Is cleaning invisible work?

When our place looks like it all exploded and my husband pulls one of those cleaning days of his, it is completely visible. The floor is visible, the sink is visible, the mirror is visible. He really does an incredible job.

Cleaning: when it’s done “properly,” no one knows you’re doing it. So, yeah.

With respect, my take is different from laueth’s. I’m a bachelor and try to do my cleaning and “straightening up” on an ongoing basis. When my house looks and feels clean, visitors notice and comment, and more importantly, I feel better.

I think for the most part it is invisible. When things just stay clean no really thinks about what effort went into keeping it that way. If things become a real mess, and then you do a big clean up, then maybe you get some recognition.

I clean the whole house weekly. I straighten up daily. It is often a self defending thing to do. My Husband and Son do not appreciate it. I can not live in dirt and disorganized clutter.

@JLeslie made the same point I was trying to make, only more clearly.

Cleaning is invisible to to people who don’t really give a damn, the ones who’ll notice 2 days later they’ve been sleeping on clean linens or eating off of plates no longer cluttering countertops.

How I tackle big things is to just step in and get mad at the filth. When I have a certain amount of gross-out then it’s easier to put my hands in yucky water to fish out slimy plates or handle utensils to put them in the diswasher. Same goes for laundry, I can march around and gather up scads of balled up nasty socks, man shorties and t-shirts if I have a few hours to crank on the washer/dryer. Scrubbing showers and tubs is the chore I dread most and have to work myself up to bringing the cleaning stuff into the shower with me to tackle it there and then wash myself after. Floors bug, I wish I could hire someone to sweep, scrub and polish floors. In fact, I’d love to be able to keep on top of cleaning enough to have nice looking hands and nails again having only to do touch up cleanings.

This is a really interesting issue that got a lot of political attention in the 1980–1990s. The problem was (and is) thus: women are largely the housekeepers/child carers in the family home. The man leaves the home and works, a task which is paid, recognised, and gives him status. The work a woman does at home is invisible, unpaid, and unrecognised. Furthermore, it solidifies a women’s subordinate role in her relationship, and defines what is ‘women’s work’.

Hillary Clinton was on this bandwagon briefly, voicing her concern that women’s housework was not recognised as a positive force in the domestic economy. If nobody is washing clothes, cleaning, caring for the children etc, the family unit is not functional.

Even when both partners in a relationship work, the woman still do more of housework. In 2008, the National Study of the Changing Workforce by the Families and Work Institute (United States) found that while women are more likely to be in a dual income relationship (80% of hetero couples surveyed) women do a third more housework then their male counterpart. (see http://familiesandwork.org/site/research/reports/Times_Are_Changing.pdf)

Although the study showed that men were doing significantly more than they were in the 1970’s, the imbalance is still present. It’s also still gendered.

@clairemagdalenaclaire And that is why I say hire a maid to do the big cleaning if both adults in a relationship work. This is where America has missed the boat. In many other countries the maids wage is an expense like gas for the car and heating the house. Even if the husband takes on 50% of the chores, if you have children especially it means a lot time taken away from family time to clean the house ad do the laundry.

The trick is to let things get really dirty, than you notice when you’ve cleaned it and it does not feel like invisible work.

Gretchen Rubin posted the following quote on www.happiness-project.com that’s perhaps a little comforting:

Man’s partial good resolutions that always succumb to ingrained habit are like the cleaning, scrubbing and adorning that we practice on Sundays and feast days. We always get dirty again, to be sure, but such a partial cleaning process has the advantage of upholding the principle of cleanliness.
~Goethe

I do have a trick I did not mention above. My husband perceives I have been cleaning if he smells pinesol and carpet freshner. I don’t use them all of the time, because I don’t like to use a lot of chemicals in the house, but I probably should to get a little more credit. LOL.

@JLeslie, LOL I need to try that!

I know I sometimes feel like my family must think there is a magical genie that makes things disappear. :(
I did recently discover a simpler way to keep things a little tidy. I have a bag that I go around dumping things in it that don’t belong in the room its in. Than by evening time I go from room to room putting away stuff people carelessly left in another room. In the mean time if someone pops over, I can quickly just put the bag in another room till I have time to return things. Good thing is that it limits the questions, “hey do you know where my stuff is”? If its not where it belongs than its in the bag.

I think home cleaning is always invisible work if it’s constantly maintained – it never gets dirty so it looks like no work is needed to clean it up – so say the ones who don’t have to do the cleaning, hehe.

It is in my house.
It is an endless job.

It is so wonderful to have a neat, organized clean environment… can always welcome surprise visitors (cept during naked hour :P) find what you want and don’t usually spend hours of your all too short weekend cleaning. It is rewarding can be ritualistic and calming and is never wasted.
@Austinlad you may get so much credit due to surprise. I find myself relieved when I am only presented with dirty windows small areas of clutter and dust bunnies the size of rabbits while visiting new bachelor friends.