To find this attitude to getting a cleaner bizarre?

[Rae34]

My mum seems to have an attitude RE people getting cleaners. I am getting one now at the end of a tenancy before I move to new home I've just bought. She raised an eyebrow that I wasnt doing it myself but said fair enough

The cleaner is coming this weekend. She remarked 'but surely you'll clean a bit yourself beforehand?'. Er, no. The place is already pretty tidy and it'll be mopped and wiped down throughout the week.

In holiday homes she always cleaned them within an inch of their lives/until gleaming so we'd spend half of the last day doing just that. Even though a cleaner would be in after.

She really struggles to keep her own home tidy and always did when I was growing up. She could have afforded an occasional cleaner but never would have got one. AIBU to find this 'I must do it all myself/who gets a cleaner' attitude strange?

Some people love being martyrs, some people (women mainly) have be trained to think they have to do all their own cleaning or think that people will judge them - some form of self punishment in any case!

I think some of it is the idea you’re betraying your working class background and getting ideas above your station.

Lots of people still don’t have dishwashers which baffles me because they save so much money off your water and water heating bill but apparently washing up is no bother 🤨. I have to watch mil and coffee cups or she’ll wash them in the sink & be all “you don’t have to put them in the dw now 😀” but she’ll have used more water for those two cups than my dw used to wash all the days crockery 🤦🏻‍♀️

I think it’s a class thing as well as an age thing. For the middle-classes, employing a cleaner shows that you’re busy doing more cerebral things, and that you’re well-off.

Re. age - I suppose your mother was brought up by a mother who valued the traditional wifely role above everything else, and that brings with it an air of martyrdom.

You don’t need to discuss your business with her anyway.

No this is odd

But then I’ve also seen plenty of posters clean the entire holiday home after spending only a weekend there, which I also think is really odd.

Yes, definitely. We have a cleaner as I have a toddler Dd and can’t clean to the standard I like when she’s around 🙈I love it! I love coming back to a freshly cleaned house. My mum said to me ‘We didn’t bring you up to have a cleaner’ 🤷🏻‍♀️

My DM was a bit like this. She did cleaning part time along side another part time job. She would have thought having a cleaner (especially if you were at home) was the height of laziness.
It's interesting that DH often suggests getting a cleaner but I still hold back thinking we should really do it ourselves, probably still mindful of my DMs disapproval. and the fact I would have to do a massive tidy up before they came (Although I think I only have 1 friend in the same town who doesnt have a cleaner!) However DH is exactly the same if I suggest getting someone to decorate for example, he is appalled at the idea of paying someone for something we could do ourselves.

We live in an expensive area and earn average wages so we dont often have spare cash to outsource things but most people do.

i think a lot of women have swallowed some kind of negative trope of being considered 'dirty', either themselves - as in their own bodies - or their homes, by men or other women. Body and home historically have been linked. for example the old definition of the word 'slut' was an woman with a dirty house. so its an unfortuante hangover from the patriarchy imo!

I would love a cleaner who came and actually cleaned.
I was in a position about 2 years ago to get one. I hate cleaning and for the first time in my life we could afford one.
The first came and complained that it was too much and wouldn’t be coming again. The second refused to clean the bathroom because there was a hair on the bathroom floor and the 3rd one sent said my house was too dirty.
Agree my house needed a clean. But I thought that was what cleaners do. I think I would have had to clean the house first before the cleaner arrived.
It was just too stressful.
My house is about 1500 square feet and has very little in it. There are wooden and tiles floors, no carpet, no ornaments and no pictures as we had just had the whole place renovated. I was so disappointed. Really upset that I will always have to clean my house.

It's interesting that your mum's mum was a cleaner. My mum was a cleaner, as were a couple of her friends, and often when they got together the conversation would turn to their customers, aka those filthy slatterns that had more money than sense, and their amusing household habits. The juiciest stories were either very personal or painted them as "fur coat and no knickers" - like the customer who had her cleaner set up the coal fire but then didn't light it and it was still sat there unlit the next week (the implication being that they didn't have the money to have the fire on every day but they wanted to make it look as though they did.) They really didn't like those women at all. I wonder if your mother heard similar stories from her own mother? My mum would have been outraged at the idea of someone being able to talk about me all the way she talked about her customers!

Yanbu although I have felt this way myself. I had to get a cleaner for an end of tenancy clean when I moved out of my flat and I cleaned first (although I didn’t do the oven!) and when my friends have asked why I don’t have a cleaner I have always felt like having one would be a personal failing because I should be able to ‘have it all’. I do still think about what a fab job the cleaner did on the oven though and consider getting someone to just come and do that!

There are a lot of people who think that cleaning is a demeaning job and that therefore, it's something you have to do yourself because it is just cruel to ask someone else to do it. ie it's disgusting but it has to be done. Sort of the "I wouldn't ask my men to do something I wouldn't do myself" type attitude of a certain type of soldier.

But I've never understood that myself. Cleaning my house isn't demeaning and it's not dirty. It's boring and relentless and I can't wait to get a cleaner again after Coronavirus. My cleaners have always been paid well, have always been extremely capable and professional and the relationship has not been any different than the one between me and my boss or me and my PA. It's a professional, friendly but not friends, relationship.

what is is sad is that certainly around here, carers get paid less than cleaners. Most cleaners are paid around £10-£12/hour but a carer is usually on something like £7.50-£9.50. It's like people think we have to pay more for cleaners because it's a shitty job but carers are supposed to be self sacrificing and do it for the love (even though it's objectively, a much "dirtier" job as they are often having to wash people, change adult diapers etc and there's certainly less autonomy).

