Judith Treas featured in USA Today

Oct. 17, 2007

THE HIRED WIFE

By Laura Vanderkam

In 1972, in the premiere issue of Ms., essayist Judy Syfers made an observation: Someone has to do the grunt work of running a home. And so, "I want a wife," she wrote. A wife would wash her clothes, run carpools, keep the house clean and "see to it that my personal things are kept in their proper place so that I can find what I need the minute I need it." The wife would keep track of dentist appointments and "plan the menus, do the necessary grocery shopping, prepare the meals" and, of course, hire babysitters. With a wife taking care of those details, Syfers could devote herself fully to advancing her career, as men always have. "Who wouldn't want a wife?" asked Syfers, now Judy Brady.

(Illustration by Web Bryant, USA TODAY)

Thirty-five years later, Kathryn Bowsher of San Francisco asked herself the same thing. As founder of Act One Marketing, a company that specializes in commercial strategy for development-stage drugs and medical devices, she didn't have enough time for household details.

Fortunately, she found The Perfect Wife. His name is Ed Daly, and he runs a business called The Perfect Wife. "He does the random, miscellaneous things that kill you," Bowsher says.

Daly hauls shoes to the cobbler. He orders replacement salad plates. He plans parties and, for $35 an hour, does anything else that there's "not enough hours in the day to do," Daly says.

Growing industry

He's not the only wife for hire. These days, an entire industry of small businesses is tackling what has been deemed "women's work." Unlike the private chefs and housekeepers of yore, though, these start-ups and franchises achieve such economies of scale that hiring them isn't much pricier than doing the work yourself. Sometimes, it's cheaper if you factor in time. Indeed, almost all the chores lamented in the Ms. essay can now be outsourced to folks who've made careers of being better at each individual task than any wife could be in the aggregate. That's freeing women to focus on what matters most to them: their careers and, in fact, their families. Even folks who don't like Ms. magazine can agree that the latter is a good thing.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, when the first issue of Ms. appeared in 1972, about half of women ages 25-54 were in the labor force. By 2005, that figure had risen to roughly 75% of women doing or seeking paid work outside the home.

Judy Treas, a professor at the University of California, Irvine who studies the gender division of labor, notes that, in general, when men earn more money, they spend it on various things. Women use extra money to buy time. It's no coincidence that Merry Maids — a cleaning service that scrubs more than 300,000 homes a month — started in 1979, shortly after women flooded the labor force. Employment in the day care industry likewise rose 250% from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s.

These days, outsourcing goes beyond vacuuming and child care. Syfers wanted a wife to wash and mend her clothes. Women desiring the same thing now can put laundry on their porches, and the folks at 1-800-DryClean will pick it up and drop it off. If you're still at work when the kids have karate, children's taxi services will shuttle them there for $10-$15 a ride. Syfers wanted a wife who planned menus, shopped, chopped and cleaned up afterward. These days, meal preparation franchises, including My Girlfriend's Kitchen and Dinner by Design, help you assemble one to two weeks worth of pre-planned entrees in 60-90 minutes in their kitchens. Thanks to their bulk-buying, this costs about $4 per serving — or roughly the price of groceries.

Hate waiting on the phone? Virtual assistants book dental appointments. Concierge services wait for plumbers. More than 4,000 members of the National Association of Professional Organizers arrange homes so that "personal things are kept in their proper place." For instance, Standolyn Robertson, owner of Things in Place and NAPO president, creates "launching pads" for families so that homework and cellphones are ready to go in the morning.

Robertson always wanted to organize kitchens and foyers, before the title of "organizer" existed. She explained her aspirations to her high school guidance counselor, who informed her, "You want to be a wife."

Becoming a better mom

But that wasn't quite right. In the past, "wife" was a job that included everything from organizing to meal planning to sewing. But it doesn't make sense that one woman would be good at all these things — plus nurturing her kids and any paid work she does. Economists tell us that we achieve efficiencies when people focus on what they do best. So the economy grows as people who like to organize become organizers, people who like to cook open My Girlfriend's Kitchen franchises, and professional women focus on their jobs — and their families.

Women do much less housework now than they did in 1965, but according to a 2000 report in Demography, they spend 19.6 hours per week taking care of children as their primary or secondary activity vs. 15.4 hours in 1965. That's more than an additional half hour per day, even as women's labor force participation has soared. Notes Treas, "Purchasing services frees up time to spend on things that people value more." Or as Daly puts it, his clients "don't want to come home at night and put a bicycle together for their son. They want to spend time with their son." Freed from unnecessary domestic burdens, women become better moms.

Of course, someone has to book all this outsourcing, and in two-income families, that's still usually the wife. But if you've got the cash, a household manager like Daly will do that, too. He wants your life to be "seamless." Just as perfect wives always have.

Laura Vanderkam, author of Grindhopping: Build a Rewarding Career without Paying Your Dues, lives in New York and is a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.