I grew up in a era when most women did not work out of the home. There was too much work to do in the home. Fathers worked and provided for the family. Mothers birthed the children and nurtured them. Mothers maintained the home and kept it clean. This was before the time when most modern common labor saving devices existed. Devices such as gas or electric stoves, refrigerators, microweave ovens, and TV dinners. I bet there are lots of you who don't know what that is even though you eat the modern equivalent. This was before the time of clothes washers and clothes dryers, stay pressed clothes and modern fabrics. I can still remember the great hubub when my mother got a wringer washer. She didn't have to use the wash board as much, but she still had to dry the clothes on the clothes-line and iron most of them. This was before the time of electric vacuum cleaners. My mother used manual carpet sweeper.
We couldn't afford a maid and since my mother was a full time homemaker, we didn't need one. I write homemaker, not housewife. No woman is married to a house.
My wife worked a full time job out of the home most of the time, for four decades. The only time s that she didn't work out of the home was when she was breast feeding. So we did hire a cleaning lady who came to the house once a week to do the heavy cleaning jobs. The cleaning lady could do a weeks worth of laundry while she was cleaning the floors. My wife still prepared a meal for the entire family every night.
My daughter is an executive who works about 50 hours a week. She has blessed us with two grandchildren. She doesn't have a cleaning lady but the four of them eat out most evenings and everyone pitches to do the laundry and keep the house clean.
We are both retired now and we don't have a cleaning lady. We could afford one and as we are getting older, we are considering hiring some part time help, but haven't done it yet.
