Is there a market for a "housewife" business

[create]

Will have to come up with a better name, but someone to support working couple, by doing the kind of running around that woman who doesn't work outside the home might do in family. e.g gift shopping, collecting dry cleaning, leaving a meal in the oven, booking holidays. A kind of PA for a family/couple? I'm thinking on a retained basis maybe a couple of hours per week per family?

woah... careful there. Are you saying that housekeeping is the womans role?

Depends where you live. I've seen these advertised as concierge services. Please don't o down the housewife route, I wouldn't use you on principle if you were sexist.

It's not really the same thing, but DP was saying the other day that it would be great if we could employ someone to basically be a SAHM for us during working hours :). e.g. look after the child, walk the dog, keep the house clean, do the laundry/ironing, wait in for deliveries etc.

Not sure about the stuff you mention, the thing is most of that is not too time-consuming or difficult to fit into a working day. For us anyway, we can book holidays online during a quiet moment in the office, pop out to buy a gift at lunchtime (or order online), DP picks up his dry cleaning/ironing on the way to or from work etc.

You know, I was going to put a line in my OP about how obviously it's not only women who do these things, but said to myself FGS, really it can't have come to having to explain yourself everytime you use a perfectly normal word, that everyone understands

You want the services of a housekeeper. You can get a live in one from an agency and I think people advertise for them in the back pages of "The Lady" magazine. It is often a couple and one of them does the garden, washes the car, does a bit of driving, cleans your pool and so on and the other does more house type things.

I wish I had this.

i think you mean a housekeeper,my mum was one to a really rich family.

I saw one on Bargain Hunt today - a gay man in fact! He described himself as a live-out housekeeper. Probably The Lady would be the best port of call.

It is a housekeeper - I don't think families that would want one would want you a couple of hours a week, I would think at least a couple hours a day - probably all wanting you at the same time so you can't make money that way. I know people with house keepers they typically work 9-5 for one or two families and do cooking, putting the washing on, picking up from drycleaners etc... Booking holidays and gift shopping can all be done on the internet.

Yes. I have one. They're called housekeepers. Employing her was frankly the best thing that's ever happened to me.*

*apart from DH, ds, and Dd, obviously..

Does already exists, if you have the money to pay for it .

Or here.

Friend (doctor, DH worked in the city) used one once and they did all sorts of things for them - it was like having an old-fashioned wife!