I have a live-in house-keeper who does all the housework. Ask me anything

[Expatworkingmum]

Not meant to be showy in any way. I'm not rolling in money, I just live overseas where this is completely normal. There's a fair few expats here so I'm probably not the only one.

But yes, we have a house-keeper. She does all the housework, any childcare we need and cooks for us.

Very, very fortunate.

What family does your housekeeper have back home?

When I was a teenager we lived in Asia and had a Filipino maid (maid was the official term). She was lovely but I didn't like the invasion of privacy. Guess the privacy trade off was worth it to my mum who didn't have to do the cooking/cleaning/washing. To be fair a non-AC house in the tropics does require vastly more cleaning than a British climate home to keep on top of the mould, grime and insects.

She had been a maid for years and thought it was a good job as there was no childcare involved ( I was 16).

Don't know if its still practice 20 years on but I didn't like that employers took their passports off the maids and kept them locked away supposedly to stop them stealing stuff and going back to Philippines

She had teenage kids she was supporting in the Philippines. This is pre-internet so guess her contact with them was limited.

What social life does your helper have? Can she have friends over and watch a movie with them? Can she cook a meal for them and eat in the kitchen? Can she have friends over for a chat and sit together on the sofa?

By "can" I mean more than theoretically, I mean does she feel able to socialise in her own space?

I also lived somewhere where help was common - to the point of being a social obligation in a society with no minimum wage and no benefits. I never had someone living in because of this issue. I like my own space. I only had one living room. I didn't want to share it. Same with my kitchen. I also wouldn't want to live without those spaces myself, so wouldn't expect someone else to.

I'm not attacking, almost all my friends had live-in help who either worked, were confined to their rooms or had to leave the house. It was utterly normal. And locals also lived like that, so it wasn't a colonialist type of thing.

Cool thread!

I grew up in the ME and we always had help (live-in from when I was 11). It was great. I learned a lot about how to treat people kindly when they don't have the option to be frank with you (my mother was not always very nice to our maids). We had 2 or 3 maids and they tended to have family in the area, so they'd visit them on Fridays (my dad would drive them).

We had meals cooked, washing done and house cleaned. I realised how pampered I'd been when I went off to uni and couldn't work the washing machine or prepare pasta

SoaringSwallow - can she socialise that in theory? Yes, absolutely. Would she in practice? No, probably not. We only have a very small apartment. It may be different for those in large houses. Most helpers socialise outdoors with their friends.

Thanks for answering my questions Expatmum. For the record you sound like a very decent employer and I hope the majority are like you.

I can’t answer for Expatworkingmum but certainly in the community where I live, a lot of the helpers/nannies hang out together. If you go to the park or playground in the evening, it’s full of kids playing and nannies all sat together socialising.

Our nanny shares a car ride every morning with three other nannies in our compound and has play dates with our neighbours’ kids and their nannies.

She’s also in a football team, goes to church every week and occasionally visits family that she has living and working in another emirate. To be honest, she has a better social life than me!

That's essentially what I meant OP.

The helpers, housekeepers, nannies and maids are no different to us in my experience. The reason they socialise in the parks is often because they're free, they won't get hassled (much) and they don't have many other options (other than church, as someone pointed out).

However, if they are friends with someone who has their own place, they will far more often meet there (as well as church) and prepare meals together, celebrate things etc. When there's no option of that though, they (have to) enjoy their time in public.

I'm not saying that you're being horrible to her. More noticing a similarity in behaviour to another part of the world (very likely same nationality of helpers) with the implicit expectation that it's fine for them to have little privacy, because they accept it. They are happy. They have lots of friends. Firstly, the chances of them complaining about it are zero. Second, I don't believe many of them think they have any right to anything else. It's not like guys on oil rigs who live in close quarters for 2-4 weeks, then rotate home for the same period. These women (almost always a woman) live without ever having their own real space other than a bedroom. I wouldn't want that myself, wouldn't want that for my daughter (or son) and I wouldn't want that for someone else. Well, outside of university or first few years working.

However, there's also another aspect. And here's where it gets complicated. When you over pay in relation to the local market, when you leave, that person will have a hard time adjusting (and I've also seen this often enough) to the same work for significantly less pay. A very hard time. It can often lead to them being resentful of new employers because they feel crap getting paid so much less than they used to. Which is human nature - I would too! They hold out for a similar level of pay and conditions, often can't find it, take a job they hope will have pay increases and generally don't get one high enough. Unless they're "given" to the new people who move into the house, or an employee's successor.

