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Jewish World Review April 18, 2005 / 9 Nisan, 5765 We who dare to clean house By Froma Harrop
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Ladies, have you done your spring cleaning? You know, scrub the
cabinets, air mattresses, launder curtains, wash walls, clean windows. How's
it going, ladies? Don't all raise your hands at once.
Gentlemen, you're invited. If the lady puts in eight hours on
the job and/or raises children, you should pitch in with the furniture
waxing and rug shampooing.
I'm sure that somewhere in America, a hausfrau is turning her
home upside down. But the odds are far better that most people haven't given
a thought to spring cleaning. Everyone's out working, which makes it pretty
impossible to keep house the way great-grandmother did.
Wage slaves look at their messy kitchen shelf and ask, "Should I
clean this, or put out more ant traps?"
Sad, sad, sad. Our middle-class houses may be getting bigger,
but they're also getting dirtier. I'm not suggesting that modern women (or
men) must become full-time housekeepers. I'm only noting the loss.
That said, there does exist an underground of working women who
carry a torch for the old ways. I drift in and out of this fanatical club.
While others use their spare time to exercise or go to the movies, we attack
housekeeping with method, science and joy in our hearts. Do you know about
Fabuloso, the Mexican cleaning liquid that leaves a lavender scent? We do.
Our spiritual adviser is Cheryl Mendelson, who in 1999 published
a sleeper hit, titled "Home Comforts." Mendelson was a lawyer who confessed
to a secret life of passionate domesticity. Lacking a scientific guide to
cleaning, fixing and preserving everything in the home, she wrote one — 884
pages' worth. How do you clean spots on nonwashable wallpaper? Mendelson
tells you.
Meticulous housekeeping involves a certain professionalism, and
I don't mean hiring professionals. Paid help may save some hours of labor,
but it usually doesn't turn mattresses or fix broken book covers. There's an
art to dusting, vacuuming and polishing brass. And the rules for laundry
could fill their own volume.
(Let me apologize for excluding the gentlemen. I know lots of
guys who gallantly pitch in, but none who agonize over sewing zippers back
onto slipcovers. If any are out there, forgive me — and here's my phone
number ...)
Many working women do care about their house, but can't or won't
make the necessary adjustments to keep it perfect. Women's magazines, except
for Martha Stewart's, assure them that they should not feel guilty about
this. Guilt is indeed unnecessary. We can set our own priorities.
Less acceptable is self-delusion — insisting that lower
standards are just as good. Waving a DustBuster is not as effective as
lugging the big Hoover from room to room. Everyone has a right to choose,
but they should leave the high standards on the pillar where they belong.
Since honesty is the theme, we should now note that spring
cleaning is far less necessary than it used to be. When houses were heated
by wood and coal, smoke would fill the interior all winter. By April, grime
covered everything.
After World War II, most houses had switched to cleaner sources
of heat. Yet stay-at-home women continued the spring-cleaning ritual,
probably because they remembered their mothers doing it. Some housewives
cleaned with so much gusto that the activity almost took on an air of
violence. One popular product, Old Dutch Cleanser, pictured a frenzied Dutch
woman on the container. She wore wooden shoes and carried a stick (to beat
rugs with?).
Let's fast-forward to 2005. Spring has sprung. The cave-like
conditions inside the house contrast sadly with the freshness outside. We
who care, but have other things to do, now stand at the crossroads. What
shall it be: the DustBuster and ant traps, or heavy Hoover and Orvus Paste
(good for washing quilts)?
As expected, Mendelson advocates a full spring cleaning, no
compromises.
"Try it once before you rule it out," she wrote. "It is
delightful to begin the new season with a home that has been scoured top to
bottom, every drawer emptied, every piece of china washed, every bit of
metal polished ..." and so on and so forth.
It's your call, of course. But we who have channeled some crazy
Dutch housewife are now bustling about. That's our clean little secret.
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© 2005 Creators Syndicate |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
