I am enticed by and enjoy fine TV British dramas such as Downton Abbey and the older, but venerable PBS stalwart, Upstairs, Downstairs.

Prominent in every cast of characters is the terse and tight-lipped housekeeper who reigns over the various house servants in her domain with an implacable and impeccable air of quiet authority. She perpetually carried a faint air of disapproval and danger. Cross her at your peril.

The skill of keeping a house used to be a marketable trade. Right up there with plumber and electrician and carpenter. Mind you, when English country manor houses were roughly the same square footage as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, considerable management skill was required.

Keeping an English manor house would have been the origin of the modern day skillset of project management and logistics. Admission to the hallowed halls of keeping a great house usually started with apprenticeship.

Emerging housekeepers started their careers at a young age starting out with ignominious job titles in ignominious jobs: scullery maid, house servant, kitchenmaid, chamber attendant, scullion.

You worked up to the post of housekeeper, if you ever did, and were not waylaid by marriage and babies. I can only imagine the degree of skullduggery and political finesse required to succeed in that post. Part military strategist and part politician. The rules of conduct and the standards were much higher and more inflexible than they are generally today.

But a young man or woman who “went into service” could comfortably rely on – if they obeyed the rules of conduct and consistently met the required standards – a “career for life.”

In a similar vein, I once met a bright and lively thirteen year old German girl aiming for a career as a waitress. I was her colleague for a summer in a massive German resort hotel in the middle of the Rhine River Valley’s wine country.

I was amazed that the German school system had young people choose and start planning for a lifelong career at such a tender age. It seemed to me that she was going to miss out on a lot of life adventures by tying herself into a career path.

My attitude, I now realize, was the perspective of an entitled young North American woman who was reaping the rich rewards of a generous post-feminist establishment. I was a young woman living through the age of affirmative action.

As society was test driving the radical notion that women could, indeed, perform tasks equal to their male counterparts, you saw the rise of courses like “powder puff” mechanics (in large bright pink lettering on every poster) aimed at teaching women to keep their car in top fit condition. Imagine.

What I came to realize was that I took for granted the career opportunities I had with seemingly boundless economic rewards that were specifically tied to the early 70s and the Zeitgeist of that particular juncture in history.

So when I hired young people recently to “deep clean” my house, I got a first hand look at how sad and low the general standards of housekeeping have fallen. Deep cleaning now may mean wiping down counters but not taking toothpicks into greasy nooks and crannies.

Fridge handles get wiped down but if the greasy residue remains, no one hauls out a Magic Eraser. I saw no one using hydrogen peroxide to bubble away food crud.

Houses need love as much, if not more, than other inanimate objects. Like your car. If you ignore these objects and cease giving them love (which is generally called “maintenance”), it doesn’t take long for a house to start complaining. And eventually, to start failing and then falling apart.

Having the required skills to identify problems in a house is training that usually only comes with experience. If your parents haven’t engaged you in the basics of how to fix a leaky drain or clean out air ducts, you are likely to bump into some unpleasantness when you first start managing your own house. The learning curve can be mighty steep and ruthless.

I sometimes feel I’ve had it all thrown at me in my “house keeping” journey. The foundation that cracked mid-winter and flooded the basement bedrooms. The toilet flapper that stuck in the up position and occasioned at $1500 water bill.

The ongoing battle with critters who feel completely entitled to settling into my lodgings. They burrow through walls and wires and appliances in their ceaseless quest to find a safe and happy home for their young’uns. Not unlike us, if I can see past my anger to admit that.

So I am not exactly advocating that “housekeeping” be brought back as a laudable ambition for young women today. But I am saying they should at least deliberately arm themselves with the skills to keep a house in top working condition.

There is no guarantee that Prince Charming is going to know what to do when a breaker blows. You had best make sure that you do.