Outsourcing

It seems fashionable nowadays to subscribe to the belief that running a household is an easy part time job; the sort of thing you can toss off in between your nine hour workday and helping the kids with homework.  But the more I do it, the more I realize that competently running a household with small children is at least a full time job, even if you don’t include the childcare. 

Healthy meals do not come in microwavable plastic packaging.  Laundry does not sort, load, dry, fold and put itself away.  Having a reasonably clean kitchen and bathroom contributes to the health, comfort and happiness of family members.  Bills must be paid, errands run, dishes washed, repairs and appointments made.

Virtually everyone I know handles some portion of this by outsourcing.  We buy the packaged food, or the take out.  We hire housekeepers and handymen if we can afford to.  Our children go to after school programs or have nannies.  We outsource cleaning and food preparation by buying disposable and single-use products, or the easy and familiar out of season food from far away.  Some of us send the laundry out. 

Those working to be greener, more frugal, or more locavore have endless tasks that could be done to save money, help the environment or eat more locally.  Nearly all of these tasks take longer than their typical counterparts.  In fact, much of the work in adopting these philosophies is in rejecting the varieties of outsourcing that have become common.  Frugal people might wash out plastic storage bags instead of treating them as single use.  People with an environmental bent might hang their laundry to dry.  Those practicing zero-waste are likely going to alter their grocery shopping to involve more and different stores.  Those trying to eat more locally are probably going to have to preserve some of their own local food instead of relying on their supermarket to ship out of season produce from other continents.

I have definite feelings of failure about the forms of outsourcing I use, and yet they clearly free me up to have more fun and be more productive at things that matter to me.  Self reliance and common sense seem to require that I examine all of the forms of outsourcing that I use.  On the other hand, this could be taken to an idiotic extreme –  I'm not about to keep sheep in my back yard so I can knit my own underwear.

Where do you draw the line?  What do you outsource, and what do you keep in-house?  Do you feel guilty about the jobs you outsource?  Do you have resentment about jobs you cannot?  What do you wish you could do yourself, and what do you wish you could get off of your plate?