Consumerism, budgeting and wifework

[Tortoiseonthehalfshell]

So you know, just a trivial thread then.

Blackcurrants said something in the decluttering thread about us all having far more stuff than our forebears, and that partly leading to this problem with housework. I don't think that's at all true, actually. I think biggish households used to have big stores of linens, preserved food, candles, etc., because it wasn't possible to run out and buy a replacement at 2am, and without machines to wash dishes and clothes and carpets one needed more of those things to allow for the time consuming process of cleaning them.

But the reason I'm talking about it in a different thread is, I've been thinking about consumerism recently. It seems like everyone in my world is talking budgeting, decluttering, repurposing. We're in an era of austerity. Just as the mythical traditional household set up (woman at home, man at work, a nuclear family situation that existed between about 1945 and 1960) is held up as the Golden Ideal by social conservatives, it seems like wartime austerity, or the depression, are being lauded as an 'we was poor but we was 'appy' ideal.

And just as women are judged by the state of their houses, I think we're also, in this era, judged by, and blamed for, how much we buy. Are you poor? Is your home too small? Do you have debts? Well it's all that plastic crap you buy, isn't it? If you were just pure of heart and put more time and energy into repurposing, recycling, decluttering, you wouldn't have any of these problems. Look at the shining example of your forebears!

It's bloody women's work again, though, isn't it? All the women I know spend time decluttering, thinking about our houses, repurposing furniture (ok, that's fun, but still), scouring charity shops and flea markets for things to use, we swap coupons and keep mental lists of sales cycles, we meal plan and we start threads on websites about all of it. It just occurred to me yesterday how much mental energy, and in fact physical time, I spend on this. My husband, who has always done loads of housework and childcare and been about as Nigel as one can be? He does not think about this. At all. Ever. Yes, I spend more than he does. Because I do all the kid purchases, all the food purchases, all the home decor purchases. All on sale, or thrifted, or freecycled.

I suspect that even in households where the husband is the earner, and/or controls the finances, the minutaie that I'm talking about is wifework. Do you think I'm right?

It was just Bonsoir being a wind up merchant Snowmama, it's best ignored.

Unless of course, you have the energy to engage with her madniss.

Bonsoir, for most of us it's not 'perfectly possible' to subcontract the work to anyone. That only works if you're rich. In which case, yes, I'm sure you can go through life never needing to worry that you, or your DH, or both of you, can't or won't do housekeeping. But what does that solve? Only that money is nice for the rich.

Nope, it is Friday afternoon, all energy is being stored up for the weekend and hyper children... :-)

i think outsourcing is a total red herring no only because of the cost being unaffordabel to most, but even if it were, wifework would become managing people to perform wifework.

so i think it is a solution for no one.

"become managing people to perform wifework" should read '"become managing people to perform what is currently wifework"

completely agree with your OP Tortoise. Wifework is a really good read. I especially like the point she makes about the emotional housekeeping of coupledom, and that even here, it's women who are putting in most of the work.

OFF TOPIC
Have you read any Mary Daly, Tortoise?
She calls the work you mention in your OP the Foreground : all the shopping lists, the remembering of appointments, the bill-paying, the recycling. THis is all foreground work which keeps women busy busy busy, keeps our eyes off the ball, and away from the really important moral and spiritual work (such as the women's liberation movement ) Shopping and going out to resturants is also counted as "work" and it is actually work when you consider that all the economies of post-industrial societies are dependant on female consumerism, which takes up a vast amount of female time and energy, and the patriarchal system (and the individual males within it) reaps the rewards and profits of all this expended energy.

THen there is the Background which is the antithesis of the foreground, often found in a home or a place of nature. Just relaxing with female friends, chatting, laughing, that sort of thing.

ETA: moral and spiritual work sounded a bit iffy there. I was NOT talking about patriarchal religions!!! Even lying down on the grass staring at the clouds has a spiritual element to it. THis is the spiritual element women are lacking because they're so preoccupied with the "Busyness" of the foreground--and being judged by their success in the foreground, rather than being judged on whether they're actually a nice person or not.

i am wondering if outsourcing is not the solution, then what is? i cannot see the solution coming from the men who benefit from the unequal share of the the work, so the change has to come from the rest of us.

Great question. I have no sensible answer...

1. For me as a single woman, it is simply accepting that I am comfortable with bare minimum wifework....so the struggle is internal against guilt and judgements from others.

1. For those in couples, my default answer is stop doing it and see what happens. But as custardo said that still may not work. My personal experience is that men did pick up wifework, recycling and budgeting but grumpily and made themselves out to be superheroes for doing it

. It is also worth pointing out though, that I do not do well in couple units ...and none of these relationships lasted more than a couple of years...bar my marriage which lasted a couple of years longer...

...by couples. I mean hetronormative in the context of this discussion.

I don't know what can be done about this tbh Like custy I do it but resent it. I have no patience with slow coach I didn't noticers! Today there is going to be an almighty row here as ds spilt a tin of paint in the car and all over the road Mess and chaos everywhere while we wait for the council to come out and ds and dp asking me for bloody instructions on everything aaaaaahhhhh!!!!!!

