To not give in & clean the kitchen, before environmental health is called

[Debbiethemum]

DH & I agreed months ago that he would be responsible for cleaning the kitchen & bathroom, I would do the rest of the house and the laundry.

I have given in and cleaned those two rooms a couple of times (just before visitors were expected). BUT I am getting sick of it.

MIL is coming for the weekend and even I can't bear the kitchen any more in it's current state.

How much nagging is OK and what deadline should I give him.

I am almost always in the kitchen. I even prefer to eat there when we have 10 people for supper - DP prefers dining room - I think it is wanky. I sit there, write there, feed babies there, iron there, cook there, eat there, children do homework there. The less time you spend there probably the less inclined you are to clean it - just a thought.

Beeper - I never expected him to do all the washing up, that is pretty evenly split. Just the weekly proper clean

BTW - Impossible to hang out in our kitchen its too small!!

Sorry Anna but I don't agree that Debbie's dp does quite alot. He is only doing half the cooking - she is doing the other half and all the packed lunches in addition. She is doing the only cleaning as he is not doing his share of that. Yes he is doing the weekly shop but this is not daily. The DIY and car stuff are not day in day out drudgery things.It also sounds like Debbie is doing the bulk of the stuff for the children but apologies if I have read too much into her last post.
I agree with evrything that Blu said. It is not a 'man thing'. My dp is perfectly capable of doing any of the household chores; he had an enlightened mother who taught him to 'cook and sew' alongside his sister and they had regular household chores. He had to 'run' our first house as he worked from home whilst I was the main breadwinner in a job that meant I was overseas half the time.Now I am a SAHM but he can step in whenever needed on any of the household stuff. Of course there are always things which I would do more thoroughly but that's my choice - I don't have to.
And I certainly don't clean my kitchen every day

Very interesting debbie. And also slightly amusing that you have come to your own solution - get DH to suggest the split. I think that is a good idea actually because it means he is more proactive from the beginning and can't turn it on you and accuse you of an unfair division.

Having my own issues with DH atm. I am happy with his contribution on a normal week. But whenever he is away it all goes wrong because he expects a night away plus a night to recover and I am expected to keep up with everything (except loading the dishwasher on the second night) in the meantime. Our agreement is that I clean upstairs on a Monday when I am not working and we clean downstairs on a Tuesday evening. He has cleaned nothing this week and I have done it all. He is away tonight (go-karting FFS) and I have been cleaning after a full day's work and dealing with the DC etc.

Bozza, go out tonight and tell him you expect him to keep the place clean and tidy while you're gone like you have been doing.

My DH and I have noticed that whichever of us is away, the other finds the house stays much tidier. We initially used that as 'proof' that the other 'must' be the messy one. We've now had to concede that it's because when there's only you about to do stuff, you just get on and do it, because otherwise it doesn't get done. If DH is around, I entertain the vain hope that he might load the dishwasher, so it gets left, and then the whole house routine collapses like a pack of cards.
BTW, I deliberately made myself crap at cooking and extravagant at food shopping and guess what? DH does it all. However, he responded by being crap at ironing/dusting/hoovering etc.. That only leaves the bathrooms to fight over. Works for us.

LOl clam at being deliberately bad at things. We have 2 bathrooms and a downstairs toilet and I have cleaned them all this week. If I went out tonight having finished all the cleaning yesterday and the children being out all day it would be quite easy for DH to keep the house nice. But.... I need to make a cake for the school fair tomorrow, do the receipts/budget etc.

I was deliberately bad at changing nappies. Just couldn't do it. Too delicate
and too incompetent.

At one stage I had it down to only needing to do one a week, the day I had dd1 for a full day, then I did it at lunchtime. Badly, of course.

We have two downstairs loo. One of them is only used by DP - I think for big jobs. DS1 uses the guest bathroom upstairs for big jobs but the main bathroom to shower, brush teeth etc. DS2 uses main bathroom for everything - including weeing on the seat! Guess who cleans all the loos in the house?

fennel why do you assume that all cleaning jobs are crappy jobs?

