Why housework is always too much

Recently a radio station ran a campaign for more exercise. People rang in about how they exercised with gyms and bikes. None of it was useful, apart from exercise in transport to move from one place to another.

In the past, until about 1950. and in many countries still, exercise by almost everybody was useful. Only the wealthy took on useless exercise – or huntin', shootin' and fishin' (which brought something to eat at the end of it) or in ancient Greece, they went to the gymnasium to practise their wartime skills, so it was useful to them.

Most people rested as their recreation. Their work was their exercise - outside, growing their food, or inside, cooking, cleaning, child-care and making clothes.

Today in our cities almost everybody uses electricity instead of exercise.

Yet we can reduce carbon emissions by reducing unnecessary use of electricity and exercising instead.

People could save electricity by housework in which they bent their knees, stretched their arms, strengthened their arm muscles, tuned up their wrists, and reduced their waistline. Thus with minimum electricity and carbon emissions, they sweep and garden, clean the floor, polish, and brush cobwebs off the ceiling.

It would improve their circulation, tone up pelvic-floor muscles, keep the heart fit, strengthen the legs and prevent osteoporosis, by doing housework almost like it was done up to 1950, without unnecessary electricity.

But people would have to enjoy it.

Enjoy housework?

The thrifty housewives of old Aberdeen competed with each other in enjoyable housework– more enjoyable than with a boring machine in a gym. And they used their brains to make it even more enjoyable.

After the second world war, people invested in labor-saving electrical devices in their homes – Hurrah! no more tedium in housework, with their new electric vacuums, washing machines, dishwashers, food mixers . . .

But strange to say, housewives still spent as much time in housework.

How was that?

Housework just expanded to fill the time available. The house and furnishings required more cleaning.

Carpets which used to be darkly patterned so as not to show the dirt, became white or cream without any patterns, so that they showed the slightest crumb.'

People now had far more clothes and washed them more often.

They washed themselves more often. They washed their hair every day instead of once a week.

They did not leave their dirty footwear at the door (as Japanese still do) but wore them indoors, on the virgin-pure carpets.

They used more cutlery and crockery (unlike our Uncle Alex who when Aunt Jean was away, fed the family on Weetbix three meals a day, and each child had one bowl and one spoon for the whole day. He thought Aunt Jean put too much value on variety.)

People now buy more than the food they plan to eat in the next few days, and things get left at the back of the frig until they have to be thrown out,

In the past, the children had a few toys to play with. Other toys were kept in the cupboard for when there was need for them in a rainy-day box. Toys did not all clutter the children's rooms and indeed the whole house.

In the past, people had a parlour which was kept clean and tidy for visitors.

Now the new houses are open house. They have no rooms shut to keep the dirt and untidiness hidden. There is one great 'entertaining' open space for all the family and visitors. All the house is open for visitors and all has to be clean and tidy.

Peop;e now have shelves full of specialist cleaners for everything, instead of only five things - vinegar, bicarbonate of soda, laundry soap and silver and wood polishes.

Previously there was one rubbish bin. Now they have three; one nearly full of packaging and other containers for recycling, one with food waste being thrown out to landfill, and one with garden rubbish to be turned into mulch.

We are nearly like Americans comic strips where putting out the garbage is their biggest chore and occasions for fighting as to who should do it.

So much housework – as much as before.

What to do then?

Use our brains – keep as much of the old ways and of the new as will give us as little housework as possible and electricity bills as small as possible.

Carbon-emissions are saved by not driving. Walking to go shopping used to require a basket, soft-handled string-bag, dilly-bag or backpack for light shopping, and for heavy shopping, a shopping jeep or pram. This is exercise especially good when the back was kept straight and elegant, and pulling or pushing with your arms so that the back was not bent. Shopping should not be weighed down with wasteful packaging

A good hand-mower for level or 'drought' lawns is pushed from the waist, not hunched, for figure-improving exercise for the stomach. A hand-mower costs far less than a power mower, saves carbon emissions and does not annoy neighbours. There was at least one excellent Australian mower on the market, so light it almost flew.

Do repetitive jobs with rhythm for more speed, pleasure and exercise - e.g. dishwashing by hand, hanging up washing, making beds, and using a carpet-sweeper or broom for quick sweeping jobs rather than vacuum. Move your feet rather than stand still at kitchen jobs, or use a high stool or chair when convenient, to avoid varicose veins. Carbon-emissions are saved by not using electricity except when necessary.

Exercise while you wait. Walk and turn while waiting for a bus or train or person, turn and stretch when sitting at a phone. These are times to exercise the neck, feet, leg and arm raising, pelvic-floor contracting, posture correction, correct breathing.

Sing or hum around the house or in the bathroom for morale and good breathing. Children love to hear you singing, until they are old enough to discriminate. Be careful of disturbing adults though.

Dance down the passage sometimes.

Creative hobbies give healthy exercise - play music, paint, carpentry, home renovating.

Play with children. Even catching children for bedtime or for washing them can be good exercise.

Sleeplessness. A good time for breathing exercises . . . . by the time you have breathed deeply to a hundred or so . . .

Don't use electrical goods that do the job no better than you could get exercise. Buy the goods you really need to make life easier with the money you save.

Exercise inventions. Here's an opening for the local bicycle industry. An exercise bike could generate TV power for your home - pedal as you watch, or run a mulch-maker, or . .

One Englishman powers his television with an exercise bike - the children can watch as long as they keep pedalling.

Human energy could generate power for many household tasks, and charge batteries. Treadmills and all those machines to make you strong or powerful or fast, could all do something useful - turning a compost-cutter, helping to make waste-paper into recycled paper, grinding up stuff, and charging batteries.

Loneliness is a major reason why people do not like doing housework. Have a child or adult friend around, or listen to interesting talks on the radio, or even sometimes enjoy the quiet, to think and daydream.

Do men and women need the same sort of exercise?

For hundreds of thousands of years, men have been the exercise freaks, out hunting and fighting and digging and building, muscling their way around, puffing and panting and sprinting away. Today if modern man does not have regular vigorous exercise, his health deteriorates.

For hundreds of thousands of years, women have worked very hard but at a more regular pace. They have not needed large-muscle speed and power. And if they survived child-bearing and resulting disorders, they lived longer. Today perhaps modern women are still evolved to need that sort of exercise, which most women have had in housework and in the fields. Perhaps puffing and panting exercises are for male physiology, and may wear women out sooner. As, conceivably, the men's harder, faster life, may actually wear out the healthy male for a shorter life than the conservationist female. Like that famous jogger, they may 'die healthy'.

Formal exercise is unnatural. That is, formal exercise which is not contaminated by being useful in any way. I never do any formal exercises. (I'm heading for eighty-seven, and last tested bone density was better than usual for my age.)

Formal exercise can be a waste of fossil fuels as well as a waste of time when people substitute it for doing things for themselves.

Snobbery and exercise

Throughout history, slaves and peasants did the hard work. Useful work was thought undignified. Indeed, most of it then was dreadful toil. The upper classes got their exercises at sports, hunting and gymnasiums.

Chinese mandarins even grew their fingernails about a foot long to prove they did no manual work.

Today machines can do the dreadful toil. Thank goodness. But should we still be snobs about useful work that is healthy exercise for us? And as by-products, you will save carbon emissions, electricity, oil and money.