Keeping Up Appearances (Hiding Your Help)

help

Seven years ago, we were getting ready to move our family from Salt Lake City to San Antonio. At the time I had two children under the age of four, and I was pregnant with my third. It was a nearly impossible task for me to keep the house real estate agent ready with everything else that we had going on. My husband decided the best thing would be to hire a cleaning service to come in once a week to help with the big things. When my husband first made the suggestion, I felt like a bit of a failure, because I couldn’t do one of my jobs. I just want to be clear here, feeling like a failure was all me. No one ever said that I wasn’t doing my part, and my husband was just trying to help, but I felt like if all my friends could keep clean homes, so what was wrong with me?

After the first couple of weeks with the cleaner, I was a lot more comfortable, and our home was so much more organized. It was easier to keep the everyday stuff in order because someone was helping with the big things. It was such a wonderful feeling to not be overwhelmed by my house.

One night I was out with some friends and I mentioned that we were using a cleaning service, and that I loved how much easier it made things. One of my friends responded by telling me that she had been using the same service for years, and that she didn’t think her family would survive without the help. All I wondered was why no one had mentioned this to me earlier!

Fast forward seven years, and now we have six young kids, and my house is no cleaner! A few times a year, my husband will call in a service to help me through a crazy time. Each and every time I wish that we had someone come and help on a regular basis. I still feel like I should be able to do everything by myself, but I always encourage my friends to get help. I think that if I can convince enough people to get help, then I won’t feel like the only one who can’t do it all. Am I the only one who feels like this? Do you have help, and if you do, do you tell your friends, or do you keep it to yourself?

Sarah
Sarah is originally from the east coast of Canada and moved to San Antonio from Salt Lake City 6 years ago for her husband’s job. They have 6 children: Samuel (9), William (7), Benjamin (5), Afton Rose (4), Charles (2), and a baby girl that was born on July 1st. She’s a busy stay at home mom, and she loves her job! She loves entertaining and cooking and spending time with friends and family. She’s also come to fully embrace the family road trip! You can read more about Sarah and her family over at Frankly Entertaining.

10 COMMENTS

  1. We have someone come whenever we go out of town, right before we’re entertaining a fairly large group, and right before we have out-of-town guests coming in to stay with us (so this averages to about every other month). Celia does all the stuff that I normally do plus bigger stuff that I never have time to even think about (e.g., cleaning baseboards), and she’s a lot more thorough than I am. It is an amazing feeling to walk into my house after she’s been there, and I agree, I am totally less stressed (at least for the next few days until my husband & daughter destroy the house again).

    My friends totally know that I use Celia every now & then, and a lot of my friends have a similar situation with a once-a-month housekeeper as well. But my friends & I are ridiculously open & honest with each other. Like, we recently texted each other pictures to see who had the bigger pile of laundry sprawled across the kitchen table waiting to be folded. I guess we’re just equally slobbish so there’s no judgment?

    • Taylor,
      That’s awesome! I wish I had a go to person that I could call like that. We usually end up calling a service, so we get someone different every time.

  2. We have someone come twice a month to help with bathrooms, dusting, and a deep cleaning of the house. I maintain the house the rest of the time, but it would be much more stressful to do it without the help we get. It makes it possible to pick up my house to presentable status in about 20 minutes at any given time.

  3. When I was on bed rest my mom found someone to come help out with the basics that I couldn’t do. With a huge hairy dog and two cats the dust and fur was overtaking the house even with one less person making messes! Two years later we still have once a week help do the big stuff and it makes a world of difference in my stress level and the overall happiness of my home.

    • I love hearing about people who give cleaning as a gift! That would probably be the best shower gift ever! I may have to keep this in mind!

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