So I'm not attacking you, really. But it's disingenuous to think that just because things would be worse at home, that everything is fine (as long as they're not being abused and are treated kindly) working
under these conditions either. The solution, from my experience, is not to over pay. Not in the long run. I'm not sure what exactly it is though.

I think keeping in touch after you leave and transferring a "present" for them sometimes can be nice.

Don't you feel bad only giving her one day off a week?

If you pay £400 a month you pay her £15.50 per day. How may hours of that day is she in your employment and how many hours free to do as she wants? I presume she only has to work a couple of hours a day at that rate? You say that you do all you can about her family being so far away, but perhaps the best thing you can do is pay her more money so she can visit them?.

How much holiday do you give her? What pension contributions do you make for her? What does her contract say about sick pay? What other benefits and terms and conditions are there in her contract?

I don't care how fond of her you are or how many meals out you offer her, you are clearly exploiting her and justifying it on the grounds that everyone else treats their staff badly too.

I'd love someone on hand to help but would hate to have someone living in my home with me. I'd also hate the culture surrounding the live in housekeepers in some parts of the middle east. One family I knew basically had a glorified servant - very much someone living there who was not treated as part of the family (a second class citizen). The poor woman had also left her own young kids to be looked after by family while she worked. Not something I'd be comfortable with at all.

I have a weekly cleaner and go out to avoid her. The thought of having someone living in is hellish. If I worked long hours I would want them off duty when I came home and hopefully living in a self contained annex.

@greyedging. I'm sorry you feel like that but we honestly aren't. The money she earns is completely disposable income - we pay for everything she needs. This includes trips home to see her family (maybe I didn't state that in the first place). She went home in November and we offered her the chance to go back for Christmas too, less than 2 months later, and she declined. Instead she's having friends here for Christmas while we're away.

We also gave her money to share with her family while she was home last month, plus gifts for her kids. We send toys and clothes for her grandchildren very often.

We are quite an exceptional case that our needs are fairly minimal (and genuinely could amount to about 2 hours a day, spread out across the day), although of course that is not the case for everyone.

She is actually sick at the moment and I wouldn't dream of docking her pay for sick time. I came straight home from work when I heard she wasn't feeling well, took over from her and cooked her dinner. If she were sick long-term, we would still be required to pay her salary and also her medical care.

It's hard to explain without you being here to see it and there exploitative aspects to the culture of helpers but I assure you we, as a family, absolutely do everything we can to treat her well.

I should add that I get very annoying comments a lot from acquaintances here about how we spoil our helper - hence quite ironic to hear (read) someone here saying we are exploiting her.

@greyedging, we go out all day on a Saturday and don't ever expect her to cook. We may ask her to babysit on a Saturday night after we've put our daughter to bed, but that's all. So she has 2 days off. She is free to come and go as she pleases any day of the week though.

We lived in Latin America and had a live in maid. I really didn't want one at start but had it explained it was my social duty, by the end I cried when we all had to leave each other.
It ruins life without staff though! My dc were good at looking after themselves before we went out and have been hopeless since. I loved having no housework and being able to pop out at anytime. I didn't work so I really did have proper free time.

Good for you! I presume your home is big enough for her to have her own quarters so you're not tripping over eachother all the time. That's great anyway, no questions from me but I believe we should all have all the help we can afford or get.

I should add that I get very annoying comments a lot from acquaintances here about how we spoil our helper - hence quite ironic to hear (read) someone here saying we are exploiting her.

In what way is it ironic?

I think it’s admirable that you keep responding to posts, but I wonder if you were expecting such strong replies? I wonder if they are giving you a more realistic and balanced context of the exploitation than you get from your friends who tell you you’re “spoiling” someone who is actually a human and not a pet?

@GreenHillOpposite I didn’t have any expectations really. I am glad I have the opportunity to reassure that this is not always an exploitative arrangement. The problem with the internet is that I can’t prove it, I may even be talking complete nonsense and not have a housekeeper at all (although of course that isn’t the case).

The irony, I suppose, is in having had to defend both ends of the scale. (And those who judge me for ‘spoiling’ my helper are thsnkfully not friends!)

