I was born in Peru in 1978, when I was very little I spent a lot of time at my nonna’s (grandmother’s) house. I remember sitting with her in the bedroom while she talked with Antonina, the cook that had come upstairs to plan the day’s meals. My grandmother would ask if there were enough ingredients for something and Antonina would tell her what was missing. They would write a list, count out some money and then the cook would go off to the markets to get all she needed for lunch and dinner that day. In her apron she carried the handwritten recipe book; the page with the chosen recipe and some cash.
The author with her mom and grandmother.
After my nonna was dressed and ready to go and do some kind of activity, the upstairs maid was already making the beds and cleaning the bathrooms. Downstairs, the first floor maid was dusting or sweeping while the gardener took out weeds from the flowerbeds and the butler served breakfast. The chauffeur was in the kitchen drinking coffee with the seamstress. My nonno was already at the table with his newspaper and his coffee.
I remember all these things as if they were normal; a complete part of my nonna’s house. I didn’t think it strange that there were so many people doing so many different things around the house. This is the way my mom grew up, and that’s what I experienced until the age of 9.
The house I lived in with my mom was not like this, we “only” had a maid and a nanny. Little did I know that just these two people were a huge help!
I have moved away from Peru twice in my life, to the United States when I was 10 and then to Southeast Asia when I was 35. When I was 11, we didn’t have a maid, or a nanny or a cook or a gardener. Instead I had a very tired mom who would try and make me clean my room or throw away the trash or wash the dishes. Everything seemed so foreign and annoying. Then because of visa complications and jobs that were lost, my mother was the one cleaning houses for money. It’s funny how things can turn around like that.
When I went back to Peru to live with my aunt, she had two maids, a gardener, a washing lady, a front street guard and a handyman that painted or fixed things on a regular basis. When I went to live on my own in Cusco, the house I went to live in had a cook, a maid, a chauffer, a gardener and also a fix it all handyman. Back in Lima the first thing I did was hire a maid, and she stayed with me for 8 long and wonderful years.
Three and a half years ago we moved to Asia without our lovely maid and suddenly I had to do it all! Well wasn’t that a freaking shock! I remember walking into our house in Laos and stressing over the dust on the floor, and the ants, and the windows not being squeaky clean or beautifully see through! We did end up hiring a maid for the three months in Luang Prabang, mainly because I was extremely pregnant and the shock was way too big for me.
When we moved to Bangkok I started doing it all myself without help and my most vivid memory regarding this change was how I would stress out, over my 13 year old daughter not helping me out! Well how could I complain, she had grown up with a maid and nanny too, they did everything for her (and me). That was a harsh slap in the face, it was like reliving when I was a teenager and my own mom freaking out, over me not helping her out.
Domestic help in the kitchen
My mom learned the hard way, I learned the hard way and my daughter learned the hard way too. You will not always have the help you were accustomed to, you will not always be able to just sit back and wait for lunch to be served.
Those privileges are not always accessible, and for me now, they seem almost superfluous. I also feel that no one could ever be like Sabina, my maid of 8 years, she was like family to me, as I am sure my nonna’s cook was to her.
A few days ago I was at the indoor playground with my two kids, the cafeteria has some tables and sometimes they are not enough to seat all the parents and nannies that accompany the children so often, the tables are shared. While we were in the outdoor area playing on the swings, a Balinese woman sat at the table where we had our water bottles and snacks. I got to talking to her when we came back in to refresh in the Air Conditioning. She is a Stay at Home Mom that is finishing her masters in Law but only because she’s “bored”. She has a nanny who is also the cook and the maid in her house. The nanny was the one playing with her son in the playground while she shopped for clothes on her laptop.
She was amazed at how I would actually play with my kids, she said she really disliked playing with her son, that she got bored very fast. She asked how much videos I let them watch and told me how her family would judge her if her son watched “too much” YouTube. This conversation put a lot of things into perspective for me. It really isn’t about where you live that decides if you will have domestic help or not, it’s the way you are brought up and what your priorities are.
I remember in Peru knowing of families that did not have that much income but nevertheless had a maid or nanny and other families with nice houses and higher paying jobs that decided that they did not want a nanny at all and at most had a cleaning lady come to their house once a week. The Balinese woman in the playground told me that that’s the way it’s done here, you have a maid and a nanny and a cook even if you are a Stay at Home Mom. Exactly like my nonna.
