AIBU to struggle without a maid

[WobbleBottomBum]

NC because I know I will be flamed but am genuinely seeking advice.

I grew up in South Africa. Everyone has either a maid or extended family to help with housework and childcare.

I've been in England for years. My DC is 13.
I have struggled with depression, hoarding and anorexia all my adult life.

I go home for visits but my husband's job does not really exist there, and DC is settled so we are unlikely to go there to live.

When we see friends there they don't realise how lucky they are. They can go out when they want, there is always childcare. A quick overnight trip away is no big deal.

Wake up in the morning and breakfast is cooked, come home from work and dinner is made. Clothes are ironed and put away. DC room tidy, floors are hoovered, bathroom cleaned. Children's tutors are cheap.

Our joint household income is about £40k. We could never afford that in England.
DH has to leave the house at 7 and is back around 7 . I leave at 8 back at 6. We are exhausted, the house is a mess, we just have a ready meal. We don't really have friends and the house is too messy for anyone to come.

In an ideal world I would have someone in for one hour each morning and one hour each evening, but no-one would work those shifts and I couldn't afford that anyway.

I struggle and don't know what to do.

OP, you are used to having a maid so it's difficult for people hear to understand. Very few of us have 'maids' as such but I'm sure you could employ someone to come in once a week to give your house a good clean. It would be well worth the money, lovely to come home from work and find everything pristine. Not the same as having someone every day to cook, etc, but still very nice.

Something else probably within your means is taking your laundered clothes and bedclothes to an ironing shop.

Surely the two of you could earn more - £40 a year income between you is not very much. However I appreciate that you have your own problems to deal with.

The poster above me said that when she was in England, the only cleaners she saw were Eastern European. Yes, a lot are and there are agencies who hire them out, I have employed a couple to clean my house who were from Bulgaria I think and I've never seen people work so hard and efficiently! I found them through an agency advert. Same goes for gardening. A Polish chap did mine.

You can't compare here to SA, make the most of what you have here - it's really very nice in England!

I hope things improve for you .

Are you a hoarder?
Maybe you are all untidy living in an over stuffed house who has become overwhelmed due to lack of time &/or energy?

How do you compare with this hoarding self - assessment tool?
www.helpforhoarders.co.uk/downloads/clutter-image-rating-score-card.pdf
As you can see there is a range of severity for each room.

If you have mid range scores in one or more rooms, be brave & take some photos of your home to show your GP as this is an aspect of your overall mental wellbeing alongside your depression and anorexia.

Hoarding as a symptom of mental health problems or as an issue in itself is becoming more widely recognised & a referral may be possible to see an NHS specialist.

These web sitesmay be of help to you.

hoardinguk.org/home/team/
www.helpforhoarders.co.uk
www.nhs.uk/conditions/hoarding-disorder/

Very interesting links

I am hiding this thread now- the racism here is disgusting.

Given you say you hoard, could this be partly to blame for you not coping with the mess.

I moved from a small house into a technically bigger house years ago.

No idea why things didn't fit.

No idea why I had no walls available to put the furniture.

The result was we lived in chaos for some time and the house got messier and messier.

It was overwhelming.

I managed only by being ruthless and Ebaying and carbooting .

Saw Marie Kondo has a series on Netflix which I wish was around when we moved.
It would have got me organised much quicker

I think stuff is probably weighing you down. Even as far as making you physically tired.
Once you get rid of stuff then you can tackle everything else.

I suspect that your anorexia is more a control thing.
You can't control your environment but you can control yourself.

I think that as soon as you get a handle on the hoarding and the house your anorexia will be much better.

I would love domestic help too. Desperately. But I have no space for an au pair. I hired two cleaners once but they broke something very valuable and I was distraught. I think my home is too cluttered and small for a cleaner. If I move I will consider an au pair and definitely will get a cleaner.

You’re not alone OP it’s very hard and if you’re used to help it’s even harder I imagine. Most of the families I know have a very high level of domestic help. They would not understand that I can’t even go out for a walk on my own. Ever.

I’m convinced that one of the reasons the middle classes are so gutted about Brexit is because their unlimited resource of highly qualified Polish women prepared to work hard for a pittance will be reduced. And this cheap resource is seen as a “good” thing.

