I have five small children, and I get really frustrated with the pressure on young moms to use certain cleaning and health products, usually from MLMs like Norwex or DoTerra.
I’m part of a few big chat groups with Mennonite moms, and most of the vocal women on such platforms tend to send the subtle implications that a good mother should be always looking for better health, better cleaners, and better hairspray. And I feel like a freak for just thinking a clean scalp is what’s most important. I’m doing good if I can pick up detergent or shampoo at Walmart.
One day I decided to ask the group if I’m
as unusual as I feel like I am. I thought maybe there’s other moms out there
like me. But the admins deleted my question! So then I really felt like a
freak. Do you have any advice for me?
--Kayla
Dear Kayla—
When I sat down to examine your question, I realized it had
multiple layers. Soon I had wandered down numerous bunny trails and
typed almost 4000 words. So, if you can indulge me, I’m going to spread this out over a couple of
posts.
First: a bit of history and chemistry about cleaning, soap, and the marketing thereof.
Later, we’ll look at the tendency and history of moms obsessing about
specific topics, the troubling statistics about MLMs, making money as a stay at
home mom, dealing with the pressure, and recipes for super-basic cleaners.
Aunt Dorcas does laundry in a very "sketch" laundry room in a motel, on a recent trip to Virginia |
Women all over the world are passionate about keeping clean.
When we lived in a remote village in Canada, the First
Nations women all had these very basic government-issue houses with paneling on
the walls and white tile floors.
The houses were not cute or Instagrammy in any way, but they were clean. You could have eaten off those floors. The women hauled water from the lake, heated it on the stove, poured it in a bucket, and added a good glug of bleach and maybe dish soap. Then they took a string mop and scrubbed every bit of mud and food and dust, and probably the shiny finish as well, off those tiled floors.
Their lives might be full of helpless frustration and people around them
making heartbreaking decisions, but they had the power to keep those floors
clean, and they did.
Some years later, in 1998, I visited my sister in Yemen. One
day Rebecca took me to visit her neighbor Fawzia. A sweet young mom with one
child, Fawzia lived in a sparsely-furnished one-room apartment with a narrow
outdoor cooking area between a cement wall and the house. Her husband had trouble
finding work, and they were so poor that Fawzia hadn’t seen her mom in two
years because they couldn’t afford the bus fare, which I think was $5. They
lived on the verge of hunger, wanting to be independent but sometimes asking
her husband’s parents for food.
What struck me about Fawzia’s home was that it was
incredibly clean. The baby smelled nice, the floors were spotless, Fawzia’s
clothes were clean, and the tiny kitchen/courtyard was swept and tidy.
You could tell that despite their extreme poverty, she took
pride in herself and her home and her baby. I’m guessing she used plain water
for a lot of cleaning, but not much of it at a time, because Yemen had a
terrible water shortage. Judging by the state of her clothes and the baby’s
blanket, she probably had one very raggedy rag to scrub everything.
It would have been ridiculous and cruel of me to tell Fawzia
she’s doing it all wrong because she’s not using a fancy American cleaning
product. You can see that, right?
The important thing is caring for yourself and your house
and children, which includes cleanliness. This is true for us, for Middle
Eastern women thousands of years ago, and for Kenyan women bathing their babies
outside in plastic tubs and then setting the babies out to dry in the sunshine.
A common thread here is water and soap.
Jeremiah 2:22 says,
Although you wash yourself with soap
and use an abundance of cleansing powder,
the stain of your guilt is still before me,”
declares the Sovereign Lord.
[That verse is also a hint that some things are more
important than cleanliness.]
Water is the universal solvent, and most dirt can be dissolved
and washed with water alone. But water doesn’t mix with fats, so we have that
fascinating chemical, soap. Every molecule of soap has a head that bonds with
water and a tail that bonds with fats, so all those dish soap molecules latch
onto tiny bits of chicken fat left on the plate, dissolve them in water, and
swish them down the drain.
(Read more about soap here.)
Of course, we have other cleaners for other situations, such
as ammonia, bleach, and alcohol. But the most basic cleaner is soap and water.
As the FlyLady often says, “Soap is soap.” Did you know you
can use shampoo to clean the shower, if need be, and dish soap to wash your
hands? It’s true. Nothing will implode.
Your great-grandma probably saved bacon fat and tallow,
bought lye at the hardware store, and cooked a blurping white soup that turned
into slabs of white soap with a thick, heavy scent of earth and determination.
She grated this soap into the wringer washer to wash your great-grandpa’s
overalls, and all the manure and grass stains cowered before the superior
strength of that potion.
She may have bought a basic shampoo for her children’s hair.
