‘A cleaner saved my marriage’

Outsourcing your housework doesn’t mean you are rich or lazy. These ordinary families tell Joanna Davis it has changed their lives.

Erica Viedma was feeling swamped with housework and resentful of her husband, Pippin Wright-Stow. And he was feeling resentful back. With three children, and two businesses to run, the Christchurch couple eventually realised there was just too much work for two people in also running the household.

‘‘We were both doing unseen, unvalued work as parents,’’ Viedma says. ‘‘We were having these arguments and feeling really resentful of each other.’’

A decision to employ a fortnightly cleaner ‘‘saved our marriage’’, Viedma says. She teaches yoga and mindfulness, and Wright-Stow is an architectural designer.

‘‘I would put that much effort into cleaning and cooking I would overdo it. I want that mental work to go into my mahi, not into cooking and cleaning.

‘‘It became a feminist issue. I would say to Pippin, I don’t think you’re doing 50%.

‘‘That was me putting a line in the sand. This is actually hard work: It should be valued, and it should be paid.’’

The Viedma/Wright-Stow family is not alone in finding domestic work tipping towards an unequal division.

Last year, a Westpac survey of 2400 Kiwis suggested as few as 7 per cent of couples, where both worked full time, equally shared the housework. In the survey, men estimated they did 43 per cent of the unpaid work at home, and women thought men did just 31 per cent of it.

Male respondents thought their partners did 11 hours of care work a week, well below the 25 hours female respondents said they averaged.

Economist Marilyn Waring, a professor of public policy at Auckland University of Technology, has long been a critic of the undervaluing of domestic work which largely falls to women. In response to the Westpac survey, she told Stuff that women tended to carry what’s called the ‘‘cognitive load’’ of households, taking responsibility for forward planning, children’s healthcare and education, balancing the household budget, and other stressful planning tasks.

But, it’s not all about gender politics. Viedma says as well as relieving her of the bulk of the work, a cleaner simply ‘‘brings the house back to a neutral state’’.

‘‘It just means you don’t feel like you’re sliding backwards as a family.’’

Having a cleaner doesn’t mean their children, aged 9, 13 and 16, don’t do anything around the home. Their 13-year-old son cooks dinner most nights, using the Bargain Box from My Food Bag. And the 16-year-old does the dishes.

Viedma also adds that they are not a highincome household. ‘‘We don’t have a whole lot of money, it’s not a luxury. It keeps us going as a household.

‘‘We sacrifice other things for that. Pippin and I don’t buy each other birthday and Christmas presents. We don’t take big holidays.’’

Time to just be with the children

Nelson psychologist Jessica Wills had a cleaner for three years while studying for her Masters in educational psychology, working full time and parenting three children.

She had someone come once a week for a couple of hours to vacuum, mop, change sheets, hang out laundry and clean the bathroom.

She says she initially felt guilty because she had taken on the ‘‘old-fashioned values’’ of her then partner.

‘‘The expectation was that I clean the house. Initially, I felt terrible [about having a cleaner]. I felt like an incompetent woman; that I should be able to have three kids, go to work, study and do all the things.’’

It was in conversation with other women that she realised ‘‘you can’t do all the things’’, and paying someone else to do domestic work frees up valuable time.

‘‘It just meant that the time I had with the kids was just with the kids.’’

Rachel Paul, from South Canterbury-based cleaning and gardening business Domestic Bliss, says for a lot of families, having a cleaner is simply a matter of recognising they don’t enjoy the work, acknowledging their time is limited, and ‘‘freeing up the weekend’’.

Her business encompasses residential cleaning, a lawn service and extra jobs such as oven-cleaning and quarterly window-cleaning. Most of her clients are not rich, but are working full time or are older and less physically able. ‘‘We lose clients when things are really tough, like when someone has lost their job. Otherwise, most people have to budget for it – they might only have a cleaner for a couple of hours a week – and it’s a priority to have it done.’’

No extended family

Daniel and Fran Huelsmeyer moved to New Zealand from Germany in 2015, meaning they had no family to call on for help when life suddenly became very busy.

They started a business, initially running accommodation at Split Apple Rock, Tasman, then started Ruru Homes, a tiny-home building company.

When work was flat-out, Fran Huelsmeyer says they ‘‘only ate toast with jam three times a day because I didn’t get a chance to get to the supermarket. It was quite clear we couldn’t cope with the chaos.’’

By May last year, with three children and a rocketing business, they realised they ‘‘desperately’’ needed help. They employed Ella, a trained chef who had worked managing super yachts, to be their live-in housekeeper and nanny.

‘‘And life makes sense again,’’ Huelsmeyer says. ‘‘Initially, she helped with laundry, housework and food, so we could eat healthily again, and the kids could get their lunchboxes packed.’’

Once they moved their worksite to nearby Motueka, Ella also took over ‘‘daycare’’ for 2-yearold Jacob.

‘‘I need to be here [in the office]. I can’t work with a 2-year-old on my lap,’’ Huelsmeyer says. ‘‘In normal circumstances, maybe you’d have a grandmother, sister, aunt or your childhood friends. But we basically have no-one.

‘‘By now she’s our guardian angel. And she enjoys it: She lives that role.’’