I didn't see one British person cleaning toilets, office cleaning etc. they were all Eastern Europeans!

You spoke to each and every one of the? Wow.

@WitchesWeb actually, yes, obviously not all but I did meet loads in my line of work when I was there.

Another South African living in the UK here.

YANBU to have depression and possibly SAD. I had postnatal depression, it is awful. As soon as I went to my GP there was so much help available; antidepressants CBT on the NHS and support from health visitors. I am aware that mental health services are a postcode lottery but ask - any help is better than no help.

You are being unreasonable to mourn the loss of a maid. There are three of you in your household capable of doing chores. If you work, DH must pitch in. My DH cooks dinner every single night.

We have a wonderful Polish cleaner who comes for 2 hours a week. She cleans the kitchen and bathroom and we do everything else. The difference between her and a South African domestic worker is that she is well educated and has lots of options and decided to set up their own cleaning business. South African maids were deliberately given an inferior education to make them suitable only to be servants.

There is much in the UK to appreciate and be grateful for.I love feeling so safe, DC and I can walk everywhere/ to school together, garden doors open on hot summer nights with no prison bars, the free, clean parks, the jaw-dropping culture in London, much of it free, the high quality newspapers, galleries and theatre, British sense of humour and fair play. Europe a 2 hour flight away when you need some sunshine.

Focus on what you have got, not what you haven't got.

It is only possible to have high levels of affordable domestic 'help' in a deeply unequal society with lots of poverty. So for that, YABU.

Most people in the UK consider 2h a week of external cleaning service to be a luxury.

'Please try lobbying to abolish the huge income differentials in SA...'

Yes, I think Zimbabwe recently had a go at that...

calledyoulastnightfromglasgow
Exactly! All the Remainers chastising the OP for coming from an unequal society which exploits its workers whilst creating their own little 3rd world country right here in Blighty...

I have depression and other health problems. My husband and myself both work full time. Our boy is now 5, but even when he was a baby, always, we managed. Cooked homemade meals almost every day, cleaned the house, washing-ironing-gardening - everything that needs doing. There are weekends! You can prepare meals in advance.
Sometimes you really need to put an effort in, even with depression, tiredness and what have you. Relationship with your partner can give a powerful pull here. Get your DC to help!
And also, it IS possible to find house help for an hour or two, I have seen adverts like this.

Sound like Thier lucky and overprivagled a mod is a luxury not a commitdy. I understand anxiety and depression as me and other half have it but we manage a clean and tidy house without a maid Wiht a 14 month old. I follow the organised mom method on Facebook and that helps me keep my house nice and tidy it only takes n45 minutes a day.

My anti Brexit feelings have absolutely nothing to do with not having badly paid help anymore, I don't have any help whatsoever, I think we don't really have that culture in the UK. I would feel really uncomfortable with someone cleaning my house even though it is offering employment.

Sound's like you need to get yourself organised, i have suffered from depression for year's, not that long ago my husband and myself both worked full time and had 2 teenager's, meal's were planned in advance, my daughter's helped with cleaning at the weekend, and changed there own bed's, my husband and myself did the weekly shop every friday evening, the washing and ironing was never a problem, my daughter's are both married and work they feel never feel hassled, they learned to be organised as teenager's. I could probably afford a cleaner but wouldn't dream of it, i'll look after my own home.

I have a lot of empathy for you and YANBU to feel the way you do.

I never had a maid, or anything like that, but people don't realise how hard it is to keep up with a house and child when you have absolutely no experience of cleaning. I went from a background of abuse where learning how to handle a hoover was not on my home agenda, to suddenly having to look after a house and a baby.

'just hoover', 'just cook', 'just start with the ironing'.

People don't realise how daunting that is when it takes ten minutes to iron a single shirt and even then it still has creases in because you've never held an iron before. And suddenly you have to iron one for every day of the week, so that's about an hour out of your day for a week's worth of clothes while the washing piles up in the basket and the dishes sit in the sink and the bathroom loo gets all disgusting because you don't know what bleach is for.

