The White Glove Test

The White Glove Test

By Lisa Marie Crane

August 23, 2011

My cousin Nanny tells a great story. Nanny was a new mother with a sweet baby girl. Our Aunt Anna was coming to call. Aunt Anna is a kind, loving lady but she had a reputation for having a perfectly clean and neat house despite having three children. Nanny cleaned her house from top to bottom, ready for the ‘white glove test’ she was sure was coming.  

In the middle of the night before the visit, Nanny got up to make a bottle for the baby. Long before the days of microwaves, this involved putting water in a pan on the stove, then setting the bottle of milk in the hot water to warm. Sleep-deprived from caring for an infant and exhausted from a day of scrubbing, Nanny fell asleep while the bottle was warming — forgetting to turn off the burner. 

Whoosh! The bottle exploded. Milk covered walls, floor, and ceiling. Nanny spent the rest of the night re-scrubbing the kitchen.  

I always laughed at that story because I understood both sides. I, like Aunt Anna, like things neat and clean. Like Nanny, I worried about what others would think if everything wasn’t spic and span. Then I read Erma Bombeck.

She wrote: “No one ever died from sleeping in an unmade bed.” And “My theory on housework is, if the item doesn’t multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you?”  

Erma got it right. You can kill yourself cleaning and no one will ever notice. 

Aunt Anna, God love her, never even looked at that house. She only had eyes for baby Joellen.  Who wears ‘white gloves’ when holding a cooing infant?  

When I visit my friends with little ones, I don’t see the fingerprints on the fridge or the towels on the floor. I look around and see the artwork displayed and the photos adorning every wall and surface. I find comfortable chairs and crowded kitchen tables. I see full calendars and much-loved pets. 

Just like Aunt Anna, I focus on the happy kids and the loving parents

It turns out that Erma was a fabulous housekeeper too. But as she neared the end of her life she wrote:  “If I had my life to live over… I would have invited friends over to dinner even when the carpet was stained and the sofa was faded…  I would have eaten popcorn in the ‘good’ living room and worried less about the dirt when someone wanted to light the fireplace…. I would seize every minute, look at it and really see it … live it and never give it back.”  

One of the best parties we ever had was one New Year’s Eve when my daughter neglected to tell us that she had invited her friend’s family over. I had nothing prepared. The house was a mess and we had a ball. 

Aunt Anna, well into her nineties, is still fastidious, but the only thing we see when we walk in her door is her wide smile and her welcoming arms.  

(Addendum: I often visited Aunt Anna with my family and she was always thrilled to see us. She taught us what it meant to love freely and fully. May she rest in heaven – which may spruce itself up a bit now that she is there. Cousin Nanny is with her — raising the roof with her wonderful laugh. May they, and all the mothers we miss, remain close in our hearts.)