I think women need to stop judging each other on the appearence of their homes. I dont think we're doing all this work to impress men, I think a lot of it is to compete with each other.

Do you really think women want a clean, comfortable and well decorated home to impress other people? Frankly, I couldn't care less what other people think of my home - I want a home that suits me and my family. The über tidiness is for me (not even particularly for my family, who don't care as much).

Yes rainbow what I find fascinating is the way that power hierarchies such as patriarchy are fantastic at getting those who benefit least from the system to police it the most, whilst those who benefit the most can opt out.

That said I don't blame individual women for instinctively associating the quality of wifework with the woman of the household.

One major benefit of outsourcing in getting other members of the household to pull their weight is that it puts a price on the task outsourced. If someone has to pay for something, they usually think a lot harder about whether or not they should be doing it themselves vs. paying someone else to do it...

yes rainbow, we discussed that on the other thread. Women are used as "handmaidens" of the patriarchy, whose role is to police other women and make sure their kitchens are tidy enough, or their clothes are neat and feminine enough. No regime would last long without its collaborators.
An antidote to this is policing is to pick friends who are messier than you, or just as messy as you.

I have no problem at all with doing the wifework but , I suspect, that is because it is my only job.

If I also WOH I wouldn't be nearly so relaxed about doing it all!

Indeed, WallisSimpson, and that it is because household management and raising children is, together, a FT job. And of course no-one wants to do a FT job and then another FT job in the evening, or even a PT job in the evening. Which is why a couple of Filipinas is a good solution for dual working families.

filipina

rather than the schofield type

tortoise, I've not read beyond your OP because of its SAHM preponderance (might read it later, if I'm feeling less stressed), but wanted to reply with a great big YES! Not only what you said, but also the divergence between rich and poor, which was also an Austerity feature. The rich took care to appear restrained while larging it on coke and champagne and exploiting the poor. And the poor exploited women.

Also similar, I feel, is the stream of worthy bullshit emanating from Westminster whilst Government serves Privilege. It's not looking pretty right now.

Thing is, I really wouldn't want to be DH! He doesn't have a great deal of say in his home life.

He'll come home tonight to eat a meal I have shopped for and chosen and cooked how I like it. Using cutlery I chose.
He will relax on cushions I bought watching the film I booked.
He will sleep in sheets I choose when to wash.
We'll go on holiday to a place I selected and booked. Wearing clothes I have bought him.

See what I mean?

ooh, interesting thread.
I do think we have more stuff than our parents, (specific to my family) and in less space. Because of the way our lives differ to our (farmer) parents, DH and I have 2 desktop PCs, FOUR laptops (2 that I really need to persuade DH to chuck..), 1 tablet ... Some of this is as a result of moving in together, I doubt we'll always have 2 desktops, but we'll always have 2 laptops at least... oh and our parents both had heaps of books, and so do we, but then we also have DVDs and Xbox games and an xbox and controllers... stuff.

We're not avid shoppers, I don't think, it's just that when we met each other we each had all the electronics that people in our line or work have - and now they're doubled and all over a 2 bedroom flat. Whereas my parents' (much larger) house has 1 laptop in it, and 2 mobile phones, and I believe a fax, a stereo, and a radio. That's the extent of their techiness-stuff. We own a lot more un-aethetically appealling 'stuff' ('plastic tat' or 'gadgets' to them.) they have enormous things like pianos which take up much more space and wouldn't get the daily use that our gadgetty things get - but ours is 'stuff' whereas theirs is beautiful furniture, really.... And the piano was inherited and will probably be willed to someone, wheras no one is going to want my 4 year old laptop when I die -but I use it for work. So.... uh.. I have no idea what my point it!

One of my most important conversations with my Nigel (my non-sexist, he's not like those other men DH) is that the MENTAL accounting, the we're-running-out-of-milk, DS-needs-new-shoes, when-does-the-dog-licence-need-renewing work, is not excusively mine. I have more siblings than him, and more nephews and nieces, but can/will he remember HIS side of the family's birthdays without reminding? Well, not in the past. And when I didn't remind him, it was (silently) considered to be my fault or some kind of slight, when half of our joint family got xmas/birthday presents on time, and HIS half did not. It's assumed to be my responsibility, and to some extent I do it because if I didn't, it wouldn't get done ...and I love those 4 year olds and want them to have a present. But mainly I want DH to get his thumb out of his arse and do all the small acts of social and familial maintenance that are required over the course of a year. we both work full time, and my commute is longer than his. I don't have any more time to dedicate to that stuff than he does.
I LOVE the idea of "foregrounding'' snowmama, and will be using it.

argh epic post!
TL:DR - (1) stuff' is lovely when it's expensive (art, old furniture) AND can be used, but a lot of the 'stuff' I have is practical and somehow clutter-y, and less nice to see around the place.
(2) Foregrounding is a LOT of work, and needs to happen, and isn't going to be just bloody me.