My housekeeper earns £8ph, 25 hours a week, fully taxed/NId, 4 weeks holiday, full sick pay, works v hard but is in lovely, safe surroundings with nice people around to have a chat and fun with (me, the little ones, the nanny, whoever else is around etc). She earns her own income independent of her dh, takes great pride in what she does, is appreciated and respected, fusses over all of us and LOVES the children.

In what universe is this a shit way to earn some money? Why would it be worse for her to be answering calls in a call centre with someone timing how long it takes her to pee, or standing on her feet working in a shop, or doing repetitive work in a factory? She has very little education and is 53, so her options of becoming a surgeon or novelist are limited. She loves the job and is always telling us horror stories of when she worked in a particularly nasty hotel.

I don't understand why all cleaning jobs are considered to be crap, or why it is considered that if you live in a house you should clean it - like it is "antifeminist" to get someone else to. Genuinely don't understand it.

Ah minty it all sounds lovely except the £8/hour. Will have to look for another sh*tty IT job after all.

Long post alert:

"I'm not saying it's anti-feminist to employ someone to pay a cleaner, but that there are reasons which make some feminists uncomfortable with doing so.

I'm cutting and pasting a couple of paragraphs here from a book review on the subject which outlines two different feminist positions on hiring cleaners. The first paragraph is a book reviewer describing the author's views, and the second paragraph is the reviewer's opposing view.

Friend or Flunkey? Paid Domestic Workers in the New Economy

Meagher reviews the arguments that view paying for housework as being morally wrong. She argues that paid housework is not necessarily more exploitative than other forms of contemporary service work. She argues that it is not unethical to pay for housework if we pay houseworkers well and treat them with respect.... According to Meagher, in order to establish respectful relationships we need to enter into a contract for service' rather than a contract of service' - one in which the boundaries around the job and the personal relationships are well defined and agreed upon by both parties.

....her main conclusion is that it is not wrong for people to pay for housework, that being a paid houseworker is not necessarily a lousy job, and that a householder does not necessarily oppress and exploit paid houseworkers if they treat them with respect. I (the reviewer) find this argument inherently flawed. I (the reviewer again) would argue that in the current existing social and economic conditions and power structures, the relationship between the householder and houseworker is one of power and subordination regardless of the respect with which the worker is treated. This is because domestic workers would not be doing such work in the first place if they were not disadvantaged economically, socially and/or culturally at the time regardless of whether they are able to eventually find better jobs or not. Similarly, it is only householders who are in relatively privileged positions who hire houseworkers. This is not simply because they can afford it financially but also because they have the social and cultural capital which enables them to do so."

I'm not sure which view I'd agree with. But I can see where both sides are coming from.

I would def describe myself as a feminist, but have a cleaner. My current cleaner had to give up her job when her DH was diagnosed with cancer, and chose to clean as she enjoys it, and its flexible to fit around hospital appointments etc. My previous cleaner (we moved area) had 4 children of school age, and liked being able to do a job which was school hours and to which she could bring them if they were off school for some reason.
Surely its because cleaning is undervalued as an activity that some people see it as a disadvantaged job ? It seems that to employ a builder, plumber, or motor mechanic (all male dominated) is acceptable, wheras outsourcing 'womens skills' such as cleaning, child caring, and caring for the elderly is often criticised.

Debbie - your dh has proved that he has a much higher tolerance of dirt than you do. I think re-negotiating responsibilities is the way forward, with him doing things that he wants done. He needs to think he's doing it because he wants it done, not because you've told him to do it.

If you do get a cleaner - and I have no moral qualms about it whatsoever, although I don't have one myself at the moment - one of you will have to manage her or him, ie communicate what you want done, hand over the dosh etc. Also, no cleaner knows where you keep things, so a certain amount of tidying beforehand helps you get the most out of it. It can be almost as exhausting employing a cleaner than doing it yourself, unless your house is so big that doing it yourself is impossible anyway.

