Wittering

[ailbhe]

God this period nonsense is too much. I still can't tell whether I have had 4 periods since Astrid's birth - that is, in under 8 weeks, because before that I had postnatal discharge called "lochia" which is similar but not the same and doesn't come with ovulation pain - or just pain followed by bleeding for no reason.

Oh, followed by bad temper, emotional lability, liability, whatever, and bleeding. Yeah.

Anyway today I was hanging laundry in the garden and thinking, as I often do, of that bit in WifeWork where she talks about how housework is actually skilled labour.

It is. I sorted the laundry and hung it depending on what I wanted to achieve. The nappies were hung outdoors so that the sun could bleach them, and I hung them in the right way on the line for that to happen. They were washed with vinegar to soften them, and before hanging I snapped them sharply four times each, holding each side in turn, to make them dry flat and comfortable for the baby to wear. That snap is something Rob can't do, by the way, in spite of trying; it's a knack he hasn't been able to learn. Knack means skill, I think.

Sorting laundry is not unskilled work, either. I find it easy, but I know people who find it really tricky to remember which clothes need what treatment, and who either read all the labels all the time or only buy things which can be boilwashed. I have learned to remember which garments are what and choose their laundry treatments accordingly.

Then there's mealplanning, making shopping lists, cooking, serving, cleaning up - all that stuff needs to be learned, and some people never do it.

My children don't know what an ironing board is, mind you. They can chop vegetables with proper knives, though, because I care about food and not hugely about clothes. So some of this is about priorities. What skills people choose to pass on.

Distracting an unhappy child, or mediating in a toy rights dispute, or brushing a child's hair or putting socks on or cutting nails - those are all skilled tasks.

I wonder where one can learn them, if one hasn't had an example growing up?

Comments

[naath]

I'm not sure where one learns these things, I certainly lack some of them like planning meals (I can manage a meal, but planning for a week is Too Much Work) and keeping houses really clean.

I solve the laundry question by doing everything at 30 on the delicates cycle, separated only into 'white' and 'not-white'; I've yet to have something fail to be clean enough this way, although I suspect it wouldn't work very well for nappies.

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

I think you are totally right about these skills. I don't have all the ones that you do, though! I am careful about washing, but most clothes get done at 30 or less these days, unless there's a specific reason (like cat sick!) to go hotter.

I assume that you being you, you've considered things like the implant and wotnot to regulate your hormones a bit? It sounds like not much fun, anyway :(

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

The publishers of Wifework have annoyed me. I have a copy from a yew years back with a black cover & I noticed that its' recently been re-published in pink :(

My mother never showed me how to cook or do housework, I picked it up once I left home through common sense.

[ailbhe]

The implant made me absolutely insane. I'm using that to mean not in control of my thoughts and barely in control of my actions, to a dangerous degree. I went "mad as a porridge knife," as someone once called it. I'm hoping that a prolonged course of starflower oil will help the mood thing but the irregularity thing may be beyond assistance.

[cyan-blue.livejournal.com]

Definitely skilled work! Especially the part about distracting an unhappy child, or mediating in a toy rights dispute... parenting so that kids feel supported and loved but with proper limits takes skill for sure.

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

I had spotting last week for the first time ever. I've had pmt for the past few days & skoffed an entire family bag of sweets last night.

[ailbhe]

At least with housework you can tell pretty quickly if you're doing it right.

[cabbagemedley.livejournal.com]

Housework and childcare are definitely skilled. I know things about caring for Sophie that Owl doesn't, because he doesn't do them every day. I hang laundry out more effectively than he does. And he does some things better than I do, too, because they tend to be his chores.

[piqueen.livejournal.com]

I have to confess, one of the lovely things about living alone is how much free time I have now I just do stuff rather than try to interest and remind someone else into doing half of it. I can also put stuff away so I go along so I no longer have to spend 3 hours at the weekend restoring order to the house. I throw away hardly any food as I don't have someone overfilling the fridge with food they have no intention of actually cooking and as I can actually use a plate I don't have to hoover up crumbs frequently.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Someone I know who grew up in a household of physician parents and a stream of short-term housekeepers didn't learn them growing up. Fortunately, she grew up to be a researcher, so for things like how to clean clothes, she bought books and annotated them. For things like how to understand kids, she mostly just listened to them I think.

[biascut.livejournal.com]

Oh gosh - definitely skilled work! You only have to look at someone who isn't used to washing up to see that. I have to control myself incredibly carefully when I watch my best friend wash up, because she's very undextrous and it takes her ages, handling each plate very carefully and having to pick it up and move it around to get about two thirds of the surface in contact with the cloth. Whereas I woosh the cloth around and wipe the whole thing, and wipe it again if it doesn't feel smooth and shiny on the first go. I just LONG to snatch it off her and do it QUICKLY. Same with watching her stir food - I know exactly the speed and weight I stir food, depending on the consistency, and it's so frustrating watching someone who doesn't know how!

[the0lady.livejournal.com]

You betcha you can learn this stuff even if you haven't grown up with it. I still wash up the way I was made to in the army (rather than they way my grandmother or mother do), for example - so even if you did learn things, you can un-learn or re-learn them. That's pretty much the definition os "skill", ain't it?

Also, my mom can't iron worth a damn, so I taught myself from a book (for little girls, on how to be good little housewives, which is a whole other FEMINIST RAGE issue, but it came in handy - I learned how to pack a suitcase properly from that too, and boy has that been useful over the years!).

I think A, who was born in the 50s and grew up with a 100% home-maker mother, had to figure out things like laundry from first principles when he moved out. He's much better at it than I am!

[nitoda]

Thanks for posting this. It's good to be reminded that what I take for granted in myself and get frustrated over the lack of in my partners is a unique skill set and one they've never acquired and have no interest in acquiring. Though when I see one of my partners hang the towel correctly one day and then go back to doing it incorrectly every other day despite my telling them they had done so well on the day they did it correctly, I still want to scream at them. I find myself thinking all the time, "What's so hard about [for example] putting the towel away the right way so it will actually dry before you use it again?"

[ailbhe]

Well, I learned almost all of it as an adult, myself, so I know one can. The different ways how is what I'm wondering about. I learned a lot about housework while working in restaurants, for example - especially about cleaning toilets and bathrooms - and laundry I learned by reading things in books. Rob taught me how to iron a shirt without wrinkling the bits you've already done and I taught him how to iron things until they are ironed. Peg Bracken helped me with how to actually get everything done and how to choose which bits to skip when I can't, and Flylady helped me learn not to hit evangelical Christians with rocks and also to develop useful habits.

[ailbhe]

Yes, when Rob was away everything was done and dusted by 21:30pm unless a child was out of sorts.

[ailbhe]

I've found using "efficient" and "inefficient" more helpful than "correct" and "incorrect" when explaining my methods to other people. The occasional screaming row helps too.

[nitoda]

:-)

[rmc28]

I learned from examples when I was grown up (I'm still learning when it comes to parenting, though I had so much practice with the baby brother ...) I still haven't really learned to clean a bathroom properly though.

On laundry we considered sorting it but instead went for the "never buy anything that can't be machine washed at 40" approach. The few exceptions go to dry-cleaners.

I'm improving at meal planning and keeping a house nice, though it depends how my week is going: Tony has been doing far more than his share the last few weeks.

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

yes, but you don't get all the egg off the forks nor the potato off the sides of the pots

also: la la laaa, clearly I could never possibly develop the skills required to keep the house free of stray long red hairs, la la laaa.