their hair like a sticky, smelly snapshot of their day.
Generalising wildly, men aren’t much better. Watching most men eat, I wonder why somebody hasn’t produced designer Man Bibs—like overgrown toddlers they drop, spill and splat their food, seemingly oblivious to the fact that other people manage this task without such trouble. Then there’s sweat—Man Sweat—which means no shirt can be worn more than once, if it even makes it beyond midday before becoming unacceptably whiffy. Socks reek of overripe blue cheese and gym kits morph into a stinking, sweaty heap, having often resided in an airtight bag for more than a week.
Women—actually, let’s say mothers, as most childless women keep themselves reasonably clean as far as I can tell—bring their fair share of dirt and household cleaning into the equation: most of my clothes end up splattered with some child-related gunk by the end of the day, my shoes are worn out by all the dashing about and need regular cleaning and re-heeling, and I almost never take my shoes off when I come into the house, either because I get straight into unpacking the shopping and cooking for my starving children, or because I am more than likely to be going outside again very soon to play football in the garden or take the newly-fed children to some extracurricular activity or other. This means my house is often littered with bits of grass, twigs and mud.
Yes, living in a busy, modern family brings with it a large amount of mess and dirt, and if you don’t adopt some strategies for dealing with it, you could soon drown in your own dirty laundry. Luckily for you, I have picked up some tips along the way, which I pass on here to ease the strain and free up some ‘me’ time for you, in between spin-cycles.
Ironing. Don’t, unless it’s absolutely essential—for example, white shirts, or clothes for an important meeting or party. I have vivid memories of my mother sweating over the ironing board on a Sunday evening, making piles of crease-free handkerchiefs, underwear and pillow cases, while we all sat there watching telly. It always seemed very unfair—she was mostly ironing my dad’s shirts—and enormously pointless to me, and still does. Most clothes look fine after a good shake and a dry on a hanger, and if you fold them as you take them off the washing line, rather than chucking them in a laundry basket, you will save yourself eighty per cent of your ironing. Do what’s required and leave the rest—life’s too short to iron pants.
Delegate. I really don’t mind cleaning up after other people. If I did, I’d have run away years ago. Neither do I mind ironing other people’s shirts, putting away their underwear or mending the holes in tights. But I expect some help from the other members of my household, which I think is only right and fair. I don’t want my kids to think that Mummy = Servant, or my husband to take me for granted. In today’s family, asking your man to empty the dishwasher or your kids to make their beds and tidy their rooms shouldn’t be met with shock.
A stitch in time. Lots of jobs are much easier, or even negated, if you get in there straight away. Soak stains immediately in water (blood stains should only ever be soaked in
cold water), rinse pots and frying pans as soon as you’ve finished using them, shower the bath down as soon the water has run out, and so on. By doing things like this you’ll halve the amount of scrubbing you need to do.
Have one laundry basket for the entire family. I’ve stayed with people whose children have their own laundry baskets and where each member of the family decides for themselves when to put on a load of washing. The consequence is that dirty clothes can lurk for weeks at the bottom of laundry baskets, and the washing machine is put on half-full almost every day. This is so wasteful in terms of water, electricity and washing powder that poor Planet Earth has her work cut out to stay operational. A communal place for the dirties means everyone gets clean clothes when they need them, and the machine is only used when there’s enough to fill it.
Shoes off! My mother is obsessive about this, having been brought up in a Communist country where everyone was allowed exactly the same amount of living space (usually almost enough to swing a very small cat if you kept your arms bent and moved most of the furniture out) and the inside of each apartment was considered filthy if it had the tiniest grain of dust in it. I now understand how sensible this obsession is: taking shoes off the second you enter a house, and preferably just outside it, keeps most of the dirt out and means you have a lot less housework to do. I will try!
Little and often. Don’t wait until the cleaning and tidying jobs mount up: you will feel horrible in the mess, and worse as you trudge through the list of things to do. Always take something back upstairs as you go, and keep putting things away as you wander about the house, and you’ll find that there is much less to tidy and clean at the end of the day. I know it’s obvious, but it’s amazing what a big difference it makes if you can get into the habit of it.
Linen cupboard. Keep this as clearly labelled and organised as possible. Nobody likes such boring jobs as making the beds or putting out clean towels, but you can make it easier on yourself: separate doubles, singles, towels and sheets, and attach pretty labels for each one to their appropriate place on the shelf. There’s something very pleasing about opening an airing cupboard (or laundry room, should you have such a posh thing) to find it full of beautifully folded, clearly labelled laundry. I
must get out more!
Sharing the Load: How about some help around here?!
June 2006, 8 p.m.
Sometimes I honestly believe that I am the only person in this house who is even vaguely aware of their surroundings. I swear, if I didn’t continuously go around like a neurotic hen, picking up, putting away, wiping, sweeping, adjusting, mending and improving this place, we would still live in a hideous, smelly dump of a place with 1970s carpets, embossed wallpaper and carpet in the kitchen! The worst thing is that I am made to feel that all of this house-improvement is solely for my own benefit, and that nobody else really minds living in a shit-hole. This is so unfair. Surely all my effort is making life for all of us more pleasant, and probably increasing the value of the house at the same time? A little appreciation and HELP really wouldn’t go amiss.
It’s astounding to me that, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, when we can fly to Mars, communicate with the other side of the world almost instantaneously, watch crap on over a hundred television channels and buy jeans to fit every imaginable shape of man, woman or child, the workload required to run a family home is still utterly unequally divided between the members of the family. On the home front, it’s as though we haven’t progressed since the Dark Ages—bar the better-fitting clothes, of course—and it’s something that brings out the raving feminist in me, even when my husband is being especially helpful.
Let me give you some examples from my dear, honest, wornout friends.
Sugie, photographer, mother of three and wife for eight years:
I do ninety per cent of the housework and homemaker stuff. When I didn’t work I didn’t mind—it made sense. But I now have a part-time job AND the kids to manage, and I still do all the shopping, cooking, cleaning and school stuff. I sometimes wonder if I’m being taken for granted, or if I’m just being a wimp.
Julie, data analyst, mother of four and wife for twelve years:
I wish I’d set out some different rules at the start,