Notdoingthehousework - I feel for you about how your exh treated you, and yet my dh is a bit rubbish at both housework and diy and sometimes fails to look after the dc properly when I'm working (at home). He does occasionally make a bit more effort though.

And feminists - you'll hate this. Dh has started to delegate any housework that might be thought his responsibility, to our dds!!
Simone de Beauvoir rotates wildly oo la la.

Hmm I've got a dark mottled effect posh lino with extra sparkly bits on my kitchen floor (hides all manner of sins).

I've got a dishwasher where I store all my dirty pans and dishes

As per flylady's advice we try to keep the sink clean and sparkly - it makes all the difference

My bathroom is disgusting because I'm the only one who will clean it and it is always the last room on my list. I do make sure the toilet is cleaned regularly though and sometimes clean the shower whilst I am in it

AND I would love a cleaner

but fennel that is a complete non-argument. (I appreciate it isn't YOUR argument, but since you posted it I'm going to take a pop at it). She says "the relationship between the householder and houseworker is one of power and subordination regardless of the respect with which the worker is treated". Well of course it is. Substitute the words employer and employee - "the relationship between the employer and employee is one of power and subordination regardless of the respect with which the worker is treated" and it becomes clear that that statement is nothing whatever to do with being a cleaner, and everything to do with working in employment full stop.

Similarly "This is because domestic workers would not be doing such work in the first place if they were not disadvantaged economically, socially and/or culturally..." well from the economic point of view you could argue that in relation to the vast majority of jobs - that people wouldn't be doing them unless they were disadvantaged economically (ie they need the money!). In relation to the whole statement you could say that in relation to all lower-waged jobs - and does she think that nobody should do any lower-waged jobs? Or just women? How exactly would that work then?

Cmotdibbler is exactly right. Why is being a postman or a forklift truck driver "good honest work" whereas low paid work for women seen as demeaning?

That's a really interesting post, Fennel. DP and I do employ a cleaner, these days, in contravention of some of my most fervently held beliefs a couple of decades ago; I'm aware, though, that this is not necessarily the Right Thing to Do.

We certainly don't employ her in order to get DP off the hook. Or to make him happier.

Or, come to that, for 'more time as a family' .

Arguably, not doing housework makes me happier, I have to admit.

Hang on, he doesn't have a 'higher tolerance of dirt' which is somehow unassailable. He's just getting away with being a slob. Different thing.

See washersaurus as proved that my crappy white kitchen sink that I can't even get clean with bleach is causing all the trouble. And it is currently stacked full of cake tins, mixing bowl etc because I baked after DH had put the dishwasher on and it is his job to empty the dishwasher.

The longer article I linked to addressed some of those points.

Yes she probably would say that lower-waged work should be paid more, and high earners should be paid less. The UK has a particularly large wage difference between the high paid and the low paid which is one reason why so many of the better paid can afford cleaners. In Scandinavian countries (Sweden or Norway say) there's far less difference between a highly educated professional's salary and a cleaner's or childcarer's. So cleaners are far rarer, and childcare is subsidised by the state, rather than paid low wages.

I do think housework is different from other forms of (low-paid and other) work. It's clearing away other people's mess. Dealing with loos. Scrubbing baths. Shuffling through cast-off children's socks that have somehow coiled down the side of the chairs. It is dealing with the physical, bodily mess of other people - which they're outsourcing because they don't want to have to deal with it themselves.

Why would you have white floors etc? Are you all insane?

Bozza - I have successfully used window cleaner spray to remove the scum from my bathroom basin when bleach failed (it was the only alternative at the time and worked a treat). Get yer scourer out

I mean...get yer DH to get the scourer out!

marxism and feminism, fennel you've managed to lure MI back !!!