Response

Who would have thought something that seems as simple as housecleaning could cause such disruption in the lives of so many?  Growing up the only problems I saw with it was debating with my parents over who should have to do what, my brother or me.  The housework is actually fairly evenly split between my parents and if there was someone doing more work it would probably be my father.  I never saw a power dominance either way because it all seemed pretty fair.  "Maid to Order" by Barbara Ehrenreich opened my eyes to the problems caused by homeowners paying, or often times not paying, others to do the domestic work for them.

Its interesting once one realizes that by teaching younger generations that it is ok to hire someone else to clean will only increase the "domestically incompetent," and encourage the use of money to pay for any other tasks needed.  Housework seems like only a small, even non-existent, problem in the day to day life of Americans, however Ehrenreich has shown that it is just a fraction of the whole problem of people relying on others to clean up their messes, and not just in the cleaning sense.  It seems like the world would be a much better place if everyone just cleaned up after him or herself or took care of what ever he or she caused.