The first point to note in any discussion is that everyone will rationalise and justify away his/her decisions. So, of course, you will have those who will insist that maids are an essential part of their households and others who will equally and vehemently declare that maids are a luxury.
In this piece, I am merely sharing what we have chosen to do in our household of 9. Please feel free to disagree and offer your perspective on this topic in the comments below if you so feel led.
We have 7 living children with us here. We have never had a live-in maid thus far. I cannot say we will never have one because who knows? However, we have had a few part-time helpers on and off in the past, especially in the earlier days where we have more little children than big ones, but none since 2007.
When Henson and I got married some 21 years ago, having a maid never occurred to us. We were two working adults living in a 2-bedroom apartment. Why would we need a live-in maid or even a part-time maid? We ate out ALL THE TIME and laundry was easy enough since only his work clothes needed to be ironed. I almost always bought clothes that did not need to be ironed – and I still do. 🙂
We managed fine.
Employed a Part-Time Helper
Then I got pregnant with our first child and I did not want a confinement maid. In fact, I just did not want anyone besides Henson to stay with me, not even my parents.
So we decided on a once a week part-time helper. She would come mid-week for just 4 hours to vacuum, mop, dust, and wash the 2 toilets in our 2-bedroom apartment. She would also iron Henson’s work clothes.
Food was settled by my mother-in-law who would drop in at lunchtime (we had to settle our own breakfast) and left both lunch and dinner behind. This was our modus operandi for our second and third child, except that it was my mother who did the cooking.
Fast forward to me pregnant with our 4th child, handling 3 children, aged 5, 3 and 1. On the week I was due with her, my part-time helper told me that she was going back to Nepal for good – the month after my baby was due!
Ohhhkaaay.
At least I had her for the confinement month – or so I thought. Our friend never turned up after the baby was born. Yep, she disappeared! I was not a happy woman!
I now had to contend with cleaning the house while handling 4 children aged 5 and under, which included a newborn!!!
Thankfully I had always kept on top of things at home (thank you, Flylady!) and the part-timer had only come in once a week. That meant that I was still cleaning up after ourselves on a daily basis.
Only the heavy-duty stuff like toilet washing, cleaning out the kitchen stove and sink, and ironing were delegated out. So when she said she was no longer able to help me, I wasn’t as stressed as I could have been. And a friend, bless her, offered her helper to help out with with the toilet washing and ironing for that month. Thank you, Annie!
Back to Having a Part-Time Helper
From then until I was pregnant with our sixth child, we did not have any part-time helper. We did all the chores by ourselves.
However, the backache was severe when pregnant with Deborah. It was just plain painful to bend or even just be. So we went with a cleaning agency which provided 2-3 ladies per cleaning session. This meant that they would finish up the job in under 2 hours. But once the confinement month was over, I stopped using them and we went back to handling the household chores ourselves.
Invested in 2 Robots
Then in 2008 when pregnant with our 7th child, we invested in 2 robots from iRobot – the Roomba (dry vacuum) and Scooba (wet vacuum i.e. mopping). These two purchases were the best ever investment! It’s been more than 7 years and they are still going strong.
Everyone Chips In
Since young (even as babies), the children have been taught to clean up after themselves. They start with putting away their toys after playing with them. Then they learn to put their dirty clothes into the correct laundry basket (we sort our clothes into lights/coloured/darks) and their dirty dishes into the sink.
As they grew older, they were tasked with various household chores including food preparation and simple cooking. This way, everyone is involved in the upkeep of the running of the household. The burden is not all on me. Because, why should it be?
Everyone chips in. We ARE family, after all. And so, we have not needed a maid and have saved a bundle of money and angst over the years.
Yes, there ARE sacrifices to be made in making this choice. But this is what we have chosen and we live with the consequences. So you can definitely say that maids are a luxury to our family.
But we are not unique. I know of other large families who do without helpers, live-in or part-time. I know of working mothers who do without helpers as well.
Never Say Never
Will we never have a maid? I have learnt to never say never.
We don’t know what the future holds. What if our parents grow frail and/or develop chronic illnesses that require more hands-on care which we cannot provide? Live-in maids may then become a necessity than a luxury. I totally understand why people with elderly and/or sick parents choose to employ a live-in maid rather than put their loved ones in a nursing home or even care for them themselves. I have no idea what we will do when we come to that stage. We shall cross the bridge when it comes, with God’s help.
Meanwhile, we enjoy our privacy and get the whole house to ourselves all the time – mess and all!
Your Turn
Most of you have no live-in maids either. What made you decide not to have one? Perhaps you could share how you manage to run your household without one and encourage those who are considering doing without maids that it is possible and very doable.
I have UPDATED two posts on how we manage our household back when I had five small ones to now when I have no small ones 🙂 If you are in the little ones season, take heart, it won’t be forever and if you train them well, they will be a great help!
