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When I walked into the kitchen this mid-morning, empty coffee cup in hand, I noticed the kitchen was only three-quarters cleaned. It’s agreed with my daughter that I will cook if she cleans the kitchen. Yet a half-assed job was done because she had to get to work. She’s self-employed and works in the room next to the kitchen.

I washed the three pots in the sink. I put away the dry dishes. I loaded up the missed glasses into the dishwasher, and I wiped down the counters, all so that I could come back in three hours and cook lunch in a ready kitchen. And in the doing I was overwhelmed with memories of the same thing happening every day in our household during the childrearing years and in our empty nest.

Is this a woman’s issue? Is it a political-feminist issue? Is it even an issue? I don’t know. I’ve never known. For fifty years I’ve pondered it while wiping up the crumbs. And always in the past I decided to get the job done and get on with more compelling work. The same decision everyone else in my family made, only I was prioritizing the pots and pans over the “real work,” getting it done before going to work.

My beloved feminist husband, while supporting me in every way on the big issues, drew the line on this one and claimed that I was imposing my own high standards unreasonably. I irrationally answered that a dirty pot was a dirty pot, there’s no such thing as a clean-enough dirty pot.

His attitude diffused to the children and they learned to do a half-assed job. All three as middle-aged adults have half-assed clean houses, drawers, files, cars. Harsh criticism, coming from a mother who adores them and honors the work they’ve chosen to do. I freely admit I failed utterly to teach them how to clean. I tried star charts, weekly allowances, special treats. I yelled, sulked, and positive-reinforced. I did it myself and paid myself. I gave up and hired a cleaning lady. They endorse that decision and do the same. Pick your battles, they say. Yet something still burbles up to the surface when I do remedial cleaning.

Here’s the anger to all of you with “different standards:” it’s a sign of disrespect. It’s an attitude that housework is less important. It’s a cultural trope that women’s work is required and unrecognized. Have you forgotten that cleanliness is next to Godliness? How do I get all of that out of crumbs on the counter?

Since the cleanliness expression is not in the Bible and instead was a 19th century plea for public health, God takes the fifth. The irony that the Bible claims In Leviticus 15:23 “And if it be on her bed, or on any thing whereon she sitteth, when he toucheth it, he shall be unclean until the even.” So wrong! He left it unclean and I cleaned it up!

Kamala, I’m seeing crumbs where you’re focusing on justice. Keep up the good work. Yet I still want to know, who wipes the counters in your house?