[ UPDATE: Voting is now closed. ]
Question: If you could hire someone to help you for the day, would you hire a driver, a house cleaner, a cook, or a babysitter? Click your pick above — I’d love to know!
A few weeks ago I posted a house tour that generated quite a few comments about hired help. Mostly, they implied that since the house was so orderly and beautiful, there must be a ton of hired help — and the tone of the comments sometimes hinted that hired help was a negative thing. I’m not sure if I’ve ever completely understood the strong reactions this topic can inspire. But I’d like to understand better.
In my day dreams, our household is run by Alice from The Brady Bunch. She lives at the house in her own little apartment, so she’s pretty much always available. And she knows the house so well that she doesn’t need instructions on where the books go, or which clothes belong in which bedroom, or when the fire alarm batteries need to be changed. She makes it her job to know. She’s not a nanny, but she can watch the kids in a pinch. And she can run errands as well. It’s a lovely day dream.
Personally, I’m a fan of getting help! I’ve hired help whenever we’ve needed it and had the budget for it. When we didn’t have the budget for it, I would make babysitting trades and even spring cleaning trades with friends and neighbors. Sometimes the help means a babysitter — currently, little June goes to a sitter twice a week. Sometimes the help means a full-on assistant — in Colorado, Melanie of You Are My Fave came to my house every morning to help run my business, which included a range of tasks from assisting with emails, to running errands, to helping make Halloween costumes. (She was amazing, by the way!) Sometimes the help means a house cleaner — during our last year in New York, a lovely woman came twice a month to give the house a good scrubbing.
But I have friends who are really uncomfortable getting help. Some think it’s a waste of money. Some feel guilty about getting help. Some saw their mothers do it alone, and want to model the same thing for their own kids. Some feel the house and the children are their responsibility — and they feel that getting help is shirking that responsibility.
And obviously, the whole conversation comes from a place of cultural tradition (and sometimes privilege too). In fact, like you, I’ve had friends move all over the world, and in certain countries, it’s expected that they will hire help. It would be rude to the local community if they didn’t.
What’s your take? Have you ever hired help? Do you have help now? Do you have a strong opinion on the subject either way?
I wish I had help. The only help I really wish I had was a housecleaner. I really don’t enjoy the real cleaning. The bathroom scrubbing, floor mopping/vacuuming, etc etc. I love to cook. I actually like laundry. And chauffeuring my kids around is awesome for the conversations. But I can’t justify the extra cost when our house really isn’t big at all. And we like to go out to eat and vacation and see movies, and all that. So, we forego a housecleaner. I’d need one once a week and around here it’s just too expensive. Oh well.
As long as someone could keep the kids busy, I can clean my house to the level I’d like and get some landscaping/gardening done.
I grew up in an area (Utah) –and perhaps time period where people rarely hired help. We didn’t know anyone who had a nanny, a housekeeper, or a cook. When I was young, there weren’t even any preschools available in my area. Summer camp was something we read about in books–it didn’t exist in our neighborhoods.
I’ve carried many of those attitudes with me, even though I live in the Boston area where most of my neighbors and friends have full time nannies, weekly housecleaners, and some have their own chefs and drivers. Everyone sends their kids to nursery school and preschool. Ditto summer camp. As you said in your post, a lot of a person’s attitude about this topic is determined by what norms we experienced growing up or where we lived.
And slowly, my independent “western” ways have been more embracing about the benefits of some of these services that are common on the East Coast. I did finally send my 6th child to a commercial preschool, after participating in preschool co-ops for my other 5 children. I now have some housecleaning help once a month. Our town doesn’t have garbage service, and yes, we have subscribed to a weekly trash pickup. As our cash inflow has ebbed and flowed, so have the services we were willing to consider–milk delivery, dry cleaning delivery, local grocery delivery, lawn services, summer camps, etc. We have tried all of those in the past, but don’t currently use any of them.
Another factor here in Boston is the intense work hours required of the husband (or both parents). I admire the women I know who choose not to complain all of the time about their husband’s long working or traveling hours, and instead hire the help they need to find some happiness for themselves.
I don’t think of it as a “good or bad”question, but rather what one is accustomed to.
