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.

"Everyone has either a maid or extended family to help with housework and childcare"
Everyone? YABU

It sounds like you are feeling overwhelmed right now and perhaps don't know where to even start. So I would break it down into things that will help that you can change. The things you can't change (not being able to afford help) you need to make peace with and except. At the moment these things are taking up too much headspace for you.

Positive things you can do that will make a difference to your life are things like an evening class for cooking skills or even just get some good basic recipe books on simple healthy meals. Commit to trying one home cooked healthy meal a week to begin with and build up. Your DH could do the same. Even making your own pizzas would be something easy you could do.

There is a tonne of info on getting to grips with a routine for housework that is manageable. Start researching online. A v. basic plan is to thoroughly clean one room each day and just quickly and lightly surface clean the rest with duster and wipes. That is manageable for two working adults and one child (who is old enough to help with chores and also to be responsible for keeping her own room tidy).

A babysitter one night a week or whatever you can afford so you and your husband can go out for a night would be an idea. I think you need more routine with something like that built in to look forward to.

The other thing is just to lower your expectations. A perfect clean and tidy home might not be possible but it honestly really isn't that important in the bigger scheme of things. Most folk on here will tell you that they struggle with domestic workload, but you just get on with it and also put it into perspective.

To try get your house in order I would allocate a full weekend to doing a big tidy up / clear out of stuff you don’t need / clean up where all 3 of you take part (dc can do their own bedroom maybe) and then look up ‘The Organised Mum Method’ online and try to follow that - 30 mins a day Monday - Friday to keep your home clean. The meals are a tricky one when you work long hours but there are many things you can cook that don’t take long without having frozen pizza every night. Chicken fajitas are pretty quick, jacket potatoes, omelettes... buy those veg bags from the supermarket that you just stick in the microwave for a few minutes then at least you’ll be eating some vegetables. Try cooking something bigger like lasagne or shepherds pie on a Sunday and it’ll feed you on Monday night too.

You need to tackle the hoarding first and foremost. You can't hire help or keep on top of anything until that's sorted.

It's a MH issues as someone has already said.

I've never had a maid, but if it's what you are used to, then you probably have never learned how to manage a house yourself.

My mum worked full time, so I did see the effort that went into getting a house clean in evenings and weekends, whereas friends who had SAHMs seemed to struggle to get their heads round what needed doing, haven't never really seen it as cleaning /ironing/ shopping /meal prep was mostly done while they were at school. You will have had a more extreme version of that.

Start with the hoarding, is it that there's too much stuff in your house to keep tidy? (And it is v hard to clean an untidy house). Storage is half the battle.

Is there any money in the budget for domestic help? A cleaner 2 hours a week would mean you get your floors and bathrooms and kitchen scrubbed once a week, and then as you aren't in it, there's not as much cleaning to do to keep on top of it.

We've still got decorations up. I just don't know where to start.

Get a cleaner for two hours on a Monday, to clean up after the weekend. Two hours Friday to clean up for the weekend. It’s not hard.

It must be terrible being used to having a maid and then having to do your own ironing

I’m at people saying the OP somehow works stupidly long hours for very little money. Most people I know do a similar length day and have a smaller income. Many people work those hours on minimum wage.
Anyway. OP I understand your depression and other things are affecting your energy levels and I sympathise as I have medical conditions that affect my energy and some days just getting out bed is more than I can do. However you need to get your child to help out ignore the tantrums and whining and remove privileges if they don’t cooperate. It’s their mess too. I’m a single parent and my kids have no choice but to muck in. Do they complain? Sometimes but that’s tough. There are things you can cook which are just as easy as ready meals but provide more nutrition. Pasta with a jar of sauce and some frozen steam veg is better. I buy ready cooked chicken breast and a jar of curry paste, frozen sweet potato and onions. Chuck it all in a slow cooker with s tin of tomatoes and by the time you come home you have a nice curry. Add some frozen veg again and bulk up your veg and nutrients. It’s not ideal but for the days I’m not able to stand the kids can throw it in and we all have a decent meal.

"Everyone has either a maid or extended family to help with housework and childcare"

This is part of your problem... you are only comparing yourself to one group of people... the very small group of people who do have help. Proportionally the majority of people in SA clearly do not have a maid! Perhaps you could reframe your view of your life to consider yourself lucky that you aren't a maid....

