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.

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.

Things like wiping down the work tops and getting rubbish out the kitchen helps. I also have a worktop bin (( Aka mixing bowl )) which I use to scrape onion peels etc into. I have a set of cheap, plastic bowls I use when cooking to make things less chaotic. I chop and bung in there so I know where I'm at. Often preparing the night before, curry etc can be knocked up in minutes that way.

PS don't be embarrassed about the place - if you get a cleaner they will have seen much worse than clutter!

You say you've lived here for quite some time - it's time you started adjusting.

How about, when you're thinking 'if we lived in SA we'd have a maid, and all this we'd have taken care of', you change that to 'in the UK, we live in relative safety, and we are not exploiting vulnerable workers'? There are reasons why you're living here and not there. When you're an expat, you need to keep a firm hold of them.

I get what you're saying about DH and DC not pulling their weight. You really, REALLY need to get them to understand this is not 'woman's work', any more than it is 'maid's work'. Here, in this manor squire, with all the family's resources and challenges, it's 'EVERYONE'S WORK'. What about, for as many weekends as it takes, one day of the weekend, the whole family works on decluttering one room, and deepcleaning it? As a reward, the next day, go and do something FUN. Preferably outdoors! How many rooms can you have? I bet you can do it. The decluttered room has to be maintained thereafter, obviously. But you'd be surprised how little time that takes - it can be 5-10 minutes.

Draw up a roster guys. Link pocket money and tech privileges and taxi favours to fulfilling roster duties for the DC.

Your diet will not be helping your mental or physical health. Definitely look at a multi-vitamin (I've missed summer this entire year, and I really would not have believed it would make such a difference), and I've been taking Vitamin D and it's made such a difference. Also, forcing myself to make sure I go for a good brisk walk outside at least once a day - maybe in your lunch hour?

Try to have fresh food - you can get the pre-cut veges, the boil in a bag rice, the pre-cut meat and fish, the ready to cook sauces - you will feel so much better!

Sorry for the novel.

What jobs are you in?
You need to deal with the clutter as a first priority. Not wish you had someone else to clean up your mess whilst not doing it yourself.

Hi op

Op you do sound overwhelmed.

Decorations - do that tonight. Is your DH at home now? It's a Sunday, get it done together. Honestly, that's less than an hours job.

Do you have holiday allowance? Book a day off next week, Wednesday or something like that. Get up and dressed at normal work time, then start at the time you would normally leave the house, 8am. Do a full day tidying up, don't aim to clean, just tidy things away. Bag up stuff for charity shops (put in the boot of your car, don't have the bags cluttering up the house), bag up rubbish. Other stuff put away.

When things are clear, you can clean with whatever time is left.

You will feel like a weight has been lifted.

You will get people's backs up who have not noticed that you are just trying to cope having never learned how to manage a house.

You can hire professional declutterers

Take your decorations down, if you all do it together then it shouldn't take too long.
Then start with 1 room, tidy it etc. Small manageable tasks to begin with.
Give your dc jobs, so maybe they load the dishwasher or do the washing up. Tell them they have to put coats on a hook/in wardrobe wherever.
It is possible if you start small, focusing in the whole house will make it feel daunting. One task at a time makes it easier to manage.
I'm rubbish at keeping the house tidy, I now do 1 room a day. Doesn't take long and makes it seem easier.

If you are a hoarder does that mean you are continually buying stuff or not throwing old things away or are you a charity shop hoarder?

You need to set yourself a target - one thing at a time

One cupboard a day for a clear out
Each day collect all the rubbish and bin in
Collect cups and plates and clean the kitchen every night

When you get in the swing of it allocate one job a night

Monday bathroom
Tuesday hall stairs and landing
And so on

Get a jobs jar and everyone needs to do one thing every night

You’ll soon see a difference

a pp said about a day of decluttering

I wouldn't try that...I reckon 15 mins a day each day for the next week or so is more realistic.

I moved back to SA from the UK. It's not master and servant at all. Our maids/domestic workers as they're called now don't earn much less than other jobs. It's relatively about the same as cleaners or service workers earn in the UK. Our cleaner actually does have her own maid. They are treated like family, normally stay in the property if it's a family and stay with the family for years watching the kids grow up. We also give women especially preference to hire for jobs. My life here is fantastic and I've achieved so much more here in three years than ten years of overwork, underpaid and cooped up inside most of the year in the UK. Don't put us at the same level as Dubai workers as we aren't. We've moved onwards and forwards since apartheid.

