Nuisances

[rinue]

I enjoyed this interview with Emily Matchar on The Hairpin (presently my favorite website, with no close runner up) about "the new domesticity" - the middle class turn toward the home-made and homeschooled. My own appraisal of the subject conforms very closely to Matchar's, so I won't rehash it.

However, it's also an interesting reminder that I'm not middle class and that there is something of a cultural gulf in that area that is often visible to me and invisible (but ominous) to many of the people I interact with. (I suspect my social signaling is perplexing in a number of different ways, without trying to be.)

I have no desire whatsoever to make things for myself. I still want nice things, and sometimes that means I have to make them, but given the option I'd rather that somebody else (or several someones, trustworthy and competent, who presumably I am paying enough to live on) do the following:

gardening
cooking
managing money
managing property
sewing
driving
arranging all travel
setting out my clothes in the morning
shopping (including for books, music, and clothes likely to be to my taste)
cleaning
educating children
entertaining children
organizing the library and file cabinets and retreiving things as needed
opening and closing windows and window shades as needed
deciding to have parties and organizing them
buying tickets to cultural events worth my time

I prefer to have a staff, in other words. I don't think, realistically, that I can afford a staff, but when I think of having a lot of money, I think of it not in terms of having a bigger house or a fancy watch, but in terms of being able to hire more people so I don't have to do as much. Presumably I am setting the tone (eg, let's have more fish for dinner; I like this silhouette right now), but if I have to micromanage beyond that I have not hired the right person.

These are the only things I particularly care about having a direct hand in:

the color of walls
setting the alarm clock
writing
directing
lecturing
artwork sales and purchases (I mean gallery-level not decorative)
choosing who to socialize with and which of them to mingle
actual leisure (such as knitting things I don't want, playing the piano, singing a bit, drinking cocktails, sports and board games)
putting children to bed and/or being there when they wake up

I would also like to decide where my chair goes and to be left alone while I read the newspaper in the morning, on mornings I read the newspaper.

It is something of a shock to me that these feelings about what is and isn't desirable aren't universal, although it's good that it works that way, because one would hope this imagined staff enjoyed and found fulfillment in gardening and shopping and cooking and making clothes. Emotionally, this difference in what people enjoy is satisfying and delightful.

But I must say that I live in an area of very wealthy people, and they do not seem to spend their money in ways remotely similar to the ways I would spend my money. For instance, I understand that a vacation home or piece of jewelry can be thought of as a form of savings instead of spending (if you figure you can later resell the investment), but given the option of banking a million dollars and paying an employee $40,000 for 25 years, I'd really rather hire someone, and hire that person long-term. I guarantee I can continue to find things for them to do.

In the meantime, of course, I don't have a million extra dollars and do pretty much everything and don't mind particularly, and it's nice to have that option. And I do wish that the very wealthy people around me who hired people to mow their lawns would instead mow their own lawns, because these lawns are postage-stamp sized and it is ludicrous to hire someone to come in once a week and fill up the road with a truck and make a lot of noise with a ride-on mower. In the name of decency, pay them more and ask that they use a push mower. How is your garden a bucolic illusion if there is a loud ride-on mower on it? And some of us are trying to sound record, you know.

Comments

[movingfinger]

Is $40,000 the going rate for "help"? That seems real low. I mean, you want someone with more than half a brain doing this stuff, you want them personally loyal to you so that you can rely on their discretion, and you don't want to train a new person every year or two or five. Your list is pretty much the "wife" list and yeah, it sure would be nice... sigh.

Bunter. I want Bunter.

[rinue]

1) Presumably I would be hiring multiple staff. I mean, I look at my list and I clearly need at the very least a husband as well (doing yardwork, car stuff, making investments).

2) I make $40,000 a year working full time. I am the sole income earner supporting my nuclear family and have a Master's degree. Median US household income according to the last census is a little below $51,000/yr, but a lot of those are two-income households. Median income in "nonfamily" households (i.e. unmarried people) is $30,000.

[rinue]

I should probably add that most of my young adult devotion to mathematics had much less to do with mathematics than it did with my understanding that very brilliant mathematicians had handlers who would walk them around to make sure they didn't get hit by cars when they weren't paying attention, and that they sometimes ate and bathed and wore at least slippers. This continues to sound heavenly to me. (In the econ world, Adam Smith himself would forgetfully go out in his pajamas, and occasionally fall into deep holes while walking.) So probably I am looking for a mom as well as a wife and a husband, and really it's all right if they have all the money as long as I am fed and shown where to sleep.