33

ROBERT J. KNOWLTON'

Your Wife Has an Easy Racket!"

American Magazine, November 1951

If the little woman has a quick temper don't let her see                        his round-the-clock picture of her day. It's based on the author's scientific survey of housewives' activities. In fact, better not let her read this article at all, since it tells how she can have even more of a cinch.

 

      I know I am leading with my chin when I say this, but the fact is that, contrary to what your wife has most likely been telling you for years, she has an easy job.

Actually, she works about 6 hours a day as a general rule and almost never more than 8, unless in extreme emergency. Frequently, her work­day is no more than 4 hours. The amount of time varies with the size of the house and the family. Furthermore, she would not even have to work as long as she does if she did her job well. If she wasn't stubborn, tied down by tradition, a poor organizer, and even just plain lazy, she could be free most of the day.

She spends hours looking at television or listening to radio soap operas, but doesn't deduct this time from her workday. She entertains or visits neighbors, and calls this part of housework, when all she's doing is gossiping. She includes as labor even the naps she takes during the day. She reads books and magazines and still says her job is killing her. As I said, I'm leading with my chin, but these conclusions are not mine. All I did was conduct a coast-to-coast scientific survey and these results came to light. More than a thousand families participated. I made a round-the-clock study of my own wife's activities for a period of weeks. My students in industrial engineering did the same, using their wives, mothers, and married sisters as guinea pigs. I got detailed reports from colleagues of mine, former students, and friends scattered across the country, whom I asked to conduct the same sort of research in their own homes. In addition, these investigators made studies among their friends and neighbors, enlisting the men in the families to act as "spies." All sent in their findings.

Some lived in cities, others in suburbs and small towns. Some of the women had from one child to 4 children, a few had none. Ages of the chil­dren ranged from infants to "grownups" in their late teens. This gave vari­ety to the survey.

For a week we checked the women openly and aboveboard, and in this way we found out about their daily schedules. However, we discovered far more later, when the men began watching their wives surreptitiously.

Perhaps I might best begin by explaining how I came to launch this project. I learned the hard way how easy it was to run a house. For 7 months, while my wife was having a rather difficult time bearing our daughter, Amanda, I was the housekeeper of our 4-room Cape Cod cot­tage. I also had a full-time job teaching.

At home I cooked all the meals, made the beds, cleaned the house, and even took care of the cat. For the first few weeks it was pretty rough going. I always seemed to be in a rush and never got things done. If any­one said a housewife had a tough time of it I was the first to agree. I couldn't wait for our baby to be born so I could retire.

Then, one evening, a girl-friend of my wife's dropped in to see us, and before leaving she inspected the house to see how I was faring. In the kitchen she found dirty dishes piled up in the sink. Half-empty boxes of food were strewn about. Crumbs crackled under your feet as you walked across the linoleum. I sheepishly told her she had caught me just as I was going to work on the kitchen.

But in the living-room dust was mounting on the furniture, and all sorts of odds and ends were standing in corners waiting to be placed in the cel­lar, the attic, or a closet. I told her I was just about to clean up the living­room. However, when it was no different in the bedrooms I gave up excuses and said nothing.

"Nice mess you have here," she remarked, taking off her jacket. "Come on; let's clean it up. I’ll help you."

Then she dropped a barb that hit me right where I lived and started my reformation.

"You know," she said, "you're typical of the do-as-I-say-don't do-as-I-do school of thought. As an industrial engineer, all day long you're teaching people how to plan and make work easier in industry. Then you come home to your job here and create complete chaos, by violating every prin­ciple you preach."

That did it. You girls may say that it took a woman to show me the way, and I'm delighted to give the credit where it belongs. The important thing is that I began applying science to housekeeping and as a result learned what an easy job it really is.

First of all, I arranged all cooking utensils, dishes, and silverware in drawers and on shelves nearest the spots where they would be most used. I did the same in storing food in bins, closets, and refrigerator. This took a little experimenting, but when I had everything set I found the arrange­ment saved loads of time and effort.

I analyzed the problem of dishes and found that the reason I let them pile up was because I detested drying them. This was a holdover from my teen-age days, when I had to dry them every night. I solved this simply by not wiping them. I scalded the dishes as I washed them, then let them stand in the draining rack for a few minutes while I tidied up the rest of the kitchen. By that time they were dry and I put them away.