It's mind blowingly overwhelming and I had anorexia too, it's just one way to make things feel less on top of you.

I get it OP. I really, really do.

Following on from kismetjayn's post - often we're afraid to even begin, from fear of failure.

I'm teaching my girls how to cook and clean at the moment (if I had boys, they'd be learning the exact same thing, I hasten to add). What I'm telling them, is that yes, it's hard at first, it takes a long time at first, and you're going to make (some hilarious and others rather heartbreaking!) mistakes. But each time you do it, it gets easier, and you get faster.

When I'm having a down day (which is quite often at the moment), I tell myself - look, I feel like crap, look like crap and yes, it's all crap - but why don't I just spend 15 minutes doing the dishes and wiping down the benches? Just get off your chuff mbos, and do it. And I will feel better for doing so. Then I give myself a reward and a rest. Then it's - well, the kitchen is clear for cooking - I'll do 20 minutes meal prep - say, putting some meat in a marinade, and chopping some veges. Another reward - generally by this time of day, it's a glass of wine for me!

Also, if you can get your dd to come tell you about her day while you wash and she dries, or while you both prep veges - well, then, you've got her helping and learning, AND you can get to feel like a top parent! (a bowl of chips often seems to bring them out of their rooms I notice - I swear one of mine hears a dorito bag being opened from three doors down. . .)

If you cock tea up - there's always take out. It's virtually impossible to stuff up wiping down the kitchen. And if you find that you've got a little bit left in the tank - rather than trying to sort out the whole kitchen - is there a cupboard or a drawer that you could clean out in 15 minutes? Do each one until you've done that room. . . or start in a different room. . .

OMG Stop feeling sorry for this woman, our grandparent's had a much harder life and they managed, maybe if she got on with the housework, cooking and cleaning she would stop thinking about how she's feeling all the time, i'm sorry but laziness springs to mind, my sister is a manic depressive has 2 son's, work's part-time and run's the house.This woman just has to get on with it like the rest of us

happyhillock, you sound so like my mother.

She wondered why I didn't tell her when I was suffering chronic PND.

Given she'd spout off every opportunity about how depression was only suffered by people who spent FAR too much time thinking about themselves, and if they'd only just get up and on, and keep themselves busy, they'd be fine.

Your sister is a manic depressive works part-time, has two sons and runs the house?

This woman is depressed, has anorexia, is working full-time, and running the house - not very well, possibly, but it sounds like anything that is being done, she is in the hot seat for doing it.

Just for the record, it is not the “norm” to have full time domestic help in SA!! Certain areas or stratas of society maybe, but not the people I know!!

happyhillock If manic depression is managed well by medication, then people will just feel like anyone else.

YABVU - welcome to the real world. In SA they pay maids a pittence, so many people have them. You cant afford one in the UK? Thats because of racial and gender equality. Thats how it should be.

Actually, there is more nuance to this. We live in Asia and have a Filipino helper who lives with us and who the children regard as family. She makes more money than any of her family members in the Philippines, eg people who have held on to steady, technical jobs for global brands/ industrial groups for 10+ years. And she is housed and fed.

With her money, she is putting her nephews and nieces through college/university to break the cycle of poverty (she doesn’t have children).

A few months ago she told me over a glass of wine that her life is heaven.

Yes she works hard, but she is treated with respect and kindness. I’m not saying all families are the same - there are plenty of stories of abuse - but if we were only focusing on so-called “racial and gender equality”, she would be out of a job, her brother wouldn’t have a roof on his house, their kids wouldn’t be able to afford glasses, dentist etc. How’s that better overall?

It’s a very sad thing that some people, based on where they are born, or their race/gender, are dealt a bad hand in life. But at least if we employ one of them, we can help them a bit.

To all those who think it’s scandalous, do you also avoid buying any products made in China, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Cambodia? Because they’re probably made by factory workers who make less than my helper, and live in much worse conditions.

OP, I don’t have any advice but I know I will find it really hard if we ever move back to the UK!

Oh, and just for the record, I don't actually feel 'sorry' as such for the OP.

I do think there is a sight more going on than just laziness though, and it might be harder for her to see a way over the mountain, let alone start putting one foot in front of the other to climb it.