This past June 2017 I hosted a HouseCleaning home economics course for HighSchool students of Saint monicas homeschhool group. Teenagers engaged in practical home economics, learning how to clean the homes of volunteering moms while practicing infection control techniques, choosing efficient tools and quality Green and natural alternatives to chemical cleaners.
These teens were taught teamwork and time management skills in addition to fine detail and the use of body mechanics while implementing everyday HouseCleaning tasks: dusting, kitchen and bathroom cleaning, vacuuming and mopping, as well as laundering and bed making on a professional level.
I was especially impressed with the motivation of these teens, the pride with which they showed, over a job well done, and their willingness to respect a typically detested task: housechores.
“Growing up in the 60’s and later, our mothers were especially focused on the formal academic education of their daughters, accidentally neglecting to educate us in the activities of everyday life”, expresses concerned, homeschooling mother, Amy Kelley of Mt.Kisco, NY; also mother to one of my home economics course students. Her comment was one of the motivating forces behind my providing this course; I was hoping to help change this decline in young women of the future, as they succeed academically and professionally, while ensuring that we as women, do not decline in our ability to care for ourselves, our family and our home on a domestic level.
Inevitably as women now occupy 50% of the work force, we either have to be able to uphold both sides of our lives: our home and our career OR If we are unable or incapable of doing so, we will be forced into affording a service to compensate for us. Some of us will never be in a position to afford such services, and I just want these uprising women to have these services as a luxury if they do choose to, and not out of necessities or oven worse neglect themselves or their own homes needs completely, from just not knowing how.
These ladies learned how to break down tasks into manageable time frames in order to complete all within the frequency with which their needs require. They received a certificate of completion and a letter of reference from myself, should they choose to take their tasks to the next level, as supplemental incomes, throughout their college careers; an alternative to the average opportunities of retail, waitressing, bartending and babysitting that most students work their academic careers around. In addition, HouseCleaning is an opportunity that doubles their potential hourly wages than most of those other opportunities.
In the early 1900’s the revered “dress doctors” lead by Mary Brooks Pricken, and aided by the USDA, helped bring womens fashions to a level of self respect for those in every budget, and I believe it’s time to do the same thing with regards to the upkeep of the home. Women’s fashions helped get our country through times of war, strict budgets and provided a level of equality to those of all different financial status’s and I believe that HouseCleaning could and SHOULD do the same.
Her House 