As for taking care of the other rooms, I discovered the job looked big because I hadn't kept up with the clutter. I had let things go. But now, when I saw dust I cleaned it off immediately. If a rug needed cleaning I cleaned it. I put things away after using them, instead of letting them accu­mulate. This new way, I was always doing little jobs instead of big, exhausting ones.

In this connection, I also learned that the old-fashioned idea that cer­tain days had to be set aside for certain jobs was a waste of time and energy. You probably recall the schedule: Monday, wash; Tuesday, iron; Wednesday, sew and mend; Thursday, day off, Friday, bake; Saturday, clean; Sunday, church and cook. I found it much easier to do all these jobs as I went along. I would wash and iron three times a week, dust and pick up every day, and so on.

I discovered I was getting the job done in no time, and wondered why housewives were always complaining that "a woman's work is never done." I wondered, too, how much work a housewife actually did, and how she managed to make it look so hard. That's when I got the idea of con­ducting the survey. I might say in passing that I followed my own wife around with a stop watch and wrote a report. The other investigators did the same, and when I put all these reports together, the conclusions var­ied hardly at all. All the men found conclusive evidence that their wives had pretty much of a cinch.

They also made some interesting and enlightening discoveries.

For instance, they suddenly realized that previously they had had no idea of what their wives had been doing during the day-except that it must have been hard work, because their wives told them so. You know the familiar line-"While you're in your air-conditioned office ogling your beautiful secretary, I'm here at home working my fingers to the bone over a hot stove."

It has not been too hard for women to convince their husbands of this, because many husbands do "ogle" and, besides, many of them recall that housework was real drudgery when they were growing up-in the days before the extremely wide use of automatic laundries, dish-washing machines, vacuum cleaners, pressure cookers, and many other labor­saving devices. Most husbands also grew up in an era of bigger houses, which were more ornate and more heavily furnished than today.

At any rate, when the men began clocking their wives and doing some sharp house detective work, they discovered some illuminating facts about which their wives hadn't bothered to tell them.

For instance, one of the husbands reported that on a certain morning at breakfast, his wife seemed to be bustling with plans for the day. She had a list of projects and, the way she told it, she'd be lucky if everything got done by midnight.

He kissed her good-by. A few minutes later, while driving to town, he had the inspiration to see her in action when she didn't expect him, so he called his office to say he wasn't coming in that day. Doubling back, he arrived home about 10 A.M. He found his 6-year-old playing happily in the front yard, but he heard no sounds of whirring activity within the house. "Where's Mother?" he asked junior.

"In bed," was the reply.

"Is she ill?" he asked, at first alarmed, although she had been positively glowing with health when he left.

"Naw," squealed Junior, "she goes back to bed every day after you leave."

Now, this husband had no objection to his wife's going back to catch a few winks, but the next time she moaned about how hard she was work­ing, he wasn't too impressed. He was more inclined to inquire, "What hap­pened? No nap today?"

Another "Household Hawkshaw" had his eyes opened when he arrived home too early one afternoon at about 3:30 P.M. instead of his customary 6 P.M. He found his wife sitting in the kitchen chatting happily over a cup of tea with a neighboring "slave." She was still wearing the housecoat she had on when he had left in the morning. The dishes had not been washed, the beds were unmade. He discovered this was a usual state of affairs.

He soon learned the truth-that his wife had been doing all the house­work in a mad rush just before he was due to arrive from work. No won­der she had been puffing and tired when he walked in the door.

Practically all the scientists who participated in the survey disclosed that during the midafternoon it was a usual thing for the mothers to gather with their children to play and chat in small groups in front of houses, in a neighbor's garden, or in a park. This was practically a daily ritual, especially if the weather was fair.

Then, about 4:30 P.M. a strange thing would happen. There would be quick good-bys and "see-you-tomorrows," and almost in a flash the streets would be deserted, the parks emptied. Inside the homes there would be sounds of great activity, while the mothers, in a frantic rush, did the day's housework and prepared dinner. Small wonder that when the husband came home he found his wife perspiring and complaining of what a day she'd had.

Another observer, a bachelor, ran into a situation which, if he'd been inclined to "sing," would have caused a major domestic upheaval. Hav­ing no mate of his own, this lad checked upon his married sister.

Now, Sis had 3 children-all small-and her husband was a travel­ing man who came home only on week ends. Although this innocent ram provided his lamb with all the modern conveniences, he was drafted week ends to help with the heavy cleaning and shopping. Sis told her ever­loving that she was so bogged down during the week with the children and other household duties, she "just couldn't do everything."

