To think that if you have time to be on MN moaning about your

[Amethyst8]

Cleaner then you probably have time to be doing your cleaning yourself. Find myself a bit bewildered by the complaints about cleaners on here. Not really a problem in the the true sense of the word IMO. Is your purse also too small for your £50s and are your diamond shoes too tight? (thank you Chandler! )

What I was saying was I think pple are allowed to come on and moan about what they want.....God knows it might seem petty.

The woman the other day was asking for advice about a tricky situation with her clearner. She clearly felt embarrased about it and wanted to handle it in as good a way she could so asked for some advice. If she didn't care she might just go in and have an old shouting match. I think by asking for advice she was showing she cared.

I don't think we should be making judgements about what pple can moan and post about.

I'll er, say Get real if I think it warrants it thanks Desi. I thought the OP was a unsensitive

And I guess people have got the right to say this is petty, it annoys me if they think it warrants it

She was asking for advice. If you think thats petty. Fair nuff.

But surely you are making a judgement yourself about what I posted niceglasses. You have judged my post insensitive and told me to get real? So from this I understand you do not to consider it a worthwhile post. However your judgement on my post is apparently acceptable but mine on another is not because it happens to be something you dont agree with? .

Perhaps you could let me have some info as to who exactly is allowed to make judgement/have an opinion on MN and who isnt.

Anyone - its a circular argument. I'm not saying I'm more valid. Im just saying she has the right to ask for advice without perhpas having another thread about her started and effectively told to do it herself.

Yes, I judge it insensitive. I stand by that.

I am not really speaking of that thread in particular but I do find that some of them have a slightly patronising tone when speaking of their cleaners, which irritates me. I dont want to go into it all again as I think I have said enough on my previous posts in this thread.

It is all relative isnt it? I am pretty sure that a cleaner who has a crap boss probably would not find me insensitive but we dont know do we because they dont see fit to post their bosses horrible habits all over MN - not that I have seen anyway but I do wish they would .

Well, Amethyst8, there are good bosses and there are selfish ones, there are great cleaners (inc. me! ) and there are poor cleaners... if your employer stinks you should consider going self employed! If you're not happy with your cleaner, just cut her hours until it's no longer feasible for her to clean for you... and get someone else. Helps avoid all that unpleasantness...

I think the annoyance comes from doing the job and knowing the background. I often feel annoyed with the teacher bashing threads for the same reason.

Imagine being a Health Visitor on here......

Or a MIL

yes Amethyst - I agree there - I have often thought the same on the Childminder threads when they talk about mindees....mostly sensitively, but occasionally, urgh.

Have done some cleaning to get some extra pocket money to buy kids a few nice things etc and have always had very kind people - but then I never worked for the type of people who can't talk to me and tell me if things are not quite up to scratch. Always worked very hard and obviously if you are treated well, you then work hard and always good friends with them as well. If someone treated me like chewing gum on their shoe then I wouldn't bother much for them either. Speaks for itself!

IMO, society is so spoilt today and pampered that saying "i don't have the time" is the shittist excuse ever. Imagine if we had to do what women did years ago like go to lots of different shops for their food (and without a car) instead of having the luxury of driving to the supermarket and parking in our disabled/M&T spots and buying it all under one roof or better still do it all online and have some 'little man' (as i have heard people call him) deliver it all to your front door!

We are spoilt for choice nowadays and because of this, people think they are really hard done by when in fact they have it really easy compared with the generations before us!

generations before us had LOTS of staff though and didn't have to earn a living

But that's a tiny monority you are referring to Vacua

I don't think the average family had lots of staff generations ago Maybe rich people but not ya average jo.

YABU as it makes no difference whether a person needs a cleaner or not. If you are paying someone to do a job then they should do it to the required standard. If they don't then you have every right to moan about it.
I have DH as mine, so can only grumble occasionally !

Bring back the mangle and dolly tub! All is forgiven!

not really, well I don't actually know how society was divided up say in the 19th century, but there was a fairly rapidly growing middle class, the women of which would not have been working outside the home (other than charitable endeavours I suppose) and who would have had domestic help. I have this idea that the aristos and the middle class would form a sizable proportion of the population as a whole but if you just look back over the past couple of generations I think it's pretty similar to those days. my mum worked full time but the women before her didn't, not outside the house paid work anyway.

housework took longer but if you were doing it yourself laundry was a once a week job in my grandmother's day - hard work but not a daily chore like it is now, didn't people have fewer possessions and changes of clothes generally?

I think lots of labour-saving devices just create unnecessary work anyway, we've got washing machines so we do lots more laundry for example - we have hot water on tap so we have more baths and so on

Vacua, you stated that people in general had staff. You are wrong. People with staff were in the minority, just as they are today

Middle class people then and now don't have staff. Maybe a cleaner but nothing to the scale that you are painting Vacua.

You would have to have come from a very rich background to employ staff and not work yourself. mrsruffallo is right, you are refering to a small minority of people.

ok, but am sure middle class women did have cleaners and sometimes even housekeepers even if it was a massive strain on the household budget - the whole domestic bit was obviously the woman's sphere, all that 'angel in the house' stuff, but they had help. I'm not thinking of an army of servants but someone who lived out and came to the house from time to time

don't forget that the working classes would have pressed their children into helping from an early age - education came later in the century for their offspring didn't it?

Well, I imagine those mc families with staff did have to earn a living actually.
Are you saying it was easier then because children helped more instead of going to school? Or went to work aged 5? This was usually to ward of starvation, not really applicable today

So much cleaner envy on MN these days or is it just chippyness.

I don't know about easier, but for lots of women it is in some ways harder

marriage WAS women's profession in the 19th century - single middle/upper class women were pretty much limited to governessing if they hadn't been provided for or were impoverished for some reason or had failed to secure a husband, Jane Eyre - and for some prostitution, Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton for example

middle class married women did not go out to work in the 19th century - what sort of work would you imagine them doing?

I said the families had to earn a living- okay, I guess it was the man-you stated earlier that those families wouldn't have needed to earn a wage at all