If she was like my mom, she saved rain water in a barrel for shampooing hair,
and rinsed with vinegar.
If she didn’t use homemade soap for dishes, she bought a
basic dish soap at the grocery store. If there was a drought and the well was
running dry, the dishwater was also used to mop the floors and then dumped on
the flower beds.
She probably used ammonia to clean the oven, first tying a
bandana over her nose to keep out the scorching fumes. She cleaned the copper
bottoms of her kettles with vinegar and salt, buffing them to a shine. Like my
mom, she probably used copious amounts of elbow grease.
One way or another, she and all her household were clean. So
how did we get from that to the highly specialized cleaners today?
It was after the Great Depression when big companies like
Proctor and Gamble realized they could make money off of jazzing up cleaning
products and convincing housewives to buy them. Tide detergent, invented in
1946, was the first of its kind.
Two things in particular became important: specializing and
scents.
No longer was it ok to do all your cleaning with a bottle of
vinegar, a jar of baking soda or borax, and a bar of homemade soap. By the
1970s, you needed detergent for laundry, a different shampoo for each member of
the family, and a different cleaner for each part of the bathroom: sinks,
counter, mirror, toilet, shower, and floor. You needed one soap for dishes, one
for hands, and one for the car.
It was all supposed to smell good. I’m sure this sounded luxurious
to someone whose laundry always smelled like tallow and lye. Tide detergent had
a unique scent that you can probably smell right now if you close your eyes.
Dish soap was supposed to send bubbly fumes in the air. Everyone was supposed
to blast a flowery spray all over the bathroom after they flushed. When I was
in high school, the teen magazines always had ads for a shampoo called Gee Your
Hair Smells Terrific, with pictures of a guy in science class sniffing a girl’s
hair and saying that line while they heated chemicals on Bunsen burners.
A decade or two later, an evil genius was hired at these big
companies and invented plug-in air fresheners. I can’t tell you how many times
I’ve walked into someone’s house and began coughing and gasping for air. “Do
you have a Glade air freshener?” I manage to ask.
“Oh yes!” they say, digging around behind the recliner and
emerging with one of those horrible little devices. “I’m so sorry!” They hurry
off and tuck it away under the bathroom sink, and I resume breathing.
Some of us have psoriasis, migraines, asthma, or simply a
sensitive nose. We can’t handle all the scents and additives.
There was bound to be a backlash.
The housewife world didn’t return to cleaning like Grandma, though, with vinegar, borax, and homemade soap. Instead, we turned to an array of companies
that sprouted up like mushrooms in the fall rains, promising cleanliness and
good smells, but a “healthy” version of them. Many were multi-level marketing
companies (MLMs) in which people—usually women—signed up to sell the products
from home. Amway and Shaklee were two of the originals. Today there are many
more.
It began to matter like never before not only that you kept
your family clean, but which products you used to do so.
These producers emphasized “natural” ingredients and health
benefits. Often, they also insist that “chemicals” are bad, and their products
do not contain these nasty substances.
This has always confused me. Probably the people who came up
with that idea were the same ones who were tossing their terrific-smelling hair
at the guys in chemistry class instead of paying attention. A chemical,
according to Merriam-Webster, is simply a substance “that is formed when two or
more other substances act upon one another or that is used to produce a change
in another substance.”
Vitamin C is a chemical, as are sugar, vinegar, oregano oil,
and polyethylene glycol.
It’s a free country, and I don’t have any issue with someone
deciding to make a new and better kind of shampoo. What troubles me is that
many of these companies co-opted the health narrative and equated their
products with optimizing your family’s health and well-being, and they made
lots of money off of this.
In addition, instead of selling through stores, they chose
to market through dealers, emphasizing not only their products but also recruiting
others into the company.
The result is an unhealthy mixture of women gaining financially
from putting guilt and pressure on other women, all in the name of being
concerned for their wellbeing. It's one thing to feel pressure from an advertisement in a magazine, but quite another to feel it from family and friends.
But the saddest part is that, many times, the system is
designed so that only those at the top actually make money, increasing the
pressure on those at the bottom to recoup their investments and also to inundate
me with helpful messages if I mention the cat pawprints on the patio doors or my
constant cough.
Buying these products requires a pretty high level of
privilege, and not everyone has these ingredients in their life:
1. Money. Melaleuca and Mrs. Meyers and Norwex are a lot more expensive than an
old t-shirt and a bottle of dish soap from the grocery store. Many families can
barely afford the dish soap.