However, her nosy little brother gleaned the information that Sis spent several hours each weekday entertaining neighbors, looking at television, reading, and napping. All good, clean fun, but she called it work. Brother filed his report and marked it CONFIDENTIAL.

All my "spies" made detailed reports on hour-by-hour activities of their subjects and they ran pretty much the same. Since it is typical, I will give you a summary of my wife's schedule at the time I made the survey, after Amanda was born. It went like this:

7.30 to 8.15 A.M.: First three quarters of an hour was spent attending to normal needs, taking care of the baby, preparing and eating breakfast.

8:15 to 9 A.M.: Cleaning up kitchen, stacking dishes, feeding cat, doing the wash in basement, taking baby with her. (If we had owned a washing machine, which we didn't, the time in the basement would have been shorter and she could have done other things while the clothes were in the machine.)

9 to 9:30 A.M.: Playing with baby, taking a breather. (This 30 minutes not counted as actual work.)

9:30 to 10 A.M.: Hanging clothes and watering plants.

10 to 10.30A.M: Making beds and cleaning up bedroom.

10:30 to 11 A.M.: Carpet and rug cleaning, or cleaning out a closet, or basement; varnishing or painting.

11 to 11:15 A.M.: Dusting and cleaning living-room.

11:15 to 11:30 A.M.: Preparing lunch for baby and self.

11.30 to 11:45A.M: Eating lunch (not regarded as work).

11:45 a. m. to 3 P.m.: Planning dinner and making out grocery list, while baby naps. Then relaxing with a book or listening to radio (not regarded as work).

3 to 5:30 P.m.: Out with baby in the carriage. (One hour of this time is spent in shopping and can be called work; the rest constitutes gossiping and enjoying the fresh air.)

5.30 to 6 P .m.: Preparing dinner.

6 to 6.30 P.m.: Eating dinner (not regarded as work).

6:30 to 7 P.m.: Dishes, cleaning up kitchen, giving baby her bath and putting her to bed.

7PM to bedtime: Relaxation-no more work.

If you'll add up the hours of the day shown here and subtract the free time, you'll see that it comes under 6 hours. Of course, this schedule varies slightly from day to day, but the total time does not change much. On the days my wife doesn't wash-she does so 3 times a week-she irons. When she has no clothes to hang, she spends the time baking cakes or cookies, or mending. I observed that the amount of time she had for leisure changed hardly at all from day to day.

Now, I can hear some mothers screaming, `Wait till that kid gets older and see what problems you have."

In the first place, if the child is properly trained, he or she will not be too much of a problem. Besides, I do not regard as work the training of children, which should be shared by both parents. That's supposed to be the real pleasure of married life. Finally, as the children grow older, they spend several hours a day in school during most of the year, leaving the mother free for other pursuits.

There was little significant difference in any of the schedules reported by my observers. For women with larger families and larger houses, the day's work was closer to 8 hours. Furthermore, families with most of the modern conveniences disclosed that the housewife worked considerably less than 6 or 8 hours.

Probably the most convincing proof that the housewife has a lot of free time was the fact that so many reports showed women engaged in out­side activities, for either pleasure or profit. One woman sold cosmetics and another did part-time nursing. One mother gave driving lessons and another reported the neighborhood news for a local paper. Many of the women spent several afternoons playing golf or tennis, taking groups of youngsters coasting in winter and on nature hikes in summer.

If any men reading this think I'm exaggerating all you need to do is a bit of quiet checking on the little woman when she thinks you're reading the paper. Start clocking her.

You know, the funny part of all this is that after our survey was com­pleted and the results were added up, I got to thinking that, easy as a housewife's job is now, it could be made even more of a cinch if she would apply a few of the short cuts of industrial engineering. Should I let her in on the secrets? Why not? So here are 10 simple suggestions:

1. Ironing. Any woman can cut the time in half by eliminating need­less ironing of things nobody ever sees, such as underwear, pajamas, sheets, pillowcases (if covered by a spread), handkerchiefs, and play suits. I included play suits because, while they are seen, they get mussed so quickly it's hardly worth the bother of ironing.

2. House cleaning. About twice a year most housewives tear up a house, cleaning it from top to bottom. This is unnecessary. Why not clean each part of the house as it needs it and forget the big cleanup! That's the way it is done in a well-operated industrial plant

3. Cleaning tools: Have several dust-cloths, pans, mops, etc., on differ­ent floors or in various parts of the house. Many jobs pile up in a house because the mop or cloth is not handy at the time you see a part of the floor or wall that needs cleaning.

