In my opinion, having someone come and clean your house once a week is the most effective and economical form of couples therapy. On that day, when you come home to a clean place, your whole world is in order. There is a mental, guilt-free reset that happens. Especially in a household with small childre, the avalanche of children's toys, sticky kitchen counters and nests of discarded hair in the bathroom has been temporarily stopped. Leaving a vague hope that it might just be possible to stem the flow of chaos over the next few days.
If there is one area of my life where I have constantly failed, it is at being a good housewife. Even the word housewife gives me the creeps. House Wife = someone married to their house. Heavens forbid. Surely there are more interesting people or things to be married to.
When we moved from Caracas to California, I was five years old. We went from living in a city to living in a blossoming suburb where good housewifery was a serious occupation. In Paulo Alto and later in the West Island in Montreal, keeping a spotless home seemed to be a measure of domestic success. Women strived to keep their homes impeccably clean and orderly. Housewifery was something to be taken seriously and, preferably, done to such a high level you would be admired by others.
My mother was one of those amazing housewives, upholding military standards of order and cleanliness. Everything had its proper place, and there was little tolerance for anything being left lying around. Part of me still finds this inspiring, yet the other part feels stifled. Living in a place where everything was always in its proper place left no room for imagination. Where was the space for a half-finished project, a pile of books waiting to be read or something interesting that hadn't yet found a home?
To this day, put me in a perfectly ordered house and I begin to feel small and ill at ease. I can admire the cleanliness, the polished surfaces and the absence of clutter, but I find it difficult to relax. There is something about too much order that makes me feel I should be on my best behaviour.
When it comes to our own household, I have never done particularly well at keeping order. If it weren't for Giuseppe, we would be lost. He has often been the one to bring some semblance of structure to our domestic chaos, while I pursue other ways of occupying my time.
When the children were young, and I felt responsible for ingraining in them some modicum of orderliness, I failed to be patient, consistent or even particularly nice when I dealt out orders. I issued repeated reminders to tidy their rooms, put things away and clean up after themselves. I knew perfectly well what I was supposed to be teaching them. Putting it into practice was another matter altogether.
Looking back on those years, I think I behaved that way because making the children clean up after themselves was the height of hypocrisy. I expected them to voluntarily and happily tidy their rooms when I couldn't even manage to do so myself. Like them, I preferred to play, listen to music and make a mess when I was at home. I didn't want the fun ever to be over. And certainly, I didn't want to have to clean up afterwards.
Perhaps that was what irritated me most. Not the mess itself, but the fact that I was supposed to be the responsible adult who was supposed to put an end to all the fun. I was expected to enforce rules that I had very little enthusiasm for following myself.
One of the nice things about growing old is that it becomes possible to be kinder to one's shortcomings. Could I have been a better role model when it came to housekeeping? Definitely. Was it so terrible being an indifferent, even bad, housewife? Probably not.
There are many ways of keeping a household going, and it doesn't necessarily have to be the responsibility of one person to do it all. It is perfectly possible to lean on others, whether housecleaners or househusbands, to keep our world in order.
For them, I am forever grateful.
Photo by Heather Ford on Unsplash
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