Incessantly Busying Ourselves with the Unimportant - a clean example

Today’s house cleanliness expectations are too high. Most "time-saving" appliances and products have only raised the bar for the standard of clean. Take laundry for example. Only a hundred years ago, laundry was hardly ever done and clothes were often sent out to be laundered or just worn dirty. Since the arrival of the washer and dryer, people have become busier than ever before often washing after just one wear. I don't think the people of a century ago really cared for this standard of clean, and this standard didn't just occur overnight with the enthusiastic arrival of the washer and dryer. Yet by the 1950s, the disregard and devaluation of the housewife's time kept her incessantly busy with this chore.

I remember going to a women’s retreat where one of the speakers spoke of what is expected to keep a home. She quoted nearly 40 hours a week of housework was necessary to keep your home! What? Let me get this straight. This doesn’t include time you need to take care of yourself, be involved in activities, or teach your children. It seems that many people spend more time keeping their floors more spic-and-span than they do educating their own children. I can also see why so many people opt not to be at-home moms or dads if these kinds of hours for house cleaning is really expected of them. I'd rather be at work doing something different too and just pay for a housekeeper.

Recently a door to door saleswoman came to my door. I answered it with two small children hanging off of me. She then asked, "Do you work?" No! I just sit on my a*$ and eat bon-bons all day! Perhaps if I hired a sitter to just watch them, then the sitter would be working! What is wrong with this picture? Anyway, the saleswoman was selling yet another new cleaning product with which to spend my money on and keep me even busier trying to clean the stains I couldn't clean before! There really needs to be a limit to this, and no I am not buying it!

Let it be noted that just a few generations ago housework in general was rarely done and seen as a waste of time, hence, the term "spring cleaning" for that once a year cleaning. Sure it is nice to be cleaner, but I am inclined to think that our society of excess is excessively clean in the home. What about the air we breathe? I don't recall ever licking my dinner off of the floor! Why should our floors be so spic-and-span and our air be so polluted?