2. Time. A woman who has lots of small children has a hard enough time just
keeping everyone fed and safe. Moms who are caregivers for the elderly and moms
with physical handicaps and limitations are almost always short on time. Such a mom
doesn’t have time to research all the specialty products or go to Norwex
parties or order from a dealer. She’s just relieved if her husband calls from
town and she can tell him to pick up some laundry detergent—whatever he grabs
is fine when all the little jeans are dirty and the baby is teething.
3. Access. Moms on the mission field in Mongolia or Mexico don’t have access to
all the lovely natural “chemical-free” cleaners that a mom in Lancaster County
has at her fingertips. Women in more isolated communities in the U.S. and
Canada will have a harder time buying these products as well, especially if
they don’t have internet access.
I’ve talked to young moms who feel like outcasts if they buy
shampoo and detergent at the grocery store. Others feel so guilty for using Walmart cleaners that they start buying products they can’t afford. They feel like the conversation in the church
nursery and the moms’ groups is all so pro-MLM product that their own
conflicted opinions and questions can’t be spoken. They feel the shame of not
fitting in.
That is not ok.
But whose problem is it?
Next time, let’s look at the history of passionate moms, dealing with pressure, and how to sell ethically.
Meanwhile: Applause to you for loving your family and wanting the best for them. There's a lot of leeway on just how you do this. The important thing is to be kind to those who choose differently.
Aunt Dorcas learns from her mom, the Queen of elbow grease and homemade soap. |
Thank you. That is all.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome. Thanks for reading.
DeleteCouldn't agree more! I've watched all sorts of homemaking, decluttering, etc. YouTubers and want to shout at them, "Why are you spraying something all over your counters to clean them? Why didn't you wipe them down when you had a sink full of soapy water as you did the dishes?" Oh yes, you don't do dishes by hand and don't know how to multi-task, and get more than one use out of something. Sad for you! When I need to clean the counters I just wet the dishcloth and wipe them down. No one has ever gotten sick from my kitchen!
ReplyDeleteThe harsh chemicals that so many want to get away from are the fragrances, the anti-bacterial, the preservatives, etc. Soap is soap is soap. And it can be made very cheaply.
MLM plans are the devil in my opinion; and totally too expensive and inconvenient.
(Gosh Rozy, tell us how you really feel.)
Looking forward to the rest of your information and instruction.
I enjoyed reading "how you really feel."
DeleteLoud applause.
ReplyDeleteStanding ovation.
SAY IT LOUDER FOR THOSE IN THE BACK!
Preach it, Aunt Dorcas!
Ha! Dodging a few rotten tomatoes, but I'll try to keep preaching!
DeleteThank you!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome, and thanks for coming by.
DeleteYes! It's about time someone addressed this issue! Thanks so much from the bottom of my heart!
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading!
DeleteI am one who gets migraines from all those fake fragrances. I have trouble just sitting in church beside someone who uses laundry detergent that smells to me like mosquito dope. Those candles with all that manufactured fragrance? They make me feel ill. When I have to pass through the smelly candle aisle st Walmart I have to hold my breath lest that horrible stuff gets into my sensitive sinuses and gives me a headache. Why does EVERYTHING have to have a strong smell or fake flavor?
ReplyDeleteCarol, I am so sorry you get migraines from fake fragrances, but I am smiling, as I am a Peachey, too, and I totally identify! Now I am curious if this is a genetic issue with us Peachey girls?! Dorcas, I love your article and respect you ever so highly for everything you shared! I am the friend who will either volunteer to leave or make people unplug or blow out whatever gives a strong aroma in a room, except for cinnamon, I am okay with that fragrance. :) I hold my breath when I dash into the soap aisle in the grocery store BUT I rarely buy anything there. I am quite basic in cleaning with vinegar and water. I do realize I am a privileged woman to have a lovely stash of essential oils in my home to use for medicinal and cleaning purposes. I am so fond of the citrus oils, I consider it a love affair. :) The oils come from various companies, as I am one who gets joy with buying from friends who do parties and market different brands. I also buy from a company I have a wholesale membership with, when I feel led to do so. It's been many years since I did an oil party, that was back in the day when many still believed oils were all made for the witches, the backlash I got for promoting it for medicine, was one for the thick books. Today many of those woman use and even promote oils, as well. :) I am a big promoter of the toxic free lifestyle for I have learned that I don't have to live with the triggers that cause migraines! I am also a fan of (gasp) dawn detergent, baking soda, and peroxide which are amazing when all 3 are used on stains. I make my own fabric softener (for some loads I like to use more than plain vinegar for rinse additive) with affordable tea tree oil hair conditioner from Trader Joes, mix with water and vinegar. If you chose to buy a cheap hair conditioner that has ingredients that smell toxic to me, I love you and bless you the same, for I am not a better mom than you. :)
DeleteCarol, I'm right there with you on the fragrances in stores. They're overpowering!
