"You don't have a cleaner now, do you?"

[emkana]

...is what MIL said to me today, in a shocked voice, when she found out that I have a cleaner for two hours a week.

Yes, I am a SAHM, so I could do it myself. But we can afford it, I still do enough other houseworky stuff as it is, and I don't spend much money on other luxuries.
So there's nothing wrong with that, or is there?

i have a cleaner and dp is terrified his parents find out. im a nanny and my job is look after the kids and tidy up i only work in the mornings but the last thing i want to do when i get home is tidy up and clean. she comes for a couple of hours on a monday (my day off) that way i can go to toddlers and spend time with dd

oh and dp always has a mad clean up on a sunday night before they come so "they dont have much to do"

tell her that the most important thing you can spend money on is time. and that is exactly what you are doing. It's the least materialistic, least frivolous thing you can buy. she wouldn't bat an eyelid if you spent a few hundred quid on a fancy new telly (or maybe she would...)

Id love it!! Id also love to pay someone to iron for me, and to then put it away

She's just jealous

nothing wrong with it but i personally would hate to have someone coming in cleaning my flat for me. just a personal space/pride thing.

If I didn't have a cleaner my house would rarely be cleaned. Meant to cancel her when on mat leave but never quite got round to it....

I have a nanny so that I can clean although I never quite seem to get around to it. Keeps us all sane though.

There are so many other pressures on us in life. (see below). I have a cleaner.

Blimey.. if I didn't how would I mumsnet?????????

Buying time - that's it exactly. I can earn in 45 minutes what I pay my cleaner for 2.5 hours. It would be madness to do it myself and miss that time with ds.

Our cleaner has saved my sanity. We pay £10 for 2 hrs every wk and the house looks tremendous afterwards. I've got 3 children under 5 and it is virtually impossible to do much cleaning in the day and at night I'm too tired. At the w/e DH has to work on his MSc so i have the children. I'm sure my MIL thinks we're indulgent or well-off. Certainly not later - I'd rather do without other things and have our cleaner.

My MIL is similarly disapproving, emkana, tho I work. But MIL doesn't think what I do (writing) is work because it's non-corporate & not done from an office. So in a way it's worse for me. . .to be criticized for my domestic failings AND to have my work not acknowledged as work. But at the same time I understand it's a cultural & generational thing. (My American mother wld be appalled if I didn't have a cleaner, and thinks this British business of needing to do EVERYTHING yourself is v. odd.) I used to feel devastated by the criticismwhich was sometimes slicingly unspokenbut I've become so involved in my work over the years that I feel v. distanced from MIL now...I couldn't have a more different life to hers, so even when I see her, I feel only half-present, like we've absolutely nothing in common. And, strangely, once she began to sense my confidence & my distance & the fact that I just don't care the criticism vanished. I think a certain kind of MIL is spurred on by even the appearance of insecurity. If you can't please someone, best to give up trying.

I always feel jealous of people who have cleaners. I only work 3 days a week, so have time on my days off to do the cleaning,laundry,ironing,change the beds,etc.However,it is the only time I get to myself, so tend to resent it,DH uses his spare time to play golf!!!
In the Summer I do all the gardening and DIY as well
We have enough money to have a cleaner, but DH says he doesn't like "strangers" in the house, of course he still won't lift a finger to help.I havn't even got a dishwasher,apparently"It's not worth it for just the 4 of us."
But good luck to anyone who has one.

Jac34 I would tell your DH it is my way or the high way.

We have always had a dishwasher, even when there was only two of us.

And as for the cleaner, I had one when I was working 3 days a week. I would have kept her on when I became a SAHM, but I discovered she liked my Clarins as much as I did.

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