People who have cleaners, nanny's etc

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I am happy for you to tell me iabu. I'm just trying to understand it. Just stayed at a friend's in another country where it's normal for white people to have cleaner, nanny etc and they are all black.
I felt so uncomfortable with it, I'd hate someone doing menial tasks for me, the fact that they are black felt worse for me.

I realise that some people think that they are doing them a favour because they need work but it just feels wrong to me. AIBU?

It is people who are poorer and less qualified here who do the cleaning jobs. Here in my bit of London, we have always had Eastern European cleaners and more recently Filipino. I am not white.

I can see when there is an obvious race difference it’s uncomfortable. The main question to ask is why people of those backgrounds cannot get ‘higher level’ jobs, if that is what they want.

Ah - didn't realise the thread was about racial differences. My cleaner, dog walker, respite carer and I are all white. Sorry for posting out of context.

I imagine this varies across the UK. I come across carers on an almost daily basis through my work and very rarely meet black carers. Most are white British, some Asian British. Where I was previously they were almost all white Eastern European.

I have a cleaner. I hate cleaning and I'm bad at it, so I pay to have it done by someone who is good at it. I respect her as a person and for her skills.

Similarly I am a tutor. The families that pay me respect me as a person and for my skills.

I think it can be uncomfortable with cleaning (like waitressing or retail) that some people (dickheads) see those jobs as lesser and therefore don't treat the workers appropriately. But that's something wrong with the individual dickhead who looks down on others, not the fact that the job exists.

I have in the past employed two nannies, a cleaner and a gardener, though never all at the same time! I’m English, living in Scotland, and they were all white - three Scots and one Australian.
I don’t regard any of their work as “menial”. Caring for my young children in particular was something I rated as highly important. I had a good relationship with all of them, and was grateful that they enabled me to continue to work as a hospital doctor after being widowed, and to maintain my garden for a year while I was retired and incapacitated with long Covid.
The cleaner was forty years ago, when I was working 100 hours a week as a junior doc, and she was a hoot. She used to rock up on the doorstep steaming drunk on random nights and we’d discuss her complicated love life. DH and I called her mad Mrs Mac! But boy, she could clean, the place was pristine while we had her.

I have a white British cleaner. The job suits her lifestyle and I certainly don't feel like I'm doing her a favour. It's a job like any other. She can choose her hours and her clients.

I'm often at home when she's here, we chat, I make tea, and then we both get on with our jobs.

Surely the issue isn't employing people in these roles per se, it's the structural and racial inequality, lack of employment legislation and lack of a social security net in many of these countries. All of these mean that many people have no choice but to work in low paid roles where they are open to exploitation if they don't want to starve.

I used to live in South Africa, where most cleaners/gardeners were either black or coloured (in a South African context, "coloured" is not pejorative, but denotes a heterogeneous ethnic group).

Yes, it is an obvious vestige of the apartheid regime and continued inequality; but it also gives employment to people - many women, who are otherwise often socially and economically disenfranchised - who would not be able to support their families otherwise. To not employ non-white staff as a matter of principal would, ironically, damage a damaged society even further.

If you feel uncomfortable staying at your friends, then next time pay to stay at a hotel. Simple .

*principle

What do you need help with understanding?

I think I live in the country you are referring to.

You felt uncomfortable because the helper was black, or because it seemed a menial job to you and someone shouldn't be employed to do it?

I have a white cleaner. We aren't well off we couldn't afford a nanny but we really struggle with and hate cleaning so would rather spend the money getting someone else to do it. Costs us £30 a time and we have her every other week. I do sometimes feel a little awkward having someone else do it but it's her job and I'm sure she is glad there are people who would rather pay others to do it otherwise she would need a different job

If it is indeed the same country we are referring to, then I should just mention that just as many black families have household help too. It is not white people who employ cleaners. So let's not insinuate that it is a privilege for only white people, as this is what your post suggests.

I grew up in a country where having household staff was common. We’re not white and many of the staff were from the same ethnic background as us. My family provided good, stable and well paid employment for people who were less fortunate than us. My dad paid the school fees of many of the staffs children. What’s wrong with that?

My cousins think the way we live in the west , where we do everything ourselves is bonkers. Sometimes, when I’m juggling work, kids, life et all, I see their point. We have cleaner, they’re from Colombia i think, not that it matters. She provides a much needed service that I’m more than happy to pay for. We used nurseries and childminders when the children were little and after school school and holiday clubs for childcare now. Staff were of various ethnicities but the most important thing was that they were human.

I’d happily have an army of staff if I could afford it.

Inequality exists, whether we like it or not. There is nothing wrong with doing ‘menial’ work and if that’s what was required to feed my family, you bet I’d do it.

Abuse of anyone though, whether domestic staff or not is not ok. For obvious reasons.

I think it depends what you mean by "employs" a cleaner?
Im white and technically "employ" a white cleaner (different nationality) for 3 hours per week.
She's will paid, self-employed, works flexibly to suit her lifestyle. She's been cleaning my house weekly for 8 years but I've been wfh since covid and have gotten to know her quite well recently and we're now friends on social media so I see quite a bit about her lifestyle and she's certainly not hard done by....eats/drinks out in nice places, just back from a 2 week all inclusive holiday, lives in a nice area. I can also see from when she parks at mine that she drives a very nice car.