DeleteTo the "other" Peachey commenter, I enjoyed your comment.
DeleteTHANK YOU!!!
ReplyDeleteMy first inclination was to wish to share this with everyone; ESPECIALLY a certain mom chat. But then I remembered the most effective witness is quietly living your life. Folks can argue with your speech but they can’t argue with your life. Thanks for speaking out for those who want to live simply.
Thanks for reminding me of the power of quietly living your life!
DeleteIf you're reading this and have control over any glade plug-ins or other fragrance devices, please consider making them disappear. It makes me take a nice big deep breath just thinking about it! Ten minutes with a plug-in can cause a headache that lingers until bedtime!
ReplyDeleteStill-potent alternatives that bother fewer people:
-vanilla extract sprinkled or wiped here and there. Keep it in a little spray bottle!
-powdered or whole spices put near heaters or sunlight: fresh nutmeg doesn't stain; sprinkle in on rugs or wherever.
-specks of cedar oil wiped on wood or trim. and so on.
Great ideas!
DeleteI thank you for being a voice of reason. Very informative.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading!
DeleteThank you Aunt Dorcas.
ReplyDeleteThis is so so important for moms to hear. There is so much mommy shaming about cleaning products, epidurals, nursing until 1, vaccines, eating ONLY organic, etc.
I really really liked how my SIL put it when asked about vaccines for babies. She said, we often debate/fight/argue so much about our children's physical health, why do we not do the same for their spiritual health?
On public platforms some write so much about how horrible vaccines are, how bad we mom's are who don't use essential oils as household cleaners, ect. ect.
Yet, our children's spiritual health is SO SO SO much more important.
Children need less screen time while their moms are posting online and more mommy time.
There is a spiritual war going on and our children are the targets, THAT is what we should be raising awareness, not cleaning products.
I can't take cleaning products to heaven with me but I can take my child.
Thanks for sharing your perspective! I totally agree that we are distracted from spiritual realities by physical things that are far less important.
DeleteAs covid spread across the country, the experts told us that using soap and water was the best way to get those tiny virus invaders off our hands... --Linda Rose
ReplyDeleteYay for good old soap!
DeleteI think that quite possibly the pressure is greater in conservative religious settings where conformity is emphasized. I remember having a terrible allergic reaction to a wonderful pill that was guaranteed to change my life. I became comfortable saying that I only use supplements my doctor recommends.
ReplyDeleteAs I learn about healthy boundaries I'm becoming a lot more comfortable saying no. It really is not anyone else's business whether I have the energy or finances to afford their product. It's entirely my choice what I do or don't want to buy or use.
So, to the ones who feel pressured in any direction, courage! Saying no, or I'm not interested, is a muscle. It grows stronger with use.
Love love your last sentence!
DeleteYes! "Oh, I'm not really interested.." and trail off. Additional "mm's" if needed. Looking bored is SO much more discouraging and less contentious than giving into the temptation to engage. And then there's no recovery time needed once you notice or think of something else to talk about!
DeleteWell-put, thank you so much! Your description of soap doing its job is instructive to me :) And I feel a blog post coming on about my old-fashioned cleaning methods (your mom and I would get along just fine - elbow grease and homemade soap! I'm trying to teach my kids to use elbow grease, NOT more cleaner, for pete's sake)
ReplyDeleteI would enjoy reading your take!
DeleteI wonder if the pressure comes from the same sort of insecurity that begets the silent submission and resentment.
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting to me that you said you "resume breathing" after the air freshener is taken out of the room and put away. My grandmother was allergic to blooming flowers. African violets were one of the worst offenders (along with ferns because of their spores). She needed to be careful about visiting people because of their flowers. And if someone quickly moved their violets out because she was coming, it didn't help much. She could tell within minutes that the flowers had been there.
ReplyDeleteGood post, Dorcas. I could probably leave a lengthy comment, but will try to keep it brief. :-)
ReplyDelete~Melaleuca. Now there's a name that brings back some memories (most of them funny, in my case!), LOL
~"...You needed one soap for your hands, one for the dishes, and one for your car..." Well, yes and no. I wash my hands with dish soap fairly often, and I have used lye soap to get grease off my skin in the shower. They work great. However, DON'T get anywhere near the surfaces of my car with lye, borax, vinegar, etc. They may work fine in many other applications, though. :-) (I realize that's not your quote, but there is a difference between Ajax and Meguiar's) To me, that would be about as bad as washing your dishes in gasoline...
~Okay, I'll stop now. Sorry, didn't mean to get up and preach from a soap box (pun very much intended...) *Grin*