Does anyone here have a housekeeper?

[nomdemere]

What does she do? I am envious curious. Does she do any childcare as well? What do you pay her?

Yes. Eight hours a week. £10/hour. Complete bloody waste of money. She is supposed to do things like change lightbulbs, keep the fridge in order, make sure my son has clean clothes in his drawer, keep the freezer stocked with tempting nutritious meals, liaise with tradespeople, replace loo rolls, sort dry cleaning. All she's actually any good for is relief childcare. Would fire her like a shot if she wasn't the only person my son will tolerate being looked after by.

Im a housekeeper and work there 20 hrs a week (but it is three houses not one), i do the cleaning, laundry ironing, changing beds, buying cleaning stuff in etc. clean fridges cuoboards out when needed. I would have thought a nanny or childminder for looking after the children?

Did have - drove DS to school, walked dog, took in shopping, did bits and bobs around the house, ironing, cleaned windows, cut grass, supervised DS when making pot noodles etc.

She still works for me but just does a couple of hours cleaning and ironing as this is all we need now DC are older. She is older herself so this has worked well.

To us she is a surrogate granny and made it possible for us to juggle two demanding full time careers during that awkward stage when DC are too old for a nanny, but too young to be self sufficient.

I would have thought a nanny or childminder for looking after the children?

Not necessarily. I know a few people in London/ surrounds who have someone who works in a more hybrid role, so they work set hours (say 2-5pm on Monday, Wednesday and Friday) sometimes they do housework, sometimes they do errands, and sometimes they do childcare.

I have a lovely part-time nanny currently. In a year's time all the children will be at school (during term time obv.) I am thinking about asking her whether she would be interested in a nanny-housekeeper type role, where she does general household things when the DC are at school. That way, we could keep her long-term, and have childcare cover for school holidays too. Just need to get my head around what jobs would be useful and appropriate to include in the role.

I think someone like that is potentially brilliant. The trouble with mine is that she never does things on her own initiative and by the time I've asked her - often more than once - it would have been simpler and cheaper to do them myself. The idea in employing her was to take some of the burden of running the house off me while having back-up childcare, but it really hasn't worked like that.

yes, I know what you mean, Mother. I think I would need to have a list of 'routine' tasks that just get done without needing prompting or discussion. Will give it some thought. She does quite a few things already (e.g. tidying/changing children's bedding etc.) so perhaps expanding on that

We have both a housekeeper and a FT nanny with DC at school. Judging from your second post it is the latter you are really looking for and our nanny was very amenable to the idea of taking on some household duties. She basically does what our housekeeper can't (because she doesn't drive) so she does the food shopping, picks up dry cleaning, renews memberships etc that sort of thing. She has also taken on more cooking.

The key is flexibility and understanding that the housekeeping element will need to be dropped in holidays.

We pay her a little under £40k which is market rate for where we are.

Isn't a Nanny/Housekeeper the same as a Mother's Help - which we should probably be calling a Parental Helper these days.

But the role is basically doing all the things a SAHP would do if they were at home....picking up the kids, doing teas, organising laundry and so on.

Of course, it won't be exactly the same because parenting is 24/7 whereas it's actually illegal to employ someone with those hours!

But if you're looking for clues about added duties when your DC are all at school, Google "Mother's Help" and see what others do.

I think that a 'mothers help' works alongside a parent, rather than in place of?

Ah, OK. Sorry.