Attitudes to cooking, cleaning, laundry etc

Wednesday2000

I like the KonMarie book as when you get rid of lots of stuff, it makes life so much easier and it is far easier to keep your house tidy. My house is almost always tidy and everything in it's proper place, but I don't spend hours a week cleaning.

We don't have any carpets and we have a small house so vacuuming takes ten minutes and then I just use an eco mop. Very simple.:)

Goldiegirl wrote: »

One of the threads I've never quite got my head around is the 'fly lady' thread.

I did look when I first joined the board, but it seems a huge amount of housework - I'd never have time to do all that, and I'm retired with all the time in the world! If any one did all that, their house would be perfect, and they wouldn't need do all those things, day in, day out.

I can't cope with that level of structure for housework

I agree. I looked at that a few times and just thought it was just too over the top! I would never waste so much time doing housework.

kimplus8

I personally love cleaning and organising but I always have a mountain of ironing to do. I hate doing the bedrooms but the downstairs of my house looks clean all the time apart from the kids toys. Once the kids reach bedtime I usually have them all in the living room tidying away their things so I can clean the dining room/ kitchen and then whiz round with the Hoover before they go to bed.
I like to sit in a clean living room for my 30-60 mins of me time which is when I enjoy (yup I said enjoy) sorting/ filing/planning etc for. The next day!
I'm a single woman and my ex hated me doing this, he felt that evenings were to be spent in front of the TV and wouldn't be happy if I was pottering around etc.

Emm-in-a-pickle

I agree it`s about finding the right balance, both between members of the household and in one`s own habits/priorities.
Attitudes and expectations are the hurdles in finding that balance, and are formed early but they mutate with reality, experience and circumstance - we learn, we adapt.
The growth of the blog thing, the `how to` manuals, is perhaps due to folks trying to learn and adapt a bit quicker?
I honestly don`t think it is a gender issue, but that is my experience. I also think that most of the `pressure`on women to live up to unrealistic domestic goals is self-inflicted, by wanting to keep up with other women (in the media as well as family/friends/neighbours)

I was an only child of older parents, both were in my young eyes old-fashioned compared to parents of my peer group.
Yet my mum always worked full-time and my dad did a fair bit of the cooking., which he enjoyed and was good at.
Mum was the one who instigated changes, who would spend her free time `getting things done`, and deciding when and if new purchases were made and what could be afforded. Dad would always go along with her, but she still managed to give him (and me) the impression that he was in charge and had the final say!

They never attempted to involve me in cooking, and apart from making me tidy my own room, and getting pressed into action when mum was having a cleaning blitz, or grappling with the old treadle sewing machine, there were no routine chores. Mum was a borderline hoarder, but waste was a crime and stuff she kept DID come in useful.
Home wasn`t very tidy but it was comfortable.

My first marriage (7 years) was a very steep learning curve, I shopped, cooked , cleaned, sewed, and got quite proud of my new skills. My ex did help sometimes if asked enough times, and was encouraging and appreciative of my efforts without undue criticism or pressure. (Fair do`s, but for his roving eye he would have been ok!)

My second marriage (25 years then widowed) was different again, he was a great cook, and mended hoover and twin tub etc., umpteen times before we had to buy new! All aspects of housework were shared apart from laundry, he tried that but wrecked clothes so was banned!
We alternated between me working full-time and him working contract welding with long hours/long breaks between contracts. We fostered, and adopted, and he was a great house-husband and sah dad when it was his turn. Again, we were seldom very tidy, but the house was comfy and Home. No gender stereotypes so far.
NOW - my son (43) and my partner, are both completely and utterly undomesticated. OH will help if it`s simple and explained in words of one syllable or less, son will clean his own room (because I won`t!) Otherwise I end up doing everything, or it doesn`t get done.

My attitude to domestic stuff has changed in the last year, now semi-retired (one and a half days/week working to stay sane!) I don`t feel as hard done by, parts of house are a mess, priority stuff gets done but I don`t feel under pressure like I used to. When I cook and clean the kitchen that`s all the real routine I have, then when I have a proper cleaning blitz I enjoy it, but it`s always long overdue, and it`s only me that decides when to do it.

All the blogs and fly-lady routines in the world aren`t going to change my attitude now, I`m happy in my own skin within my own home, the menfolk are content with that as long as they`re well-fed, so I`m not going to beat myself up about what doesn`t get done. If I procrastinate, as I do, it`s MY time, it`s my life. Let others live theirs as they choose.

