Never Mention the Housekeeper

ChoresIllustration by Barry Falls Chores

There are certain words you learn to use carefully when you write about parenting. Breast-feeding is one. Co-sleeping is another. Home schooling is on the list, too. These are words that tend to divide parents by world views that they did not necessarily even know they had.

Other words subdivide us by politics and economic status, too. Private school. Nanny. Housekeeper.

In an essay on her blog, The Happiest Mom, last week, Meagan Francis tackles that last one head on. She opens by noting that the March family in “Little Women” — a family whose fortune has been lost and who are so poor that there might be no gifts for Christmas — still manages to employ Hannah, the family’s live-in servant.

Ms. Francis continues:

The Marches weren’t unique. Going by the extensive reading of free and/or inexpensive classic novels I’ve had on my Kindle over the past year, many – perhaps most – “ordinary” families had some kind of hired help back then, even those who weren’t very well off: whether it was a teen girl helping out in the kitchen, a boy to work on the farm or a local woman “taking in” the wash or even live-in cooks, nannies and other servants, having “help” was just an accepted fact of life among the middle classes.

Things have changed pretty dramatically in the American home over the last century or so — economically, socially and technologically. And while families in the highest income brackets may still matter-of-factly employ full-time household staff, for the rest of us hiring outside help has become more … complicated. We wonder if we seem snobby, entitled, spoiled? Are we exploiting the person we’re hiring? And … hey, with all these modern advances, shouldn’t we really be able to do it all, all by ourselves, if we maybe just tried a little harder?

But while our jobs are probably less physically demanding than our great-great-grandmothers’ were, that doesn’t necessarily mean our lives are simpler. With more choice comes complication and busy-ness, and, I think, less of a feeling of knowing when we’ve done “enough.” Plus, we’ve got so many roles to grapple with, we fear shortchanging one area will compromise our identities: can I really call myself a ‘homemaker’ if I don’t do all the work myself?

Ms. Francis says she was moved to write her essay because of reader response to an earlier post of hers, in which she mentioned that she employs “part-time household help – three to four hours at a time, twice a month.” Sometimes it’s childcare, sometimes cleaning. Comments poured in, accusing her of not being “up-front” about this fact on her blog in the past, with one reader telling Ms. Francis it would be harder to “identify with me as much as a homemaker, and that it materially changed the way she viewed my perspective and advice on cleaning, organizing and managing a home.”

It’s a debate that comes up regularly in the comments on Motherlode — almost always on posts that only tangentially relate to hiring help. Most recently was a response to an essay by Mel Robbins, titled “Why Moms Should Quit.” It was about sharing domestic chores more equally, particularly teaching your children to step up and shoulder some of the load. It didn’t mention hiring help anywhere. Yet one of the first responses was from a ubiquitous and prolific commenter, Dr. Mark Klein, who griped:

An article like this wouldn’t be necessary if we still had a real middle class which could afford to hire household help. In the 1954 movie “Executive Suite,” starring William Holden, a single income of less than $10,000 afforded a full-time housekeeper and a spacious suburban home. Without household help, full-time mothering is akin to slavery.

Soon after, Ellen, from Boston, responded:

That’s pretty dismissive of people who could never afford such help, including domestic workers themselves. Who cleans their houses?

That, in turn, inspired Amy, in Ohio, to write a poem:

The wealthy man, he cannot stand,
An unclean or cluttered home.
It makes him think of nasty things,
Like germs and dirt and worms.

So Wealthy hires upper class
To maintain villa and estate
Upper class hires middle class;
(Yups can’t clean — they work too late.)

Middle class hires working class
From a cleaning service
Working class hires immigrants —
Illegal, and quite nervous.

Immigrant sends money home;
To his Mamma far away.
Mamma hates a messy house
And so she hires maid.

Maid has a tiny house
A bit of Terre-a-Pied.
The maid, she does not clean;
A trained mouse does instead.

The mouse, she has a tiny nest
Of leaves and twigs and fern.
And when it gets too messy
She leaves it for the worms.

Worms don’t mind dirty digs —
They taste of buttered toast.
And when they’re done, don’t call it dirt —
Their castings make great compost.

Should you ever think that worms
Are gross and damp and slimy
Remember, they’re who really keep
Your kitchen nice and shiny.

Now that we’ve thanked the worms, let’s get back to Ms. Francis’s question. What is it about household help that touches such a nerve? Is it envy that others can afford more, or outrage that domestic workers are being exploited, or a belief that one’s own mess is one’s own responsibility, that makes critics jump? Is it guilt at not being able to handle it all, or fear of being the exploiter, or sensitivity about looking “entitled,” that makes so many employers defensive?

In other words, when did it go from being something Marmee assumed was part of managing her life, to something Ms. Francis feels the need to apologize for?

There is a “collective modern American uneasiness with the idea of hired household help,” Ms. Francis writes. “We think it sounds nice, but maybe a little … indulgent. Something that makes us a little soft and spoiled. I’m guessing housewives from the 1800s just saw hiring help as a really efficient way of delegating the tasks that fell to them in the overall job of running a household. Sure, they could probably manage without it, but why just “manage” if they didn’t have to?”

Ms. Francis hopes to spark frank talk “about the way we feel about hired help and the way we use it – both to demystify the process, and also to destigmatize the idea of paying for help.”

Use the comments to join in that conversation.