Good on her. She works hard and deserves it - I do suspect her DH earns well but she earns a decent living herself too.

I don't have any qualms about the situation at all. I appreciate what she does for me, she's well paid and seems happy with the arrangement. I definitely don't see her as inferior, we're completely equal but I struggle for time to do house work, she does it better and I can afford it.

However, I don't think this is the situation you have in mind given your hints at the racial element. I suspect your op isn't getting your point across well. Are you thinking of situations with live-in cleaners and nanny's on a very low wage?

I've lived in a country like this, mostly black population and live-in domestic help would essentially always be black rather than white (although many employers were also black).

I do feel uncomfortable and some families definitely do encourage a "boss of the house / servant" dynamic which is physically palpable. Although not all or even most.

In context though, this is a country where you see people walking along the streets filling in potholes on the road with mud/stones from the side, in the hope that they might get a $1 tip from someone and that's their income for the day. So a secure live-in situation (which often is provided for the whole family, e.g. mum is the maid/cook, dad is the gardener, children's school fees are paid by the employer) is actually something really valuable, even if it seems demeaning and uncomfortable to you.

All the people we have who help us are Caucasian - I’ve never thought about it. We pay them a very good rate to do things wed have no issue doing but just don’t have time to because we both work 12 hours each day, full time in the week and have a toddler. So I don’t see their work as menial. It’s simply what we can’t get to and they all understand that’s why we need them

I think this very much depends on where you live in the UK.

I have a housekeeper and a gardener and used to employ a nanny. My housekeepers have been Philippina, Irish and the current one is Romanian - all are brilliant as was my English nanny. My gardner is actually a school mum friend who has a gardening business. My previous gardner was incredibly posh (much more so than me) and charged in guineas. I don't see it as any different to getting a mechanic to service the car or a decorator to paper a room. I suppose it seems worse to some people as the housekeeper/cleaner/nanny is doing tradionally wimmins work whilst the mechanic and decorator do "dad jobs" and there's probably a feeling that men's work is intrinsically more important/valuable than women's.

Definitely feel uncomfortable, I'd feel uncomfortable about it living in England. I think cleaning is humbling though. DH wants to employ a cleaner's services as we both work full time have two DC but I don't feel comfortable with potentially someone with less life choices cleaning up after me or my DC. This was my preteen and teen learn to be self sufficient and DH is seen by my son to do his fair share of domestic drudgery i.e no woman cleaning up after you (which is typically the case). I don't get the whole, "we are not good at cleaning" argument, it is not hard to learn how to clean. We have friends who say this and I raise an eyebrow tbh. I am just not comfortable with someone cleaning up my mess I have made and my DC just learn that they don't have to bother either, it is a question of self respect as well. A caveat would be obviously extenuating circumstances but fit, healthy people that just can't be bothered I find that lazy.

Obviously here in the UK people of all colours and backgrounds will employ others of all colours and background to help them domestically. Those roles aren’t really racialised as they are in some other countries, where the majority of employers are wealthy ex pats (or in times past, colonialists) employing local people cheaply and there definitely IS a sense of what is menial work fit for black/brown people and what is important work fit for white (men). That structural equality makes me uncomfortable too but I’m not sure what an individual can do about it without making a load of people lose their jobs?

Interesting to note about the domination of certain sectors by people from specific ethnicities in the UK. All the cleaners - and I mean every one - who works my hospital department is Ghanaian. There’s obviously some other factor at play here that I’m not party to - I don’t think hospital domestic work is really badly paid, Ghanaians are generally known to be high achievers anyway so I don’t think would generally be content with this job if it were badly paid so I’m not sure the “poor Africans coming here doing jobs we white people refuse to do” reallY holds water here? I’m assuming it’s a social thing where people are gathering friends and family around them as a route to employment, same as my ancestors came here and en masse became tailors or cloth traders in East London.

Anyway all very interesting!

That's an interesting view - never thought of it that way but there may be something in the male/female divide.

Men are such hard workers and so busy then tired out by the weekend so it's justified to employ someone to help with "mens work" - us women should be able to clean daily and look after our dc full time....while working too of course

That surprises me. I worked as a carer and would say 95% of the staff were white

I am white and a FT working mum. I have a white working mum as my cleaner. She advertised her services and i need that service. At the time obviously i knew nothing about her l.

I don't think its menial. Shes a self employed business woman in my book. She makes my life much easier. Her rates are high and i pay them willingly.

I think you are confusing two things.

There's nothing wrong with employing cleaners, nannies, housekeepers - it's a job like any other. Doing someone a favour doesn't come into it.

Of course it's wrong that some people have a wider range of opportunities than others, but that's a wider problem with society. It needs fixing but pretending the problem doesn't exist is the worse way to do that - which you would be if you don't hire people for the jobs that need doing, or only hired them to do more invisible jobs like overnight office cleaning.