I work full time, earn loads more than my DH, yet he tells me not to tell his family that we have a cleaner. I don’t understand the shame element of it either

I have a cleaner and have had one for 9 years or so. I ve had loads of remarks made to me over the years (usually from family) but i dont like cleaning, i can afford one so im not doing it!

Money is there to make your life easier. Out source any job you dont want to do (providing you can afford it).

I have noticed though that people who judge others for having a cleaner dont particularly have a clean house themselves.

@MyDiamondShoesAreTooTight

I have a cleaner and have had one for 9 years or so. I ve had loads of remarks made to me over the years (usually from family) but i dont like cleaning, i can afford one so im not doing it!

Money is there to make your life easier. Out source any job you dont want to do (providing you can afford it).

I have noticed though that people who judge others for having a cleaner dont particularly have a clean house themselves.

There was someone on one of these threads recently who said she really doesn't understand this issue with cleaning and that she cleans as she goes, when she leaves a room. And all I could think was, "unless you're dragging a vacuum around behind you or dusting 3 times a day, your house must be filthy."

TBH the thought of having a cleaner never got further than a thought even when we were both working FT and it would have been affordable. There's just something about the thought of having someone cleaning up our dirt that makes me feel weird. Do I care that others do? Not one tiny bit. I don't feel comfortable with it myself though.

My mum is like that but she gets joy from having a clean house. I like having a clean house too but would rather prioritise my spare time and enjoy it which for me doesn't involve cleaning. I keep on top of our home during the week as does dh but if we were having people to come and stay or a party I would pay for a cleaner to do a deep clean beforehand.

Don't overshare with her, she has her views and you have yours.

My mum's like this last time I moved, she insisted that we do it ourselves. It was spotless and the place was tiny. She just persuaded the guy who did the carpet to fudge the receipt slightly! We are not habitual frauds, I might add but I was with her in this case. It was an unfurnished studio so once my stuff was out, there was very little to actually clean.

In her case, I think being from a huge working class family, there was a lot of pride in privacy and self sufficiency and keeping a clean house. She is the same about borrowing money, aside from mortgages and student loans. Also, she cleaned to supplement her student finance when we were young so I think sees it as a waste of money that you can easily do yourself. I would love a cleaner just to do the floors and bathrooms as I am so busy but I'll be honest, her disapproval puts me off!

I have a cleaner for 2 hours every week and she's a godsend
It's up to you what you do not your mother!

A friend was doing a masters in some suitably liberal arts type thing (I forget the details) and she made the point that societies grow and develop when they are wealthy enough that they have "spare" people. Ie not all the people are needed just to ensure survival. Because there "spares" are the ones who create art, invent things, are innovative, teach/learn etc.

So I can't help feeling, reading this thread where people are commenting on their working class parents (mothers) feeling a sense of pride in cleaning their own house/shame if they don't, was a very clever way for society to keep working class people "in their place". Especially women. Because all that time spent cleaning is less time those women might be using to educate themselves further, do things for themselves, organise etc. If they're so busy in the home, they're less likely to get 'uppity".

And certainly, I get that sense sometimes on here when someone says that their mother disapproves that a woman might choose to go jogging/meet friends/work instead of cleaning....

It's all very insidious.

its very odd. Things traditionally done by women seem to be frowned upon to out-source, but things traditionally done by men don't seem to have the same problem. I'm thinking mechanical stuff, gardeners, and diy stuff, car wash and valet.

I think the only difference is there are things i just think are part of being and adult where you clean up after your own bodily functions. So a having a cleaner clean your bathroom is outsourcing, but i'd still expect people to wipe the sink after they spat toothpaste in it, or clean poo streaks off the toilet bowl or fish their own hair out a plug not just leave it for the cleaner - but I know others think those are jobs for the cleaner.

Nothing to do with your Mum what you do in your own home.If you want a cleaner,then get one!

I admit I have this attitude and so don't have a cleaner and wouldn't consider it either even though I could afford it.

I don't think it is a shame thing though, I actually feel like it connects you to the basics of life. I know a lot of very wealthy people who have outsourced all the basics of their lives to other people, and they seem somewhat...empty? I know that is a bit of a sweeping generalisation, but if money is seriously no object, where does the outsourcing end? How does a reality of life stay with someone? For me, there is nothing attractive about someone who has lost all sense of general life tasks and lives in a pampered 'clean' life

But I think it is about balance and context, as with everything.

Would I rather just sit on my arse and watch TV than clean my house? Probably not.
But would I rather have someone help with cleaning as I am working 50 hours a week? Probably.

Also, I am not that arsed about show home levels of cleanliness so that plays into it.

I don't think it is a shame thing though, I actually feel like it connects you to the basics of life. I know a lot of very wealthy people who have outsourced all the basics of their lives to other people, and they seem somewhat...empty? I know that is a bit of a sweeping generalisation, but if money is seriously no object, where does the outsourcing end? How does a reality of life stay with someone? For me, there is nothing attractive about someone who has lost all sense of general life tasks and lives in a pampered 'clean' life

See this is the attitude that confuses me but maybe it's because I'm not from the UK. That people who are very wealthy or posh somehow don't live a 'real life' or that their life is 'empty' and 'sad'.

It's just different really. I don't think cleaning my house has much moral value or connects me to life's realities - enough hard shit happens to me to realise that without the cleaning on top of it!

And right now I don't have a cleaner. But I'd be open to it in future if I thought it would make my life easier.

We've occasionally got a cleaner in and for the end of your tenancy I think that's a great idea. However we're too frugal to have a regular one, despite being able to afford it. I know plenty of people who earn the same it less than us and spend £2000+ a year on their cleaner. I'd much rather do it myself and spend that money on a nice holiday. Obviously we all have our different priorities though so each to their own.

*same or less