I would like to find something to be thankful about everyday. Today, I am thankful for my domestic helper. I use the term domestic helper because it sounds nicer than maid.

She has been around with us for a  year now. I am thankful to have her around. In all this time, we have not lowered our guard with her. She still accompanies us everywhere we go. We have never EVER left her alone at home NOR alone with the kids. She also does not handle the house keys. However, not handling the house keys does not mean that she is in a jail with her freedom curtailed. She is goes out all the time…. with us.

She gets to enjoy dining out, going to the cinema, walking around the mall or even just going out for a drive for fun. To us, this has increased our living expenses quite a bit and we have reduced privacy as a result. However, what we get in return is….

  • a clean house – no more toilets that look like a public toilet! It would look that way if left to me alone.
  • clean clothes, clean shoes, clean everything
  • more home cooked foods. She still prepares and I cook most of the time.
  • more time to spend with the kids playing with them and supervising their school work
  • more time for me to rest with the kids
  • more time for me to do my own things like exercise, blog, play the piano, read or whatever
  • she has also become a companion of sorts, we can do gardening or try new recipes together and discuss newspaper articles together etc
  • less stress overall

As it is, I am under pressure with the stress of not enough time. There just isn’t enough time in a day. There is so much to do. So much I want to do with the kids, for the spouse or for myself and never enough time. If I have to do housework on top of all that, I would go mad… or rather…. I would become even more grumpy then I am now which is very very GRUMPY!

I wouldn’t say that she is a perfect helper. She does have her moments. She likes to day dream, is sometimes a little rough handling things and I believe she sometimes takes short cuts and doesn’t tell the full truth. She usually nods her head, repeats after me and says yes first. However, she is good at ironing, she is diligent and hardly forgets to turn off the gas after cooking. She is an early riser. She also goes to bed early but thats perfectly ok with us. She doesn’t quite know how to put the plates nicely arranged on the dryer after washing and uses too much detergent (we seem to keep on buying detergent and all sorts and manners of household sprays and washing liquid all the time) but at least the dishes are clean and do not have a sheen of oil still on it after a wash so I can live with it. She is good with the kids but her job is a domestic helper not a child minder or nanny so she doesn’t have much to do with them. She is good at mopping but will usually not see the dust in the corner etc unless she is told but nevertheless with her around, my floor is clean most of the time.

I wish to add that at the end of the day whether we are happy with our helpers or whether they are happy working with us all depends on expectations, the expectations we have of them as well as the expectations they have of us. When there is a mismatch of expectations then all sorts of problems may arise. Recently, my sister’s MIL’s maid actually clapped her hands in glee and begged (or rather pestered them) to be let go at the end of her term. She just couldn’t wait because she was not happy working for an old lady with diabetes who has to be injected a couple of times a day.

Anyway, that is another story. Today, I am thankful for my domestic helper. The most positive part of it would be the time I get to spend with the kids without being weighed down by housework. Its her birthday next month, so we’ll probably get her a cake again and this time, I am thinking of getting her a little gift as a token or our appreciation.


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