My husband offers to pay for nannies and cooks and maids all the time when I complain of being tired of the work but I keep on saying “no”.
I have finally given in to a cleaning lady who comes three times a week to do the mopping and bathroom scrubbing. I also managed to get a gardener so now my front garden and backyard are looking beautiful. I have made “friends” with a couple taxi drivers so essentially I have a chauffeur. What I still don’t have is a nanny, and that might take a long time for me to feel comfortable with.
The need for Domestic Help I have come to realize is totally a psychological thing, you get it if you feel you need or want it.
If you can’t afford it then you pass the days wishing you could have it. If you have it, then you pass the days thinking of how you are wronging your kids by not being with them as much as other moms. It’s a lesson to learn and find balance in how you manage your house and kids. I feel that I am still learning.
What is the “domestic-help” scenario at your own place? And what is your take on it?
This is an original post to World Moms Blog by World Mom, Orana Velarde in Bali, Indonesia.
Photo credits to the author.
Orana Velarde
Orana is a Writer, Artist, Mother and Wife; Peruvian Expat currently living in Kyiv, Ukraine with her husband and children. She works as a writer, designer and social media manager for diverse organizations around the world.
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This post is something we all can relate to, as women, mothers, and just as normal people who get overwhelmed every once in a while. I was discussing just this with my neighbor yesterday morning, and I am reading almost the same thing we discussed. We were thinking, how it is all in the “mind” … and you seem to say exactly that, its a psychological thing! I am so eager to see what the other world moms have to say about it!
Thank you for this post!
This is all so true! My aunt who lives is Turkey, has a woman who comes to her home every single day, who does all of the cleaning, laundry and cooking. When I grew up, my mother had a nanny and ckeaner for a few years when she worked (she had her own business, so her time was flexible), but she always cooked. I also had someone who would drive me to/from school (not quite a chauffeur – but close). Now that I am a full time working mother, I feel like I could use so much more help, but could never do it all without all of the help that I do currently have. I have a cleaner that comes once a week, a gardener, and my own mother takes care of my children while I am at work or while I am traveling. She does everything that a nanny, chauffeur, cleaner and cook would do – but with love 🙂
I could not have done it all on my own (I’m exhausted as it is), and am always in awe of the mothers who can.
I grew up in the Caribbean, where it is normal to have a maid and if anything, it is socially responsible. Our maid was from Haiti, living on a different island so she could make money to send back to her family. She needed that job.
Since we were Canadians it felt like a ridiculous luxury but we recognized the importance of sharing the wealth and my mother certainly welcomed the help.
But it often made us sad. My mother came home one day to find the maid having a drink of water. Poor Annettw jumped and started babbling apologies and my mother learned that she had been yelled at and even dismissed for doing such things before. For drinking water, in a hot desert climate! My mother told the maid that she was welcome to any beverage in the fridge and made a point of offering her water regularly after that.
Growing up with a maid, though, meant that I didn’t need to be given chores and I find that now I lack the skills to keep my house clean. I wish I had been asked to do more. Now I have to train myself.
My kids asked me what a butler was the other day. When I described what a butler does, the kids said, “Mom, you do all those things. YOU must be OUR butler!”
When I grew up I had to do yard work including mowing the lawn, clean the bathrooms, clean my room, help fold the laundry, etc. We never had any help and our closest extended family lived an hour away. When my sister was working full time and I was younger, she paid me to clean her place and later to babysit when I could.
I don’t know what it would be like to have a driver. I like to drive! Or someone who cleaned my house 3 times a week. You bring up a good question. Would you do it, if you could?
As an adult, I find that when things free up time to work on other things that I’m passionate about or to spend quality time with my family or if days are passing and important things are not getting done, I am more likely to ask for and pay for things to get done.
Thank you for giving us this glimpse into your life experience, Orana. We are so many different moms with so many different experiences on this planet. I enjoy hearing our stories because no matter what the topic, the stories always get me thinking and I am learning!
