To think that this FLY business is just another way of trying to convince women that service is what they are meant for?

[madamez]

We've had house-work-is-what-FAther-Xmas-made-women-for.
We've had housework is the standard on which a woman's morals are judged.
Now we have housework as therapy: FInally Loving Yourself. What's loving about knocking yourself out with drudgery? Surely it's more self-loving to say, bollocks to doing more than the minimum, mess is no big deal and my time is far too precious to wipe skirting boards twice a day?

MrsMattie - I have internalised the ethic of tidy house/clean woman so far that I couldn't bring myself to get rid of it - I have even used it a couple of times.

I wonder whether I have the same one as your DP Boco - green cover, spiral binding?

Does that actually work policywonk?

I do find a lot of these natural solutions just don't really work TBH.

Oh Custy you said it all

Flylady

Hmm

Well okay, you can lead a horse to water ...

The horse being women and the water being liberation or emancipation.

I take the point about not being able or maybe even not even wanting to outsource everything

But why then does it become the woman's responsibility (or the lady's responsibility to manage it all?

Eh?

luda - dunno whether the antibiotic spray works or not (can't see the bacteria - even in my filth-pit they're not so big as to be visible). However, it makes the place smell quite nice and it was free, given that I had a bottle of lavender oil sitting around doing nothing. There are other recipes in there for cleaning your oven with whipped cream and so on (I jest but only a bit) - haven't got around to trying them out yet.

A lot of it seems to involve bicarb and lemon. That's the eco-cleaner's answer to just about everything, including world poverty, probably.

madamez will be FURIOUS if this thread turns into a festival of cleaning tips.

In my case...I am fussier than my dh...he really doesn't see dirt! I'd be very interested to see what would happen if I just wasn't here for any length of time...
I expect it would be chaos until/or unless he decided to take a grip of it all.
I think he is good at his day job, but perhaps he hasn't really got it in him tomanage the house. If he Had to then I expect he'd do what he had to do, but I don't think he would want to take pride in it and do it to my standards.

LOL...policywonk...I think she would!

Watch Wife Swap tonight.

I don't really think it matters whether you are male or female really as to how well you do at being a house wife/husband. Its a unique job isn't it...you can either do it or you can't.
Its like most other jobs..I couldn't be in the army for example...I couldn't fix a car...or make beautiful cakes...or flower arrange! You can either do it or you can't.
But as I keep saying...being at home isn't like a typical job you do...you can't take a degree in it...you can't even have a trial session (well I guess you can opt out if you like...but its not like deciding being a waitress is too stressful so I'll have a go at something else.)
I had no idea how hard it would be to bring up 3 kids, and be married to a man who is self employed and works very long hours, keep my home clean and tidy...and actually then have time to be me!

My dh often says to me, he'd never be able to do what I do. Usually 2 hours in the evening with the kids drives him insane!
I couldn't do his job either...he spends all his time washing, stripping, rebuilding, repairing and selling gearboxes....day in day out. Gah...would drive me mental!
I chose to do my job...he chose his and it works (mostly) I just need things like FLYing to help me along the way

But some women choose very interesting careers as surgeons or running companies and pay someone else to do the cleaning or share it with their other half. The problem with it being fly lady rather than fly person and saying the woman shoudl put on her make up (and presumably the house husband should be getting his foundation on once he's moisturised so he stays beautiful for the wife who keesp him) is it feels so very sexist and old fashioned and is based on a moral religious US conservative code where women serve men and are obliged by their religion to stay at home and keep house. That's what is so morally and politically repugnant.

Yes...you are right...some women do choose interesting careers and pay someone else to do their cleaning...and good for them.
But...some don't...some choose to stay at home and do it themselves...and they are the kind of people who might find FLy helpful. They are the kind of people FLYlady is trying to help, to make their work easier, and their lives a little better...because lets face it those who are housewives will know...the monotony can sometimes get you down. And a clean and tidy and organised home really can be the first steps for those who find life a struggle in general for whatever reason.

Policywonk - kneee cartilage. Nothing too serious I hope.

at people getting cleaning tips books as gifts!

Xenia is right in that Flylady has it's foundations in US conservatism and that is the one problem I have with the system. However, I choose to ignore that and adapt the system to suit me and therefore it works for me.

I guess one issue is can you abide by certain methods without necessarily agreeing with the ethos behind it. For some things yes and others no, but everyone has to make their own decisions.

