VDH notes the paradox of middle class people filling gyms while immigrants do their physical chores for them. Brawn in an Age of Brains:
Sometime in the 1970s and 1980s, millions of Americans—far more than just those constituting an economic elite—decided that a key to the good life was to be free from, say, the need to cook, watch children, mow the lawn, or rake leaves. Illegal immigration promised cheap help for the upper middle classes that had once been the exclusive domain of the aristocracy. In theory, skipping the gym for four hours a week would provide more than enough time to mow the lawn, prune the bushes, or vacuum the floor. Yet sweaty and studied exercise is often deemed preferable to rote labor, given that it is more scientifically calibrated to making one look and feel better. Repetitive muscular work is not seen as commensurately valuable, whether for the exercise it provides or for its psychic benefits. Yet for all one’s degrees and income, a person can still retain some sense of autonomy and an ability to master the surrounding material landscape, if only for a few hours each week, and to appreciate how the other half lives that does such physical labor for wages. It is a choice...
I get his point, but I do not think that fitness is equivalent to physical labor. Our carpenter lifts weights in the gym with the intention of continuing to be able to carry heavy things at work through his 70s. In my case, I have always done all of the outdoor labor at the HQ and the farm that I have time for (ie weekends), but I never saw any fitness gains from that. It is enjoyable for me, though.
For house-cleaning and laundry, we have two high-energy Polish immigrants who leave everything spotless, neat, and sparkling. Their only requirement of us is that there be no clutter, nothing on the floor, and nothing on any surfaces.
When you have day jobs, nobody wants to spend a weekend house-cleaning and doing laundry. Heck, we even do our workouts Sunday morning before church.
