The litmus test of a good housewife used to be “she kept the place like a wee palace,” and her respectability was gauged by shining brasses and a well-scrubbed doorstep.
My mother’s generation could reckon up in years the time spent cleaning, cooking, washing and polishing in exhaustingly repetitive and soul-destroying drudgery, with few appliances and fewer products to alleviate the task save brushes, Brasso, bleach and elbow-grease.
We baby-boomers started married life with vacuum cleaners, washing machines and a plethora of time-and-energy-saving products, but as (mostly) working women, found it equally dreary and boring. In these days of equality of the sexes and, supposedly shared household duties where the male partner is expected to pull his weight in a just and fair division of labour, the reality is unless painstakingly trained by his other half, the job will rarely be done with the optimum degree of vigour – which can lead to unpleasantness.
I wouldn’t by a long chalk call myself house proud. Unlike my mother who unfailingly kept the house in pristine condition “in case she died in the night”, I do a quick wheek round, flinging stuff into the spare room before opening the door to visitors. Yes, the house is reasonably clean and relatively tidy, but I’d certainly score few points on the Good Housekeeping Institute’s recently-published list of ‘Household Tasks and When to do Them’. See how your conscience sits after reading this.
DAILY: make beds, clean toilet, kitchen surfaces, do dishes.
WEEKLY: change bedlinen, towels, laundry, dust surfaces, clean bathroom.
MONTHLY: clean windows, vacuum under furniture, wash doormats, clean dishwasher.
3-6 MONTHLY: vacuum mattress, clean duvet/pillows, clean fridge/freezer, oven.
YEARLY: clean window-frames, deep-clean upholstery, clear gutters, wipe light bulbs.
Okay? I won’t reveal my score. Neither, if you’ve any sense, will you.
Advertisers would persuade us that every home is a hotbed of health hazards to its occupants. They’re obsessed with the invisible menace of germs and bacteria which, they assure us, are legion on every surface and must be obliterated as soon as possible before they carry us off. Cleverly enshrined in their graphic commercials is the message that, for our own sake and that of our children, we have a moral imperative to use their products, otherwise we’re being foolishly irresponsible in failing to protect our loved ones.
Have you seen the ad. Where a mother wipes her baby’s high-chair tray with a joint of raw chicken? Scary tactics! Beds and bedding harbour dust mites and shed skin; every toilet flush sends clouds of minuscule droplets aloft to land on your toothbrush shelf. Not content with implying criminal negligence on our part, they induce us to spend money on additional stuff nobody needs.
A quick reconnoitre of my under-sink cupboard reveals (apart from washing-up liquid, bleach, detergent, fabric conditioner and dishwasher tablets) 23 chemically abrasive, heavily scented liquids, powders and gels, 3 aerosol air-fresheners, 2 room sprays, perfumed sachets for the hoover and 3 kinds of anti-bacterial wipes.
Despite being the generation whose mothers wiped our faces with spit on a hankie, we’re obsessed with ‘freshness’ and living in a chemically-charged haze. Never mind what it’s doing to the ozone layer, what’s it doing to our lungs? There’s a well-respected school of thought that our children are failing to develop a natural immunity to anything because they’re rarely exposed to dirt or germs. We were a grubbier but more resilient breed.
In the aftermath of the Loving Spouse’s passing I engaged a cleaning lady. Her first visit was a revelation. I never knew my kitchen floor was that colour. She’s a mixed blessing though. I get up at stupid o’clock to clean for her coming to clean, flinging all the week’s accumulated detritus into the spare room and standing guard at the closed door so she doesn’t go in. If she ever does, she’ll leave me. I nearly died of shame the day she opened the oven.
Still, life’s too short to wipe your light bulbs – but do remember to disinfect your doorknobs…
