{"id":679,"date":"2009-04-09T07:24:09","date_gmt":"2009-04-09T13:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/crawler\/?p=679"},"modified":"2009-04-09T07:24:09","modified_gmt":"2009-04-09T13:24:09","slug":"be-a-patriot-hire-a-housekeeper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2009\/04\/09\/be-a-patriot-hire-a-housekeeper\/","title":{"rendered":"‘be a patriot: hire a housekeeper’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Battle<\/a>A New York Times<\/a> Style-section column by Michelle Slatalla caught my eye this morning, declaring that I should be a patriot and hire a housekeeper(???) I decided to peruse the column and saw that it was mostly devoted to Slatalla’s musings on ‘spring cleaning’ with her family. But I read on, and was pleased to learn that Slatalla had consulted a sociologist when she became exasperated trying to get herself and her family in gear for cleaning the house. She writes:<\/p>\n

And that [cleaning grease from the stove and noticing the filthy baseboards] was when I finally gave up. I couldn\u2019t do this on my own anymore. I needed the help of an expert to motivate my family.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow am I going to get the rest of them<\/span> to help me keep the house clean?\u201d I asked Pamela J. Smock, a sociologist at the University of Michigan who studies how housework affects family relationships.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me ask you<\/span> a question,\u201d she said. \u201cAre you still able to afford to hire someone to clean your house?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c\u00a0\u2018Afford\u2019 is a state of mind,\u201d I said. \u201cMy household hasn\u2019t lost income \u2014 yet \u2014 but my husband and I are journalists, the most endangered species there is outside of Detroit.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m superstitious: Maybe if I appease the God of the Bad Economy with this offering \u2014 cutting my discretionary spending \u2014 I can ward off a worse fate.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the wrong way to think, Professor Smock said.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, the bad economy is hurting people who clean houses for a living much more than it\u2019s hurting the middle class,\u201d she said. \u201cSo anybody who is solidly in the middle class or above should hire the cleaners back. Absolutely. Immediately. You\u2019ll be serving your country.\u201d<\/p>\n

I stopped to consider this argument, which sounded, frankly, like the exact opposite of the old conventional wisdom.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to feel guilty about hiring<\/span> housecleaners,\u201d I said. \u201cLike I was selfishly relying on the hard labor of poorly paid workers to make it easier to pursue my own career without sacrificing my comfort.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forget that claptrap, said Professor Smock, who pays $110 for housecleaning twice a month.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I got a raise, I\u2019d do it every week, and also hire the cleaning lady\u2019s husband to install the underground sprinklers,\u201d she said. \u201cRight now, people need jobs. It\u2019s a bad idea to cut back on things you used to do normally. Don\u2019t do your own hedging. Don\u2019t start mowing, either.\u201d<\/p>\n

Put that way, I saw she had a point. How could I have been so selfish? I called the cleaners right away, of course, and that made me feel so patriotic that I decided to do more.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A New York Times Style-section column by Michelle Slatalla caught my eye this morning, declaring that I should be a patriot and hire a housekeeper(???) I decided to peruse the column and saw that it was mostly devoted to Slatalla’s musings on ‘spring cleaning’ with her family. But I read on, and was pleased to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39074],"tags":[39112,70],"class_list":["post-679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sightings","tag-culture","tag-family"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":681,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions\/681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}