Do frum women get more help than non frum women?

oliveoil

Sun, Jul 28 2013, 10:20 pm

gold21 wrote:

Uh... what exactly is detrimental about it, oliveoil?

It's detrimental when women become convinced that they can't manage alone.

Cleaning help is great if you can afford it. It certainly makes life easier.

But it is almost never a true necessity.

When it becomes viewed us such, people lose the ability and confidence in their ability, to take care of their own needs when they can't get cleaning help.

It's also valuable for children to learn to clean, and to learn that cleaning is a necessary and doable part of life.

MaBelleVie

Sun, Jul 28 2013, 10:37 pm

Unless people have very frequent help, I can't see them becoming dependent to the point that they lose faith in their own ability to manage cleaning. And of course kids clean up after themselves if there isn't someone who's always available to do it.

When my help is on vacation, it can be hard to rework my schedule so that I have time and energy to do what she normally does. But I don't feel helpless or anything. Then again, I'm the kind of person who is OK with leaving clean socks and undies in the dryer all week and letting people take stuff out as needed. So I would probably be fine without help too, although my mental health is in better shape when my house is clean and organized.

My non frum coworkers who are either single or married without children have cleaning help. At that stage in my life, I didn't. I think cleaning help is a given among certain classes in the US.

gold21

Mon, Jul 29 2013, 2:29 am

oliveoil wrote:

gold21 wrote:

Uh... what exactly is detrimental about it, oliveoil?

I grew up without cleaning help. I have mixed feelings on how that played out. I definitely think stress would have been relieved from my mom and my 2 older sisters if we would have had help.

As a mom myself now, I chose to get help because I felt I needed it, not because I doubted my abilities to do household chores. Do I need cleaning help like I need bread and water? No. Do I need it like I need a new outfit and face wash? Yes.

amother

Mon, Jul 29 2013, 3:01 am

I agree that the definition of clean varies. I just visited a wealthy friend in NY. They have two little kids and the cleaner comes once every two weeks. She is a SAHM and her dh helps out a lot. The house is tidy in between those two weeks but it is not clean. Nobody scrubs out the toilets or sinks or floors, they are just spot cleaned as necessary.
They consider it very clean, but where I live that would be called neglected. In any case, I was impressed by how calm their house was and how much free time they had.

Fox

Mon, Jul 29 2013, 2:10 pm

Sadly, every community has a certain percentage of "princesses" for whom life just isn't worth living without cleaning help and mid-winter jaunts to Florida and $1000 strollers and fresh long-stemmed strawberries and whatever particular bug has settled in their collective ear. Most of us know one or two women like this or at least overhear them at simchas and fundraising dinners.

It's easy, therefore, to extrapolate that princess-ness is a contagion marching unchecked through the frum world. But in my experience, the truth is that the percentage of obnoxious princesses is relatively low and stays pretty constant -- it's just always an annoying buzz in the background.

Every few months, we chew over whether cleaning help is a luxury or necessity, and the conclusion is generally, "Yes." Sometimes it's a luxury. Sometimes it's a necessity. Sometimes it's an affordable luxury. There are so many variables that it's impossible to calculate.

I suspect that what the OP and the rest of us really object to is the kind of interpersonal skills displayed by many of our "princesses."

There's a huge difference between saying, "B"H, I've been able to have some cleaning help this year, and I've really appreciated ditching my most-hated chores," and saying, "Eeew! You don't have someone to clean your bathrooms?! I just couldn't live like that!"

It doesn't matter what particular luxury-versus-necessity topic we're debating. Even the most reasonable expense can be made to sound obnoxious when discussed by a spoiled, vacuous woman with a nasal whine and a face that suggests she's just smelled something particularly malodorous.

Chayalle

Mon, Jul 29 2013, 2:22 pm

I think different strokes for different folks. Like another poster said, everyone prioritizes their spending differently.

If cleaning help lowers your stress level, then by all means get cleaning help. If I get my stress out of my system by scrubbing my own floor and then going out to pizza, then I don't feel that I have to get cleaning help and cook dinner because of a Rebetzin who said she would've gotten more cleaning help.

What I find annoying is the assumptions I get all the time that everyone MUST have cleaning help or something is wrong with them.

I can't tell you how many times I've gotten calls from neighbors asking me if by any chance my cleaning lady has extra hours. (Since I am the cleaning lady - the answer is NO.)

chocolate chips

Mon, Jul 29 2013, 2:47 pm

I have had a cleaner twice.
Once when I was pregnant with ds, my mil sent over hers for an hour to clean the bathroom and kitchen (two rooms I couldn't look at!) and the second time right before I arrived back from an 8 week trip to my parents, my mil sent her lady to dust and polish and make the beds.

I personally know a few not frum and even a non jewish lady who has a cleaner. Hey what about all those ladies in Manhattan, not jewish, that have nannies n all?! They work full or part time, some of them are simply socialites and need a cleaner to clean the kitchen so that the guests can see it sparkling.

A frum woman, as others have mentioned have more kids, are younger etc.

I also think a young mother who is working even part time, comes home, cooks supper puts her kids to bed and spot cleans the kitchen, will crash out in bed, and it is well deserved and much needed.
A cleaner coming once a week will deep clean her house.