Write a 'to do' list and try and tick off one thing per day, to begin with. You don't need a maid, you just need to get organised. Start with taking down and boxing up the Christmas decorations.

Take the decorations down ASAP. Honestly, it makes your house feel like it’s got a lot more room.

Make a plan for the chores. Ensure your husband and child muck in and do their bit.

You can do this you just need a routine.

It's a vicious cycle that I'm too embarrassed to get help, which means I can't get anyone in to help. DC drops shoes coats bags etc anywhere, because it's already a mess.

I don't think YABU, as you were totally used to the luxury of living in South Africa and having maids. It's a very hard adjustment. for you as I think you're very overly stressed x

Why is your DC not helping with the cleaning! For gods sake get them at least to do their own laundry, help with washing up etc

Start by getting the decorations down then.

Do a room at a time, have a bag at the door and every time you go in, try to fill it with rubbish.

Make both the other two help out. Your DC is not a baby, she's perfectly capable of tidying her own room.

Take the decorations down now. If you have time to sit on mumsnet you have time to take the decs down.

Then come back to the thread and we'll work through it from there........I suffer from poor mental health too and these things can seem like mammoth tasks. My decs came.down last week after putting it off and fretting about it........a couple of Ikea bags later and the lot was down in 20 minutes.

Ok. Well that seems like a good place to start then. Find the box that they came out of. Then take them all down. Put them away neatly. Then put them back in the loft/shed/under the bed or wherever. 1 hour of something you can do together with fun music on.
Tomorrow's task for your DC can be to dust/wet wipe all the surfaces and hoover in the room that was decorated. Will probably take them no more than 20 mins if they put the effort in.
Meanwhile, you can cook jacket potatoes, tuna mayo with sweetcorn and a side salad. DH can empty and reload the dishwasher (or do the washing and drying up) and empty all the rubbish bins.

my parents came over from India and they were used to having a cook and maid.

They adjusted pretty quickly but a key thing was that mum didn't work. Also they loved London so much, they were just overjoyed to be here. So that's a factor too I guess - are you getting enough enjoyment from other things to compensate?

they also took a liking to things like cornish pasties, scotch eggs, fish and chips - if they felt the need to cook every night that might have been different. Also they didn't have kids till 10 years after arriving here.

is there a compromise somewhere e.g. cleaner for big jobs for a while? Then see how you go?

I must admit, without my parents' background it might seem like an odd problem!

You need to address the hoarding before you will be able to live in a house that is quick and easy to maintain. Would you consider employing someone to help with this and take some leave from work to get it done?
For meals maybe have a few ‘easy’ nights where you can have the sort of food that you are current,y eating but on the other nights look at making some easy healthier meals. I use bbcgoodfood.co.uk a lot for ideas. There are sections for healthy meals, family meals, things with fewer than 5 ingredients, things that are really quick etc. Maybe just start by making something ‘proper’ for Saturday lunch and Sunday dinner, then add in a weeknight, and another etc. If you could get your bathroom, kitchen and sitting room tidy you could have a cleaner for 2 hours a week just to stay on top of those rooms while you work on the others. The priority is to address your hoarding though as it makes every other aspect of your life more difficult.

Sorry OP but I'm really struggling to muster any sympathy whatsoever. This isn't to do with "What you're used to" in SA. It's a simple fact that you're disorganised, don't keep on top of things and don't get any help from your husband and teenager.

Rather than dwelling on how it could have been, make what you've got work.

Quite insulting to all the thousands of families making it work it far worst circumstances than yours.

Could you afford hiring a cleaning service once (3 or 4 hours) a month and then trying to make a timetable so everyone at your home do some chores?

I'd have thought you'd be used to it now, having made this country your home.
However, I understand your problems are holding you back, not the fact you haven't got a maid.
Go and see your gp for your depression and anorexia, try and tackle one problem at a time.
Look to the healthy eating for the family first, find some easy recipes and batch cook. I know this will take all your energy mentally, so leave everything else for now. The rest will come in time when you are less overwhelmed.

And I am not trying to rude OP, as I know you have MH problems. But a lot of single parents (myself being one of them) have to cope on their own, no one else to share the load, most can't afford maids so at least there is two of you.