The Housework Paradox

I have a problem to which there is no solution, a question to which there is no answer. There are no flow charts, bar graphs, or scientific models that can make it clear. All of the most brilliant minds combined could not- though I doubt they’ve ever tried to- solve this equation. I call it “The Housework Paradox.” It goes as follows: My two primary duties as a housewife are to 1.) care for the children and 2.) maintain the cleanliness of the house, and yet I cannot do one without forfeiting the other. The two responsibilities are irrevocably incompatible.

Take vacuuming for example. When Josie was a toddler she was scared to death of the vacuum cleaner. The mere sight of it would cause her to burst into tears and when it was turned on the loud revving sound would start her quivering in terror. The only other logical option was to vacuum while she was sleeping, but the noise would wake her from whatever sleep cycle I had just recently fought hard to put her in. So I couldn’t vacuum when she was awake but I couldn’t vacuum when she was asleep and, therefore, I rarely vacuumed. Thankfully she has out grown her vacuum-phobia, but now I have the opposite problem. Jamie and Johnny love the vacuum cleaner! So much so that they can’t keep their hands off it from the moment it emerges from behind the closet doors. Jamie drops whatever he’s doing and heads straight for the hose and nozzle attachments, yanks them from their holsters, and starts to invent random contraptions out of them. Johnny instantly makes a B-line for what in his eyes must be the mystical machine. He wants to interact with it on any level possible- he’s tried chewing it, riding it, sitting in its path, pulling it down, and pushing it over. I could try vacuuming after all the kids are in bed for the night but, honestly, these boys run me so ragged that the last thing I want to do at the end of the day is clean. So again, I can’t vacuum when the kids are awake but I can’t vacuum when the kids are asleep. Basically, I can't vacuum at all.

 And since we’re on the subject, let’s talk about cleaning the kitchen floor. Seriously, with three kids and two dogs, what’s the point? Before I can even make it around my tiny nook of a kitchen with a mop, two or more filthy feet come fumbling along to investigate. Then within hours, if not minutes, or seconds even, we sit down at the table for a meal and a fork full of spaghetti is dropped or a cup full of juice is spilled or a bowl full of Jell-o is flung. Puddles, scraps, crumbs. You can eat off my floor, but cleanliness has nothing to do with it.

And don’t get me started on folding laundry. I’ve tried devising a system to make sense of the endless insanity. Trust me, it’s hopeless. When I sit on the couch to sort and fold then inquiring minds and curious hands can’t restrain themselves from toppling my carefully ordered piles or returning the items to the recepticles from whence they just came. So instead I bring the laundry baskets upstairs and attempt to sort the clothes, one item at a time, while hanging them in the closet or folding them in the drawers. Meanwhile, my little rascals are running amuck through the rest of the house tearing through toy bins (if I’m lucky! Otherwise they’re raiding the fridge or splashing in the toilet or causing other such mischief). So, just so we’re clear, in order to devote time to housework, I have to do more housework as payment. Great.

But of all the housework that never gets done, the thing that gets done the least is cleaning the bathrooms. Two words: toxic chemicals. What housewife in her right mind would open up an endless array of harmful, poisonous, potentially lethal substances in the presence of her young children? Not me, that’s for sure. I’m college educated! (I had to throw that in there because I’ve got $30,000 worth of student debt and its sole benefit to me is the bragging rights.) So the bottles of Lysol and cans of Comet stay locked up high in their child-proofed cupboard and the bathroom remains un-cleaned.

And there you have it. The Housework Paradox. I need to clean because I have kids but I can’t clean because I have kids. I’m the rope in a domestic tug-of-war, being pulled from both ends, by my children on one side and my housework on the other. Sooner or later one of them has to give and the other one ends up in the mud. And that is why my house is a muddy mess.