Why I Use Care.com For House Cleaning And Childcare

I know that my Mom stayed home with 9 children and never had help. Oh, she might have had some help…those 9 kids. But, she managed the daily cleaning and our house was clean. I remember my mom on hands and knee pads scrubbing the dining room floor after every dinner. Either she was just very tidy or we were all super messy eaters. I think it might have been a combination. She did the daily tasks, but every Saturday we cleaned the whole house.

One of the benefits of a large group was divide and conquer. My earliest memory of participating in this job was the basement stairs. They were wood so they needed to be scrubbed. Since I was young I think I might have alternated weeks with my older sister. But when it was my turn, I would start at the top of the stairs with my towel and my bucket. I would make it to the bottom and stand there. These stairs were now clean, wet and I was stuck in the basement. I hung out for a while to avoid footprints and then worked my way back up. I decided maybe working my way up was a better method because I ended up at the top of the stairs and I was free to roam the entire house. Have you ever scrubbed stairs? Have you ever scrubbed them going up and not kneeling on a wet step? Visualize for a moment. You can do this. But, trust me. It is not pretty.

I believe many of my arguments with my Mom growing up revolved around cleaning. I know that I never got in trouble for bad grades, but boy did I for a messy room. When I moved back into the house after college, I had a job. I paid rent, my portion of the phone bill and grocery extras. I was supposed to clean my own bathroom. I recall asking my Mom if she would just name the price, do it for me and add it to my bill. I would have paid her $100 not to clean that bathroom. Even when my ‘to be husband’ drove to my parent’s house to ask for my hand in marriage, both of my parents jumped into the conversation. My Mom made sure he knew that he was not getting her best cleaner. My husband laughed and said he knew. I love my parent’s honesty!

I am not a slob, but I am not clutter less. I am quite the little stacker. I vacuum daily. I literally just came in from cleaning the outside windows on a 2 story home. I have cleaned them wearing a baby. I have vacuumed wearing a baby. Come to think of it, I have done a lot of chores wearing a baby.

My kids help, too. They clean their bathroom and then I finalize the work. I am not saying you can eat off our bathroom floors when we are done, but we worked hard! But, when you think about it, why would you WANT to eat off my bathroom floors? My kitchen counters and table are scrubbed down more than once a day. We have 5 little kids. This cannot be avoided. But my true Achilles heel is deep cleaning.

Some might say, “You have 5 kids. You have no time for deep cleaning!” To those I say thank you but trust me, I have time. I can find time for the gym. I can find time to write this. If I wanted to, I could find time for my baseboards. It is not that they are beneath me, which in fact they are since they are so close to the floor, I just really don’t want to do it.

Obviously we can all do whatever we want. I have judged the stay at home Mom with regular housekeepers, especially with school aged kids. We have all pondered, what are you doing all day? They are gone for 8 hours! I am guilty and I admit it.

So I asked my husband if I could get some help. He looked at me like he always does, smiled and said something along the lines of, “You are going to do what you want anyhow.” This man knows me well. Good and bad.

• Babysitters
• Nannies
• Special needs caregivers
• Tutors
• Senior care providers
• Pet sitters
• Dog walkers
• Housekeepers

So I signed up for Care.com again.

I had used Care.com previously to find child care. No, I wasn’t getting someone to watch my kids so I could get a massage. My stepdaughter used to babysit for our occasional date, but now she was a freshman in college. We weren’t waiting 4 years for a date. We could have gone the neighborhood babysitter route, but I wanted someone older than 18.

1. You can create a request to which anyone can reply. I stated exactly what I was looking for, what the job entailed and what the rate would be.

2. I can browse profiles and directly contact any provider that I was interested in and see if they might be a good fit.

You essentially match yourself to your babysitter and then you can cancel your membership. There is no payment thru the site for the providers. You paid for access to their pool of qualified help, including background checks. I have secured 3 awesome sitters this way. My kids will ask for a sitter at times and they are so psyched when she comes to play with them for a few hours.

I had gotten rid of this membership and about 6 months had passed. I thought maybe care.com had housekeeping, too. I was single focused for babysitters the first time, I hadn't even looked. I went to the site and sure enough, they do. Same concept. Different service. So I signed up again for one month. This time I only created a job and posted it. I wanted someone to come to my house every other week for 2 hours and deep clean. My rate was $15/hour.

I got hit with tons of offers. I had cleaning companies in a few times using Groupons and I thought $15 might be low. Apparently not. I have some talked to some wonderful women about helping me out. I have had 2 come to the house and I am choosing just one. I provide her with a list of things I would like done when she is here. I have decided to do other cleaning in the house at the same time. This way more cleaning is getting done and my guilty conscience is a little bit eased.

Some still might say, “You are a stay at home mom! This is your job!” I do not disagree. In addition to being a stay at home mom, I actually have a job. I do database work for a company anywhere from 5-20 hours a week. I really do work. So I told my husband that as long as I can personally afford my biweekly helper, I will keep her on. Once I feel like I can start picking up the slack or it is cutting into my little bit of work money too much, she will have to go.

Until then, I am enjoying some clean baseboards!

When my mother read this she said, "If you can get someone to clean for you...do it!" Maybe she didn't enjoy those kneepads as much as I thought!

© 2012 Karen Lackey