4. Washing clothes: There are many short cuts here. In removing clothes from washing machine or tub, place them in the clothes basket in the order they will be hung. If you are building a house, make sure the basement door is wide enough for a woman to get in and out with a basket. Use a rolling table to carry basket to clothesline (a baby car­riage can also serve). Work from the farthest point back toward the house and always hang the biggest and heaviest stuff first. Vary the height of the line. Stretching is very tiring. You need a high line only for the big pieces, such as sheets. For smaller pieces have the line about chest-high. Of course, the ideal thing would be to have an auto­matic drier.

5. Kitchen and dining-room: Have table on wheels to go from dining­ room to kitchen to pick up dishes and food; also, use lots of large trays and save trips. Many women like to keep all their dishes together, espe­cially if they have a complete set. However, considerable time and energy can be saved by locating table dishes in the dining-room and serving dishes in the kitchen. Do the same with silverware. Arrange kitchen items so that they are closest to place of most use.

Have a kitchen chair with a back to it for women who like to sit while they iron or do dishes. You can save time by washing dishes from left to right; also peel vegetables this way. (If left-handed, reverse process.) Do dishes once a day in the evening, stacking breakfast and lunch dishes. When you're building that dream house, install one drawer that can be opened in both the kitchen and the dining-room. On one side, have items needed in the kitchen and, on the other, those used in the dining-room, thus saving both time and space.

In industry, considerable time is spent studying air space-space above. Have lots of shelves and have them built in proportion to the housewife's height. There ought to be sliding doors in kitchen cabinets to eliminate getting hit on the head; also, glass doors so you can see at a glance where things are. Store in low places those things used least often, to eliminate as much bending as possible, which is more tiring than any other exertion.

6. Children: Set definite periods of the day for playing with children, particularly babies. They come to expect it and then are more inclined to give you a breather at other times. Have definite place for toys and teach children to replace them after using. With very small babies, have toys in different rooms, so that as you move around with the baby they are available.

Youngsters, particularly girls, like to imitate their mothers. Get small irons and ironing boards, dusters, and baking facilities, and let them work along with you. This is not only educational and can save time for you, but it is also diverting.

7. Making beds: The average housewife walks about 170 feet making a bed. This can be cut in half if the housewife will make one side up com­pletely before going over to the other. If no one is coming to view the house, why not just make up the lower part of the bed and leave the rest open? It not only saves time, but airs the bed. When the children get older and are around the house, have one of them help you make the beds. It more than cuts time and effort in half.

8. Mud room: If possible, have a "mud room" just inside the back door and containing a sink. Here youngsters can remove boots, rubbers, and

dirt. Also, you can save considerable time by calling in children before dinner is ready, so that they can be cleaned up by the time the meal is served. Many mothers wait until the dinner is on the table, and it gets cold while the kids wash.

9. Preventive maintenance: Don't wait until the faucet leaks or the refrigerator goes out of order. Make regular check-ups yourself, or have it done. For a few dollars a year you can have all appliances checked reg­ularly and save many dollars in major repairs. Have a bulletin board in the kitchen to make note of what things are wrong.

10. Modern equipment. Any necessary convenience that saves time and energy is not a luxury. It has been proved in industry that by giving work­ers the best in equipment and conveniences, efficiency increases, as well as interest in the job. Anything that removes drudgery from housework makes for a better home. Sometimes people spend far too much on fancy furniture and things that show and not enough on vacuum cleaners, auto­matic laundries, automatic stoves, dishwashers, and the like.

Some housewives are loath to discard old-fashioned ways and make use of modern equipment and scientific methods of housework. This is largely because they have, as their guiding genius-Mother-who did things thus and so. All tradition to the contrary, Mamma does not always know best. Sometimes she's clinging to ideas and methods that went out with the old-fashioned icebox.

Take the matter of drying dishes. Some women still make a ritual of it. I know one whose children gave her a new dish-washing machine for Christmas. Although the machine dried the dishes perfectly, she had to run a towel over them herself-to make it official.

The reports in our survey revealed that in most instances women regarded housework with distaste and rushed through it haphazardly, wasting time and energy. Yet, if approached scientifically, it can be not only an easier job even than it is now, but an interesting game.

As I said at the outset, I think the housewife has a "racket," and either doesn't know it or won't admit it. Nevertheless, as an ever-devoted hus­band, I'd be the last man to begrudge it. And I'm even willing to make the "racket" still easier, if it will make her any happier. Aren't you?