This is the title of a book I found at my local library last week. Not that I am about to quit the family (like Mary tried to do yesterday), but it is a practical guide to exploring the idea of hiring someone to clean, calculating hours of service, hiring and handling personel problems, fulfilling legal obligations, and organizing instructions and training.
Did you know that 100 years ago there were an average of 2 servants per family of 5? 50 years ago most households enjoyed time-saving milk and grocery delivery. These days, especially in the homeschooling community, it is expected that 1 mother, even with a cartload of children, can cook, shop, clean, educate, decorate, exercise, and socialize, all with no outside help. This translates into a lot of pressure and an almost impossible standard. The tasks that almost always gets neglected are the household chores, the cleaning of the bathrooms and vacuuming, the dusting and the mopping of floors, the changing of beds and folding the laundry. While I do keep up with the daily household chores, I currently have a nice lady who comes for about 3 hours once a week. However, what I need is her coming 3 times a week to really keep things ship-shape.
Tim has promised me that once we move down to NC I can look for someone to come and help with these household chores so I can be free to teach the children and relax a bit! This book has helped me figure out the details of such an endeavor.
2 comments:
Every time I watch Disney's 101 Dalmations I have to laugh. The young married couple can barely afford to feed themselves, yet they have a live-in housekeeper. It's just the way it was back then.
But they also didn't have other expenses that we take for granted: high-speed internet, cell phone, satellite tv. And gasoline for our SUVs.
We just finished Mary Poppins.
Set around 1900, the 6 member Banks family had a cook, a maid, a nanny, and Robertson Aye who polished the shoes (and didn't do much else).
Oh, what bliss to have a cook!
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