Sometimes I wish our "Brady Bunch" had our own Alice! Someone to do the cooking, cleaning and laundry. Oh, I just realized we do, ME! I am the "Alice" in this modern day family. So, does that mean our "Brady Bunch" needs a Carol? A cutely composed and coiffed mother that has endless creativity and caring yet clever comebacks. I am finding it difficult to be both Carol and Alice. Anyone else? If my house is clean, lawn mowed... then I look a fright! If I have exercised, showered, blah blah blah then my chores haven't been completed but, dinner might be on the table. Until about five years ago, I found it difficult to fall asleep unless the house was relatively picked up. Most certainly, the kitchen HAD to be cleaned just like the Bradys.
Fast forward to Brady and I watching a different type of TV show decades latter and you find me still daydreaming about how to be the perfect wife, mother of five and housekeeper. Several years ago when Brady and I discovered the DVR we began recording CSI (that was when there was only one CSI). They had a particularly plot thickening serial killer on the lose in Las Vegas that would create miniature models of his crime scene leaving it for them to find at the crime scene to "help" them solve the murder. One evening after watching that intriguing episode, I had what I though was a brilliant idea!!! To create a miniature model of my own home, identical down to the leopard print throw pillows. Then, I could actually go to sleep easily knowing my house or at least a miniature replica of it was "clean" and picture perfect. No scratches on the coffee table, no marker on the wall, no spots on the bathroom mirror! As I was enthusiastically sharing this epiphany with Brady he, choosing his words carefully, let me know that I might be perceived as just a little crazy for creating another model house just like the one we live in just to sleep peacefully at night.
Okay, okay, I won't become psychotic over my home, I get it! I guess it is time for a brainstorming session... uh let me think really hard, oh I got it, we hire a house keeper! Hallelujah! That was a wonderful idea!!! Especially since the boys were so little and Brady and the girls were so busy! Unfortunately, since I didn't work outside the home and since I feel guilty pretty much all the time (I am the person who feels guilty if I'm cleaning because I should be playing with the kids and when I'm playing with the kids I feel guilty because I should be cleaning the house). I ,of course, began to feel guilty about having someone else clean our house. The biggest reason I felt guilty was I thought I was doing a disservice to my children. I couldn't help but feel I was possibly setting a precedent that the economy or various other circumstances just couldn't be guaranteed for my would-be adult children in years to come. I want my daughters to have the freedom to fall in love with whomever they want "for richer or poorer", knowing they have fully experienced the icky ins and time consuming outs of cleaning a home. That they would never resent their husband for not maintaining the lifestyle they had grown too comfortably accustomed. I want my sons to know how to clean a home as well. I hope and pray their wives will thank me for this one day because to be quite honest it would be so nice to have some professional help around here. It is a sacrifice that I pray will have a pleasant long term return for all of us. I haven't let my kids know that this is why we don't have paid help around here. It is just us, the ones who live here cleaning up after ourselves. However, one day they will read my blog and know. They will know that I loved them enough to make them work and loved them enough to let them see their mama work! Also, they get to hear me say over and over again, "if you make a mess you clean it up," I hope that sinks deep into their soul and carries them through life's messes. I guess we don't need an Alice after all!