Jen 🙂
My mom grew up with “help” but didn’t have any domestic help while she was raising us…and now that I live in the UAE and have a cleaning lady who comes in 2x weekly, I feel myself to be incredibly lucky! I know that my cleaning lady is actually the second generation of women in her family to live & work in the UAE although “home’ is not the UAE. The money she earns here (from us and others), she is using to build a house in her country, send her son to school, etc etc. She’s saving money, she says, to open a restaurant at “home” — I don’t know if she ever will, but I’m happy to know that the wages I pay her are going to that dream.
I am sorry that I may offend by my comment, but I want to give a first hand account of the other side of the coin (since no one has). I think of Billy Joel’s song “We didn’t start the fire”.
I know that many mothers who have helpers did not create the world climate such as it is, where people have to leave home to make a “decent” living.
This comment is not to shame anyone, it is only to give my 2 cents as I have experienced this. I find it a bit offensive that many women who have “help” think that they are doing “good” by helping other women achieve certain goals in their lives.
I understand that domestic work is employment in the end, so I don’t have an issue with that. What I have an issue with is the inequality that leads to women being forced to leave their families and homelands to find work.
What I have a problem with is the domestication of work and workers from certain places in the world.
In my case the Caribbean. I grew up without my mother because she left home to make a better life for my young sister and I.
Sure, she sent home money, We had “things”, but we didn’t have a mother. I experienced abuse that shattered my life for many years. I didn’t know my mother until I was 9 years old – sure I had seen her in those 9 years, but I didn’t have a mother to hold me or protect me. The irony is that my mother travelled to become a nanny to a wealthy family…ironic…
It’s not a simple decision.. Our every day lives are full of hardship. Most women are too tired to do it all. I certainly feel that way on any given day, but, a mother who leaves her children faces double the pain. She may not share that pain with anyone but it’s difficult.
As I said before, I am not blaming ANYONE who hires a domestic helper, but please understand no one would want to do this if they had a choice.
And in my opinion (in this situation), privilege is the inability to see past what we are contributing to someone’s life. I am sure the family my mother worked for (they were good people) felt they were helping her better her life and build a life for her children, and I can’t say that abuse would not have happened with my mother present- but the separation of mothers and children is horrible and any cost.
I haven’t been answering to the comments because well mostly it was a lot “me toos” which is great! But I do want to answer Selma’s comment because I really truly appreciate it. I did not go into all that in my story because it would have been much longer and maybe even sad and even a little opinionated. I know very well of mothers that leave their kids to go and “make a better life” for them. My family hired a lot of these women. I am thankful that my family and extended family were at least good people because many of these women hired to work in our houses, once they were confident enough, would tell us about how horrible other employers were. Basically treating them like slaves and paying very little with very little humanity. In my family, as in other families in Peru and I’m sure the rest of the world, we also had girls working in our houses, Young girls who had been sent from their homes in the mountains, to work in the city and live either in the employers home or a distant relative. These girls were a lot of the time very sad but loved to help out with the little ones, probably because they had been taking care of their siblings back home. My nanny/maid of 8 years was 10 years older than me and she was one of these girls, sent to the city. She was taken out of school in the 4th grade of primary to start working in someone’s house. That means that she grew up as a maid/nanny. She knew of nothing else. She has a daughter now and all the money she makes goes to her daughter who is soon to finish high school with very high marks. She visits her mother back in the mountains every time she has enough money saved.
The short time that my mom worked as a cleaning lady was very hard on her in a psychological, sociological sense. I mean she grew up being served. I had a similar feeling when I told my family I wanted to be a hairdresser. Cosmetology School was for the maids on their days off. It is all very stereotypical and strange. I could go on about how fancy beach towns in Peru have rules for the maids, as in segregation rules!!! The nannies cannot go in the ocean with the kids they take care of! They cannot even be wearing something other than their white coveralls and nurse shoes. They cannot even go to the waters edge with the kids because they are not allowed to take off their shoes! ok, so that is an extreme case but it is real. The story about “domestic help” is so deep and complex that I am sure we could all write our own story and they would all be different, and painful and strong.
How funny I never had a domestic helper or heard of anyone have one or thought of having one! I thought they only exist in period dramas. After reading this I asked my mom if she ever had a domestic helper or heard of anyone have one. Her response was just the same as mine, “Aren’t they only exist in period dramas?”
I guess we are just ignorant.