I think of it like a facial. Cleansing your face every day is important to keep it clean. Exfoliating and/or having a facial is also important to deep cleanse it and get all the dirt out properly. Does it need to be done every day? no. Once a week, possibly, once a month, for sure!
Some women either can't find the time, don't know how or just don't like to do the real cleaning like polishing, dusting, scrubbing etc. If you can afford a cleaner why not.
If you can't but it is important for whatever personal reason, get one too.

I would love a cleaner to clean my bathroom and my stove. Thats it. 1 hour every two weeks. But I can't afford it and if I get off my lazy rear-end I can do it myself so I don't have a cleaner.
If I had 4 kids and a job and $10 extra cash, I would get a cleaner.

I really don't think as a blanket statement, you can say frum women have it and non frum don't. I just think its more of a necessity for frum women.

amother

Mon, Jul 29 2013, 5:43 pm

OP here! So I've been trying to figure out what exactly had me so bothered. (and as I mentioned, I have my own cleaning help so I'm not some crazy anti person)

I guess there's this point that each woman makes for herself when she decides whether to simply work harder or find the money to pay someone else. I do think that there is value to doing certain things yourself, even if you have the money to pay someone else. If weekly cleaning help seems fine, what if someone had daily help? Is there any point where you say, well this is just silly for a healthy person?

And this quote put it best what is bothering me deep down

"I think they do, at least based on threads here where people who are barely making ends meet are encouraged to get/already have cleaning help. I don't think that is the norm in the non-frum world."

My stay at home sister in law, who is deep in poverty right now was recently told by the head of her kids' school that she shouldn't feel like she should do without cleaning help. That it's a necessity that everyone has these days. And it had me thinking, we're blessed to be able to give so much tzedekah, but are we giving it to families who spend on things that are luxuries like this?

I belong to a bargain board on a different site and those women would never have weekly cleaning help, send thir kids to camp all summer etc etc But certain things are just a norm in the frum world, whether you have the money or not.

paprika

Mon, Jul 29 2013, 7:17 pm

gold21 wrote:

Uh... what exactly is detrimental about it, oliveoil?

Why not bring women down some more. Enough that Kate middleton's post-baby body was criticized by the media, enough with all other ridiculous expectations and pressures placed on women (particularly moms)- now cleaning help is being criticized too?

Bringing women down some more. Lovely. I especially love how it's us women bringing ourselves down.

Oliveoil probably knows people that make cleaning help into a peer pressure thing. There are people that will consider others 'dirty' if they don't have x amount of cleaning help a week.

Yakira

Mon, Jul 29 2013, 8:05 pm

we don't have regular cleaning help. We get a full day of cleaning help once every six weeks or so when we really need it and company is coming. We have a house and 3 kids and we both work but DH helps out before shabbos. I would love to have consistant cleaning help. I know when we get it it makes the whole atmosphere in the house so calm and happy. OTOH we keep cash in a box and I know when I pull out the $50 - thats $50 less which doesnt seem like a lot but when theres not so much to begin with it is. I think if I could do every other week that would be a good compromise.

Barbara

Mon, Jul 29 2013, 8:14 pm

a1mom wrote:

Most of my non jewish co workers don't have help unless they have young kids in which case some will employ a nanny, on the flipside, they have 1-2 kids tops, and don't cook except for the holidays, and sometimes on the weekends, 90 percent of what my cleaning lady does is food/kitcher or kid related, be it food prep, washing dishes, doing my mounds of laundry from the kids, cleaning up toys etc... If I chose to buy takeout everynight the food bill would be about the same price as my food+cleaning lady now, or more and at least I control what goes into the food and can have guests without getting stressed out. that being said, the worst thing that we women do to ourselves is to constantly compare our lives to other people's be it husbands, cleaning help, dress, spending habits etc... Tznius is much more then dress, and comparison's are never helpful.

Your co-workers are atypical in the extreme. Most non-Jews, like most non-religious Jews, cook for their families on the vast majority of nights.

What and where do these people do if they only cook for holidays? That leaves, what, 3 meals a day, about 340 days a year? And why is the supermarket always crowded with people buying seafood and treyf meat every time I go shopping if only Jews cook?

a1mom

Mon, Jul 29 2013, 9:20 pm

Barbara wrote:

a1mom wrote:

The ones that are single cook up some food on the weekend and subsist on cereal/salad from the grocery store, takeout and the occasional meal bummed off their parents. The ones with kids (1-2) may make dinner every night but the majority ( not all) rely heavily on premade TV dinners/ rotisserie chicken from the deli etc. The fact that I cook a full dinner every night is weird to them. also their kids all get free school lunches and sometimes breakfast so mac and cheese ( from a box) is pretty standard fare. most of what my help does involves chopping vegetables, cleaning chicken, breading schnitzels, cutting up fruit etc. and washing up the dishes I use to prepare breakfast lunch and dinner for my family. I choose to pay her and use the savings to make food from scratch and not rely on almost any pre made items like frozen pizza, waffles, chicken nuggets unless its an emergency. I didn't say that most non jewish people don't cook, I said that my coworkers ( who all work full time) don't. I also live in NYC where takeouts outnumber grocery stores by like 5:1.

groisamomma

Mon, Jul 29 2013, 10:03 pm

a1mom wrote:

Barbara wrote:

a1mom wrote:

That's all very interesting. I'm in New Jersey where I imagine there's no less take-out stores than NYC, my colleagues all work full-time like me and as far as I know from all the conversation around me they all cook regular (even wholesome, gasp!) food for their families. Even the male teachers join the conversations about cooking all the time.