The Help

Worth the Wait...and worth staying home with...

A funny thing happened to me last week. I found myself having not one but, multiple conversations on how hard it was to find good help. I had spent the previous week interviewing cleaner/nanny combos and it seemed like they came and went through our tiny little apartment faster than commuters passing through Grand Central. I wasn't happy with any of them. There was one whose mouth hung open like a cod fish staring blankly into space. I later found out that she was "watching the child" one woman had Charlie so bundled up I thought she might pass out from heat stroke. All seemed to agree I was a crap mother and didn't know what I was doing after I declined the remedy of sugar water or putting flour in the bottle to help Charlie sleep.

None of them cleaned all that well though, I will admit our apartment seems to be overflowing with baby gear, school books, papers that seemed to have reproduced and exercise equipment that making heads or tails of this clutter would be a bit daunting. However that didn't change the fact that I caught myself sounding like a 1950's southern housewife complaining about "the help." I recently read that book. I had to after my Mississippi raised grandmother read it and proclaimed it a "pack of lies"...I knew A) that there had to be some truth in this book B) Hilly and my grandmother are cut from the same cloth.

I on the other hand feel a little bit like the white trash character whose maid thinks she is insane. Her inability to get out of her sweats until ten minutes before her husband gets home, her unorganized household and her brassy hair are all something I can identify with. Even with a maid coming in, my house is still a mess, I need my highlights retouched and Charlie and I are often in our pajamas until well, it's time to put them on again.

I have turned into a housewife without any of the housewife skills. At the moment I barely cook, the bed gets made usually as we are about to get back in it, I don't iron so my husband goes around rumpled looking, most of my clothes have a little bit of spit up on them and I had no idea what was happening in Egypt for about five days . I have to google the headlines before we go out so I can converse about something other than how hard it is to find good help and how adorable my child is.

I've been debating taking on a project at the University which would have me out of my pj's and back into a world that doesn't revolve around nappy changes, play dates and searching for the perfect maid. But I think I'm happy here...I may be crap at being a housewife and I know my career will be short lived but I'm just not ready to leave my daughter or my pj's.