Here is my post in response to a friend's dilemma of 'to get a house cleaner or not':

Girl - You are crazy. Just nuts. Get the house cleaner. You are WAY over-thinking it, over-indulging in mother-guilt. Here is the deal:

1. You can get a house cleaner to do as much or as little as you pay her to. I'm cheap so I have a lady who doesn't do laundry, doesn't pick-up and put-away - she just CLEANS. Although, Sweet Mary, she will put on the clean sheets if I leave them out. And I love clean sheets. Esp when I didn't have to wrestle them onto the freakin' bed myself.

2. "Cleaning" so she can come is a necessary evil. I have decided that if I didn't have to clean for her, there are cluttered areas that would NEVER get picked up. I'm not really 'cleaning' for her, just picking up so she can get to the dirt.

3. I don't get to feeling too high and mighty for having a house-cleaner (mine comes every other week) - I still have to clean. My kids still make a mess at the table every night, my dog still slings water all over the floor near his bowl and my husband still leaves all his clothes on the floor next to the bed. Oh wait - I don't pick THAT up. If he wants it washed, it had better hit the laundry basket or he does it himself. But I digress... The point is - I am still keeping my own house, but now I don't have to SCRUB. And I normally don't have to do anything in the bathroom more than just the occasional counter wipe. That is totally worth it to me.

The only down side is I worry that my kids will have some kind of entitled attitude, like "Oh, Jackie will clean that". I hardly ever have her clean upstairs (kids/guest domain). I do those bathrooms when they need it (the kids still use ours mostly anyway) and will teach the kids to do it when they are old enough to swill the chemicals. I think I'll tell them that they can have Jackie come upstairs when they have enough money to pay her. At least that is what I'm thinking now. I'll let you know my plan when they actually start acting that bratty. Here is what I think about the Mommy-guilt. I'm sure that my Mom had guilt about not churning her own butter or killing her own chickens, but it didn't stop her from going to Winn-Dixie! If she'd had the money, and known any way to GET a house cleaner, she would have had help to clean the house, too!

Ask your friends who they use and get somebody in that house! It really does force the house clean at least every time they come -and it's only painful the first time.

Oh... and I quit my job, but kept the house cleaner. It was a package deal. I know I'm evil, I'm wallowing in it. :)

ADDENDUM: I have to admit, the part about my Mom was exaggerated for effect. My Mom's mother never churned butter or killed a chicken, to my knowledge. However, I'm sure my Mom felt guilt over short cuts in the kitchen or something (I can't think of any that she made, but surely there was something) but what kind of comparison would that have made, huh? And, as a matter of fact, during the window of time where my Mom was working long hours and making decent money, she DID have a lady come clean the house. So there.

Hopefully my Mom won't mind me taking some literary liscense with her life and my friend will hire a house cleaner before she finds out about my exaggerations. :)

Also - I have a One Year Of Staying Home Anniversary blog brewing.... stay tuned. Maybe I can get it posted before the second anniverary. Ha.