Merry Christmas all!

What's been thought-provoking and challenging for me is that individuals may act with kindness and respect, but it is in the context of colluding with a very unfair, exploitative, unkind system.

I'm not sure what ethical choice is.

Sorry, "I'm not sure what the ethical choice is".

What do you do day to day?
How do you occupy your time?
I'm not being sarky, I'm genuinely curious. I work pt but domestic stuff consumes a fair amount of time.
How do you fill it?

I'm not sure about it being unethical. Surely paying someone to do a job for you is not unethical, the housekeeper appears to be reasonably paid and housed as well as being very much liked. It sounds as though she is good at her job and if she didn't like working for the op, could easily find another post.

@Kemer2018 I work full time, quite long hours so no danger of boredom! My husband was a SAHD when we first lived here and once our helper started with us, he still did all the childcare (DD was younger so only in nursery a few hours a day). So that’s what kept him busy.

I'm not sure about it being unethical. Surely paying someone to do a job for you is not unethical, the housekeeper appears to be reasonably paid and housed as well as being very much liked. It sounds as though she is good at her job and if she didn't like working for the op, could easily find another post.

Well, that's the thing, she doesn't have those options, does she? It's not a case of saying, "if she doesn't like it she can find another post". Doing what? What options does she have??

She might have preferred for it to have been economically viable for her to raise her own children. She might prefer to be a grandmother that has more to call home than a small box room for a bedroom. She might prefer to have more options outside of work than socialising in a park.

kemer I didn't work in this set up, I did drop off and pick up DC from school, which took a long time as there was a very convoluted system for this. I also chose to cook because our maid wasn't great, although she could make simple food for DC's lunches.
I had two language lessons a week, I was on several charity groups boards, we had a book club, trips out and about, everyday tasks such as bill paying were quite time consuming, I read and did a lot of crafting. At one point I was so busy I had to drop activities. The DC had very busy social life's and the mum's were expected to stay and chat for hours. It was a very Edwardian life. I did work alongside my maid when hosting functionings or doing bigger sorting out jobs. There was a lot hosting both for my groups which were a mixture of expats and locals, the school which was mostly locals and DH's work.
Being able to strip housework from your chore list is a blessing but readjusting afterwards is hard and your friends back home will give you no sympathy.

Interesting how, upon being challenged for exploiting your staff, you have changed your mind and realised that, actually, you give her two days off a week, not one! And, actually, you 'may' go out on Saturdays, not, 'whenever you like', due to having childcare whenever you want! Funny, that.

You say that £15.50 a day is all disposable income (as if you think that is a great deal), but that rather ignores the fact that she has no home, and, presumably, almost no possessions as she exists in a small bedroom in your flat. She has no home, nowhere that is homely, no-where to entertain or meet friends. You refer to the 'helpers' meeting in the park. Don't you realise that that is because they are paid so poorly, they don't have homes to invite friends around to? (whilst their employers pat themselves on the back for providing free accommodation and use it to justify poverty wages) Presumably most of these helpers are meeting whilst they are working too, so not even meeting in their own down time (not that they would have a lot of money to socialise with....).

Buying little gifts, or any discretionary act that you consider kindness, but are not obliged to do, is no substitute for decent pay and terms and conditions enforced by a contract and hence not discretionary.
A contract makes give both parties equality, as both have rights and responsibilities, It's deeply patronising to leave someone in the powerless position of you 'choosing' to be 'nice' . it is delusional to think this makes you a good employer, whilst her basic contracted conditions are so poor.

You have referred repeatedly to have 'fond' you are of your help: its almost as if you regard your fondness of her as a perk of her job. People use the word 'fond' when they are referring to pets, small children and chocolate. It is really telling that you use it to describe her. You're attitude reeks of patronisation. You have clearly 'othered' her and don't regard her as an human being of equal worth and dignity.

She's a middle aged women (if she has worked in this job for 30 years as you say) who lives in a tiny bedroom, has to socialise in a park, works 6 days a week (or 5 if you want people to stop thinking you are exploitative!) for £15.50 a day max. There is no way you can reframe this to be anything other than exploitative. She has to put up with this suck, and being a tool for you believing you are nice due to your discretionary acts of charity, due to her poverty.

Really, your attitude sounds like something from a couple of centuries ago.