Decluttering will make a massive difference. I struggled for years trying to get organized and feeling like a failure but living with less stuff has been a revelation. It doesn’t have to be a huge daunting task [[
www.aslobcomesclean.com/2014/04/how-to-declutter-without-making-a-bigger-mess/]]
This is also worth a read www.aslobcomesclean.com/2011/04/how-to-start-cleaning-up-when-you-dont/
I didn’t learn how to manage a household and have really struggled as an adult

I have struggled with depression, hoarding and anorexia all my adult life.

I feel like this is your problem not the lack of a maid.

The reason we don't tend to have maids in the UK is becaus hat sort of work tends to be paid well and those workers have rights and are entitled to fair treatment.

oh shut up, you know nothing. There are many countries with a much lower cost of living , so paying the local rate whilst being paid yourself in Sterling or US Dollards means it costs you pennies. It doesn't have to mean the worker earn the equivalent of pennies in the local money.

Did you have any issues paying for "cheap holidays" when the pound was strong, or did you add to the total to make sure they were being paid at the UK rate?

Sorry pressed send. I'm SA and I get what you saying. Amongst other reasons we moved back home because the full time help is such a big help.
I lived in the UK for a decade, and it was difficult to adjust to have lower expectations when it comes to cleaning. We are so used to spotless homes!

In saying that not every helper is exploited. Within our circle it's a disgrace to treat your helper badly.
My helper works 8-4, has all her meals here , we pay for her daughters school and books, we pay for medical treatment, she gets groceries every month on top of her salary, her daughter often accompanies us on days out, and many more perks. I know many people who treat their helpers just the same.

I do understand how you're feeling. Maybe you need to adjust expectations for your self according to what you're able to do.

I'd get started on the hoarding issue, I know it seems daunting but it will make you feel better. I always find when I have a good clear out and the house is clean and tidy, I feel more relaxed. You also feel more motivated to maintain it.
Maybe break it down into chunks and say to yourself, I`m going to clear out the living room first and get it in order, then move to a bedroom and then keep going.

As for the issue in making meals, maybe just think of quick ideas. A stir fry can be made in no time, pasta with chicken and peppers, baked potatoes with salad and something on top. It is a little pricey but an option like gusto or those companies who deliver you all the ingredients for 5 meals might help? I've never used them but a friend has and she loved it, she wasn't great at cooking and it helped inspire her.

I think your feeling stuck and overwhelmed and just don't know where to begin. I felt like this when moving house , I just didn't know where to begin but once I had started it became easier.

OP get some outside help for the hoarding and the cleaning. Nothing to be ashamed of, these people are there to tackle exactly your home. If you really struggle, it's much easier not to do it on your own.

My white SA colleagues all have maids. Black maids. Black gardeners. Black drivers. Their children literally don’t know how to make their own beds and they bemoan this fact as they say things are changing and soon their children won’t be able to have their own ( black) staff.
Personally I think you’re better off living away from that, don’t you? They afford it because they are white professionals and black staff are paid a pittance. I know things are far from equal here but I dont know how white South Africans can look themselves in the mirror.

Just to clarify, women have preference to be hired in office jobs not cleaning jobs. What I find exploitation is the zero hour trend that seems to be a think in the UK, especially for lower paid roles. Trust me, companies in the UK exploit their employees big time. Expecting long work hours, work like robots and if on zero hour contract, you get sent home so you hardly make anything. I know, I was a Manager there for ten years and the stuff I was expected to do was beyond a joke and friends who were in too professional capacities. Completely overwhelmed and exhausted.

Don't batch cook, it's too big a task. Just have simple, straightforward meals. Nothing wrong with poached eggs, beans, fishfingers, baked potatoes etc. Not much clearing up, either.
Investigate going back to SA. There maybe something husband could do?

I saw the thread title and thought "Poor thing. It's such a struggle to put one's own knickers on".

I fantasize about having a housekeeper/au pair as I have 3 dc and I could imagine how our family's quality of life could be better if I wasn't spending time doing the drudge of the housework/cooking, I could then spend more time with my dc and dh, be less tired and have more me time (I am a sahm but have a baby, so little free time). I have no extended family...so no support with childcare etc. so any support would have to be bought in.

Don't know what to suggest I'm sorry to hear about your mh problems, maybe as others have suggested tackle those issues and it might help with quality of your life in general including the decluttering.

One thing I was discussing with my DP the other day. There are so many big businesses having to retrench staff in the UK. At least in SA, we have petrol attendants- this creates jobs, grocery packers - this creates jobs etc. SA has a lot of service jobs which provides work, white people can work in service jobs if they want and some do. It's not a racial thing. Most domestic workers are black as they're the ones who apply. There's equality employment now which ensures black women especially, are first in line for good paying jobs, followed by white women and then men especially white males, are bottom on list. They try make the company workers balanced in races and genders. Example there has to be a percentage of women in management equal to the percentage of men.