What type of housekeeper are you? Do you scrub your home from top to bottom once a week or do you clean as you go and only scrub when it’s needed? I read an article today that seems to think Americans are moving away from cleaning the life out of our homes. Sales of cleaning products in the US have declined steadily since 2006. Does this mean we are cleaning less or using more green methods?
For me, both are true. When I was a young newlywed, I was a typical 50’s housewife, even thought is was 1982. My home was cleaned every day, I dusted, vacuumed,iron, wiped down counters and appliances. On Saturday I did a whole house cleaning, everything from changing the sheets to cleaning the oven, it took most of my Saturday but darn it, my house was clean.
Now, I clean as I go, wipe the counters when I’m doing dishes, vacuum when the carpets look bad and clean the oven when it starts smoking. My house only gets thoroughly cleaned every few months, in between I just do what’s needed. I also use only vinegar and baking soda to clean. I’m concerned about the air quality in my home and also about the chemicals that get washed down the drains when I clean. I like having nothing under my kitchen sink, if my friends baby crawls across the kitchen floor and opens the cabinet there is nothing under there she can poison herself with.
Are we getting lazier or are there just fewer hours in the day? We have so many appliances that make cleaning faster and easier but we still have no time to clean. For me, cleaning definitely takes a back seat to just about anything else I want to do. I ran a housecleaning business for several years before my daughter was born, I know how to clean, and I do a good job, it’s just not as important to me as it once was.
I used to worry about the impression my house made, what did it say about me? Now I realize that a clean house is much less important than raising a healthy, happy kid, or maintaining friendships, or reading, or anything else that makes me happy.
Tweaking a common saying, my tombstone will not say “Here lies Carol, she just wishes she had kept her house cleaner.”