I have always said that each child should be born with a manual & a nanny custom to their own personality. However, I have never had the finances or the guts to actually hire anyone. Instead I am one of those spastic women who would tidy before the cleaning lady showed up. I do have a sister who has been a true angel & cleaned for me whenever our family left town. Top to bottom. I love to cook but hate doing the dishes. Don’t mind getting out in the car so no driver needed here. Alice would fit just fine! : )
we recently decided that we needed help with house cleaning and yard work and we hired experts to do exactly that. do i feel guilty? absolutely not. i also don’t think of them as our “help”. they’re experts in their line of work and i hire them for their skills and treat them as professionals.
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OK, I may be nuts but I’d not give any of those tasks up. The kids clean our house and it’s good for them. I love to cook. Driving kids places gives me time to chat with them. Ditto for babysitting. What I’d really love is a gardener/landscaper. Someone who could whip our 3 acres of land into shape and really make things look great.
Yup, that’s my vote.
Mary, momma to many
At the moment, I’m still searching for a babysitter for the summer. I only really need 15 hours a week, but it is tricky and it seems like a big decision when our last child care didn’t end well. I’d love dependable, affordable child care first and if we suddenly could afford it someone to clean periodically would be awesome!
Every time you purchase a bag of frozen veggies, precut, prewashed, prepared anything, you have hired someone to do you work for you. Otherwise we’d have to grow, pick, wash, cut, prepare the veggies ourselves. Same with meat, bread, etc.
I would hire a house keeper if I needed one. I would hire a nanny and a governess if I needed one.
Being someone’s employee isn’t a bad think as long as you can afford it. If you can’t afford it…then you have to do the work yourself. :)
gabby – i share the exact same day dream with you. i have a cleaning lady 2x a month and it is my sanity. there have been times where we have had to cut it out and i found that i’d rather cut out other things to make room for help. i pick up and clean daily but to get the entire house clean clean in a day would never happen with 4 little ones chasing behind me tearing the place up faster than i could clean the toilet.
i also, during the summer, have a babysitter for a couple of hours a week. i need the help with four little ones to run errands, get my freelance work done, or carve out a little time for myself. if the budget allows, i’m always up for a little help.
i would say that with my first and second child and i was probably less apt to ask for help or even spend on it and wanted to do it all myself but after number three and certainly after four i know i need help. i love the idea of making trades if the budget doesn’t allow. xo . t
Hands down, I’d hire a housecleaner. I dream about it. We had one for years and years when I was living in Los Angeles…and married. Now as a single mom, it’s just not something I can afford in the moment. But you can believe the second I feel like I can I’ll have one. It’s not as easy to find someone in Denver, I think it’s better to go through a company. In LA everyone you meet knows someone looking for one more house to clean.
One of my friends has lived all over. She said that in India they were told to hire people. Drivers. Cleaning people. Sitters. Her husband is with the state department and they are always warned what things to do and not do to uphold the image that the state department wants. My grandmother actually used to say the same thing. When they lived overseas, on base or not (my grandfather was career Air Force) they always hired out, even though in truth my grandmother preferred to do it all herself.
I grew up in South America, having help there is the norm, if you can afford it. Growing up my mother had 4-5 full time helpers (nanny, cook, cleaning, driver). Our cook had been with the family for more than 40 years, she was like family to us.
Fast forward many years, I now live in the US and have 3 kids. I have a lady that helps me with the deep cleaning of the house, every 2 weeks. I do everything else like keeping the house organized, laundry, driving the boys everywhere, etc; but I do miss having help and if I could afford it I would hire more help in a second.
I feel like my mom was always so available to us (4 kids) because she was able to spend all her time with us and not doing house chores.
Continuation from above.
My friends from South America think its insane that here in the states one has to do everything without help. Like really they come for extended vacations (1-2 months) and they feel so overwhelmed by doing things that regularly they are not used to do.
What a great post! I have been a full-time stay at home mom for 1o years and have had a 2x/month house cleaner for the past 5 years. I should have had one the first 5 too! She is wonderful and, as many others have said, it saves my sanity and allows me time to do the chores I enjoy more. She is a single mom, legal citizen and charges a liveable wage, so I feel good about supporting her small business. I have also had a mother’s helper on and off over the years (currently on). Much cheaper than a babysitter, and at this point my kids really want a playmate more than a sitter. It allows me to make diner or do some other chores without having to break up siblings fighting every 5 minutes :) I’m glad to read so many other positive responses to hiring help. We deserve to have adequate support in our lives – it’s good for the whole family!