I end up having to do it for them.

iscream · 03/03/2012 06:59

Why should someone clean if they don't want to, and can afford to hire someone to do it?

Alibabaandthe40nappies · 03/03/2012 08:12

No, no GOML. They are cloths for my house, no other

OP I don't really understand your issue, or your argument. Cleaning is not a moral issue, and it does take time.
I don't want to spend my evenings and weekends doing housework, so I don't. All the daily clearing up, tidying, laundry etc still has to be done so my children will have plenty of opportunity to learn that the house isn't run by fairies.

blushingcrow · 03/03/2012 09:18

You think its odd not to have a cleaner?

As I said before , I must live in a different world to most MNetters.

porcamiseria · 03/03/2012 09:19

I work FT the LAST thing i want to do is clean come weekend, my £20 gives me back 25% of my weekend

LiamsMummyJaz · 03/03/2012 09:22

I work full time and from home and would never dream of getting somebody to clean up for me....

Alibabaandthe40nappies · 03/03/2012 09:28

LiamsMummy - I don't 'get' someone to clean up for me, I pay them to do it. Which enables them to pay for the things they want. Win win.

drywhiteplease · 03/03/2012 09:31

OP do you feel the same about having a gardner ? Window cleaner?

LiamsMummyJaz · 03/03/2012 09:31

My boss 'gets' me to do things and still pays me...

I understand why people have cleaners. My mum was a cleaner. I just wouldn't personally have one. I don't enjoy cleaning. But I love looking at my home once I've finished cleaning it and going ahhh!

Pagwatch · 03/03/2012 09:54

OrkaLeily

My dh works 7.00am to 7.30pm. I have a teenager with severe disabilities and a 9 year old. I have a really big house and a really big garden.
If I did everything myself it would be all I did. Why should I?

I don't see housework as degrading as you do. I find it interesting that getting someone to do my garden is not exploitative or degrading for the gardener. Getting someone to decorate my house is not exploitative or degrading to the decorator. Only getting someone to clean is exploitative and degrading to the cleaner.
Is that because anything that is traditionally a womans role must be degrading? Is that why so many women get shit for using childcare?

Women. Stay in your kitchen.

Pagwatch · 03/03/2012 09:55

And it always interests me that no one would suggest that J.K Rowling shouldn't get a cleaner. Or Victoria Beckham. Only 'ordinary' women. They shouldn't be so upppity

loopydoo · 03/03/2012 10:02

Unless you disagree with paying a hair dresser, plumber, car mechanic then why complain?

If someone would like to work as a cleaner, then what is wrong with someone paying them to clean for them?

I don't have a choice; we have someone to do housekeeping duties along with dh's job; I don't particularly like someone in my home but it does help me out, especially as I do a lot of voluntary work that takes me away from home during the week.

I think once we move, I will employ someone for a couple of hours a week; mainly to help me keep on top of the laundry. I will studying full time at uni with shift work as well in hospital so it will be tricky to keep on top of everything on my own (DH will working long hours too).

If you don't want a cleaner that's fine; but it isn't a terrible thing if others do have one.

BrandyAlexander · 03/03/2012 10:03

what pag said. both times.

Also, saying it wouldn't take you very long to clean your house and wouldn't get in the way of spending time with children etc etc, well it all very much depends on the size of your house and your standards.

Alibabaandthe40nappies · 03/03/2012 10:07

I get the 'aahhh' feeling too, when I get home on a Wednesday lunchtime and the house is spotless

I have a fairly modest house, but it is very hard to clean with a very mobile 11 month old hanging round your legs.

Much better that I take said 11 month old out and leave my cleaner in peace.

vincettenoir · 03/03/2012 10:10

She's £10 an hour. We have her fir 2 hrs bit I said £10 because we split the cost so it's £10 for me

Flip

1 2 ··· 7 8 9 ··· 21 22