Shamed by a lady's cleaning journal

Never have I felt more personally trolled by a sales email. The subject line said, ‘Joanne’s ultimate cleaning journal!’

My god, it was even using my full name. I felt instantly hurtled back to the 80s when everyone still called me that. Especially my mum, who would wake me up lovingly at the crack on a Saturday by throwing a bucket and Marigolds at me and remind me that, ‘Joanne, it’s your job to clean the bathroom.’ What a joy that was in a household of six.

(Side note: ‘Joanne’ is a great one to name your kid if you wish to spend a lifetime nagging her. Especially in an Aussie accent, the ‘annnnnnne’ really drags satisfactorily for the parent you’re currently disappointing.)

So I must admit I was intrigued-slashed-unnerved. Was this an email addressed to me, by some marketing bot that just knows I need personal, targeted shaming into locating the broom? Had my name been sold by some dodgy database? Which, when you consider it’s really only the NHS and HMRC that still address me as ‘Joanne’, well.. then all kinds of sinister lines of enquiry were playing out in my feverish mind.

Of course, it was not directly shouting at me. There’s apparently a company called ‘Joanne’s Journals’ and they were simply keen to bring the attention of a real life Joanne to their Ultimate Cleaning Journal. For £29.99 the dream can be your reality.

And what an eye opener it was for a self-confessed sloven such as moi. Quite the trad wife-gasm if you’re into that sort of thing. Just look at the beautiful cover in its soothing, baby-ish pink. Immediately I felt that I had no right to own such a pretty product, because I don’t own a gingham apron and my farts don’t smell like little puffs of Glade Plug-In (tropical blossom scent).

Those glaring flaws aside, God knows I do try to keep my house in some order. I suppose I just had no idea how serious this is for some people. I knew about Mrs Hinch, of course, but I genuinely thought that was just her who cleaned 24/7.

Who is giving themselves a little tick box every time they wash a dish? How much time could you spend doing more cleaning if you weren’t writing in a diary about all the things you just cleaned? Isn’t the mental load of housework - anticipating who’s about to run out of pants unless you do a wash, remembering the sausages in the fridge are on the turn, forgetting yet again to buy more bloody dishwasher salt - made even more onerous by keeping up with filling in boxes in a judgey little journal?

You’ve probably clocked by now that I am not one of life’s list makers. But I can appreciate that many people get satisfaction and peace from slashing a red pen through one task after another. So yeah, fair enough, maybe a lot of people, non-Joannes included, would enjoy their Ultimate Cleaning Journal and the sense of achievement it instills. But to the big list fans amongst you: Do you actually need a list to remind you to ‘wipe counters’? I’m no Martha Stewart but even I can’t go more than about four hours without noticing when that needs doing.

Sorry, but I have more questions. For one: Surely this methodical and slavish Ultimate Brainwashing Bollocks approach to housekeeping is something of an oxymoronic luxury? Because if you are the kind of person who has all this time to devote to working through these hours-long lists of tasks, why would you actively choose to spend it doing this? How did we get to a place where housework - the thing that virtually imprisoned our mothers in the 60s and 70s - got repackaged and served up to us as a hobby? Calming and joyful and mindful, is it? Get in the sea, Joaaaaaaaannnnnne. If you need to do it, it ain’t no hobby. And… if you do really really love cleaning quite this much, then no shade here. But it seems to me the people who would be the prime target market for this - people who really do treat cleaning as a hobby - would never need a little book to nag them to make the bed?

To have this much time to dedicate to a daily checklist that runs the gamut from cleaning your front door to giving rooms an ‘afternoon touch-up’ (eh?!) you pretty much need to be someone with literally nothing else to do. Not out there earning money, not running around on school pick-ups and drop-offs, or walking the dog or nipping out to drive your mum to the GP. Even writing this nonsense here takes me hours, believe it not. (Some would argue that I should spend the time cleaning the front door instead, I know.)

Is it a symptom of the trad wife movement? It does make me laugh watching so many of them beam beatifically whilst hovering over a sink. Because from what I can gather, most of the big names in that space are super rich women running very lucrative businesses on the back of this wheeze. There is no way they are actually spending ten hours a day polishing skirting boards, or churning their own damn butter.

Here’s a fun experiment for you. Imagine, just for a minute or two, buying Joanne’s Ultimate Cleaning Journal and wrapping it lovingly and presenting it as a gift to a man in your life. Go on, really visualise watching as any one of them - husband, boyfriend, brother, dad, gay best mate, some guy in the office - unwraps this charming gift. You just know the expressions on their faces would be a mix of bewilderment, indignation, or maybe coughing up a lung laughing. And that alone speaks volumes about how far we’ve come, and how businesses still see that housework is a thing to market to women and women only.

I tried to find the equivalent cleaning diaries aimed at men. Have a guess how that went. They get things that look like what would happen if we asked AI to shove a jockstrap, some podcasting bros and a can of Lynx in a blender - no prissy pink cleaning journals for the ‘stronger’ sex, oh no.

This, ‘The Successful Man’ is no mere planner or diary, friends. It’s a ‘transformation system’! Look how masculine and well ‘ard it is! (Actually, if I was a guy I think I’d be pretty aghast to be given this too.)

The closest thing I found to a cleaning journal for men was this one on Etsy. You can tell it’s a cool one for the guys because it’s sweary and it too is all tough and black and there’s even a lion on it for… some reason. Did he come in and take a dump on your kitchen tiles? Hoover the hallway or he will eat you? Fuck me, indeed.

This whole issue is a strong enough point of gendered judgement - still - that I feel compelled, after railing against this Stepford Wife BS, to assure you that I do do housework.

I prioritise:

Cooking - because what to eat next is really my only concern.

Laundry - because I love clothes and I like looking after them. And folding is when I listen to podcasts.

Kitchen cleaning - I can’t say I love it, but who wants grossness where the food is?

Bathroom cleaning - I hate it, but who wants grossness where the pooing gets done?

Sheet changing - it can take hours to psyche up to it, but clean sheets day is thrilling.

Everything else gets done when I notice it. Like you, I have stuff to get done, places to be and sometimes I like to do stuff beyond boring necessary shit. Last week I took myself to the cinema to watch three hours of The Odyssey when yes, I know, I could have shampooed at least two rugs in that time.

If you love cleaning, I am happy for you. I can get the occasional buzz from sorting out a cupboard. But I’ll never be one of Joanne’s bestest little soldiers on this front. Then again, damn her - I have now noticed that the front door really could use a wipe.

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