For reference, the reason it is called flylady is actually because the woman behind it used to do flyfishing. She refers to flybabies as those that follow the system.

i don't get the point of this discussion.
surely if you think living in crap is a feminist statement then do so. if hiring a cleaner is a salute to the suffragettes in your mind, then go you!!
what does FLY or those of us who find it helpful have to do with that? i didn't think susan sontag said we had to be heart surgeons or live in filth to be feminists. its only a bunch of cleaning tips. my mother was so caught up in 70s feminism that i have never learnt how to tidy or clean or cook, so living on my own, in my own flat, paid for with my money, FLY was really useful. and still is.

BTW, am loving the lavendar oil and water. am going to try that as part of my weekly house blessing tomorrow.

"Excessive housework (anything more than about 15 minutes every other day, really) is not only tiring and pointless but unhealthy"

madamez are you reading flylady right? you do know that she advocates only doing 15 minutes a day, don't you?

or are you deliberately misrepresenting her system in order to be provocative?

It's a bit like letting those who believe in creationism and not Darwin fund state schools. Sometimes it really does matter who the backers of something are.

Policywonk defends Madamez by saying she criticises the FLY site rather than those following it. We poor flyers are, presumably, too thick to understand what fantastic lives we could be leading were we to just put down that bottle of bleach for a moment

I KNOW that I could hire a nanny-housekeeper and do a Xenia.

I KNOW that I could never clean or tidy again and live in a cesspit.

I KNOW that I could nag DH to do his share or 'get rid' as someone suggested earlier and deprive my three children of a pretty good dad, because he doesn't clean the loo.

I CHOOSE, instead, to post on Fly most days BECAUSE IT HELPS ME. I laugh at Flylady's evangelism, I don't buy her products, I USE her as it suits me. One day my kids will be grown and I won't need her any more.

i don't think i am missing the point. IMO, Flylady is very aware that the whole family makes the mess. however, instead of jumping up and down and yelling to no effect, she suggests changing your own behaviour and she expects that it will impact on the rest of your family. again IME, it does.
(at this point dh would like me to point out the lovely clean windows we have today after he cleaned them).
my dh will clean, cook, shop and whatever else as and when it is needed. if you live with someone who doesnt, well thats not a problem with the Flylady program. you just married a dork.

i work part time and he works full time so usually i do most of the housework. as i mentioned before, growing up with the full brunt of 70s feminism (most of it very useful) did not leave much time for learning the basics of personal care.

as for creationism and state schools - once again, Flylady is not compulsory. if some of it helps then use it. it is not a mandatory system for all people!!!

Agree that creationism in education is not good but I dont think flylady and her conservatism is the same as the subscribers choose to follow the system as opposed to have it enforced non them.

By the way, my DH (who thinks the flylady system is quite laughable) just read some of this thread and asked 'what's wrong with taking someone else's ideas and making your own system for something?' be it housework or anything else. We do it in all aspects of life.

who on here has suggested that men should not do their fair share?

and what about the working single mum with 3 kids. who would she be on strike against?

"my dh will clean, cook, shop and whatever else as and when it is needed. if you live with someone who doesnt, well thats not a problem with the Flylady program. you just married a dork."

rofl

well said

FLYing helps me to get my housework and life organized.
all those people who love housework and don't need any prompting
all those organized people who naturally organize themselves and don't need any helpful pointers
for the familys of those people who live in a dirt infested pit and are happy with it.

Madamez don't slag off FLYing with that feminist crap including the arguement that even if DH/DP goes out to work all day they should still be expected to do 50% of the housework. Or maybe i have misunderstood what your arguement is.

Hmm. Having just looked at the site I would be deeply worried about receiving daily "attitude adjusting essays" if that's not overt brainwashing, what is? And 10 e-mails a day - in fact looking at "babysteps" 15-20 e-mails. But there is nothing particularly objectionable about most of the advice. I certainly agree with the clutter attracts clutter idea. My solution is to avoid buying too much stuff and have a clear out on a regular basis. Less stuff=less mess

If women don't work I don't see why men should be doing housework in the evening unless the woman has 3 babies under 4 and there just isn't time but at weekends if the dishwasher needs stacking or the nappies washing i think it shoudl revert to 50/50 unless the housewife has a lot of free time all week when the man is working because all her children are at school. You just want fairness really.

A lot of these US fundamentalist Christians also believe in domestic discipline and all sorts of other interesting ideas about male and female relationships. It's certainly not a reflection on most UK marriages where men and women both work and many women in the UK like me who always worked full time just even 25 years ago would have thought someone was having a laugh if they thought men should not do as much as women at home where you both work. People even then when I married had the sense to avoid sexist men.