Goldiegirl

T914 wrote: »

Laundry makes my blood boil.

That sounds like my nan.

When my mum was a child, in the 20's and 30's, my nan used to be completely furious on Mondays, which was laundry day. Nobody dared approach my nan until the week's laundry was done!

Life must have been very tough for the average woman back then. My nan had 6 children, no domestic applicances and the expectation was that she kept an immaculate house otherwise the neighbours would judge her. It was normal for women to scrub the front step on a regular basis - you don't see that these days, and rightly so.

I think all these blogs and lifestyle guides exert pressure to be perfect.

As long as a house is clean (not a health hazard!)and as tidy as the the occupants want it, I think people would do well to step away from the housework for a while, and go and do something more enjoyable instead.

Frugal_gem

For me, it's about quality of life. OH and I share responsibility for the House and garden. I tend to do the indoor stuff and him the outdoor stuff, not because of our genders, but because we know our strengths!

I like cooking, batch cooking, using the freezer etc. The house is acceptable most of the time - we like it tidy and kondoing has really helped with that, but we're not overboard with cleaning. I do enjoy my house though, it's going to see me through for a long time, so I make it how we want it if that makes sense.

I have a condition that makes me unwell and often I can't do housework etc. I am in a really good place with it at the moment and can do a lot more, which means I'm taking advantage of this and the housework can definitely wait!!

Life is for living and that's what I'm doing.

Kim_kim

I'm nearly 50 & divorced twice.
My ex husbands & most men I know even if they help with the homework see it as "helping" rather than equally their responsibility too.
Like by default it's the woman's job & they do her a favour helping out.
In my marriages I did by far & away the lions share.

I'm a single woman now, I work full time & I have a weekly cleaner. It's heaven.

Never ever again will I skivvy for some man! If I ever live with a man again it will be an equal partnership in every way, I don't need anyone to fund me, but I'm not going to look after anyone either.

theoretica

kimplus8 wrote: »

I personally love cleaning and organising but I always have a mountain of ironing to do.

I hardly touch the iron - a little attention when buying clothes and hanging things right and it's hardly needed!

Emm-in-a-pickle

Ironing!! I totally agree with Theoretica. I only iron when sewing, pressing new seams etc. My iron never gets involved with laundry at all.

lessonlearned

milasavesmoney wrote: »

When my mother turned 67 she decided to take an oil painting class. She was exceptionally talented and, over the next few years, painted some fabulous pictures. She was showing some of them to me one day when she stopped, looked at me and then said "I've wasted my life cleaning." She died at age 72 yrs.

My mother said the same thing to me shortly before she died.

This is a very timely thread for me.....because this last few weeks I have begun to feel increasingLy fed up and resentful about the amount of time I have devoted to housework over my lifetime.

I have decided it's time to rebel.

Whilst I am not OCD I definitely set my standards too high and spent far too much time on cleaning and domestic stuff.

But not any more ..........

I have been quietly decluttering and once it's complete it will be much easier to keep on top of things.

I shall get a cleaning company in every couple of months to "bottom it out" as we say in my neck of the woods and then I can just do a little light tidying and dusting.

Same with the garden.......No more lawns or vegetable patches, it will be an easy maintain Japanese style from now on - just a little light pruning now and then.

As for cooking.......again I am keeping it simple - partly for health reasons and to lose weight but also because I seem to have spent the last 50 years cooking and I have had enough.

So food is simple and easy. (I can't bake for toffee anyway :rotfl:). If I want something exotic I'll go out for dinner. And if I want a day off ill get somethings from M&S.

I'm nearly 65 and I don't care anymore!!! :rotfl:

GreyQueen

Emm-in-a-pickle wrote: »

Ironing!! I totally agree with Theoretica. I only iron when sewing, pressing new seams etc. My iron never gets involved with laundry at all.

I've had the same iron since the 1980s, it gets so little action that it hasn't had time to wear out. And I also use it mainly for sewing.

Just now, I took the last laundry load off the clothes airer as the next load is about to finish. Chucked the clean pjs on the bed ready to wear tonight, put socks and knicks and a couple of tops away and no ironing was even mentioned.

I try to eliminate housework by eliminationg things which cause housework (fellers cause a lot of housework in my experience ). For the rest, keep things reasonably clean and reasonably tidy and it's all OK by me.

I've always been bemused by the boast that someone's floors were clean enough to eat off; as I've preferred to eat from plates and dishes and reserve my floors for walking on? Perhaps I'm missing out on something?:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: