Do you think Americans would be better off if they utilized household help more readily?

Eh, I think this will just result in rampant sexual abuse of young maids by the men or adultery.

Yes, I think paid household help is very useful. I had a housekeeper most of the time I was working full time outside the house, and on two occasions, we had a live in housekeeper.

Mostly, yes. It stimulates the economy and creates jobs. And while it’s not cheap, it’s also often cheaper than we think of it – how many of us could skip buying just 2 or 3 items of clothing, or eat in one more night a week, and then be able to afford a cleaning service once a month? Plus, a lot of people hate cleaning – I’d rather have the relaxing atmosphere of a clean home without the stress of actually cleaning than a new skirt and blouse.

But in terms of gender relations, not so much. Could it help, sure, but I doubt it was help that much. Even getting someone once a week doesn’t help out with the more daily tasks, like laundry, taking the trash out, and dishes. There’s also garden and lawn care. Having someone to constantly be taking care of those things costs a lot more.

But mostly, it’s that I think much of the issue is when women feel like they’re putting more work into the marriage than he is, and the resentment that builds from knowing that if you asked, he wouldn’t necessarily do it right away. Is it really better to be in a situation where someone you hired will clean the bathroom, but if suddenly you couldn’t afford them anymore, it’d be a real struggle to get him to help you out with cleaning the bathroom? Or when, sure, you have someone to mow the lawn, but you still have to play mommy and remind him to put his dirty dishes in the dishwasher and hang his towel up after a shower?

Maybe @JLeslie has just forgotten how Americans love to pay others to do for them what they can do for themselves when the economy is good. In the 90s everyone I knew had housekeeper. I had a one-day a week house cleaner most of my adult life. When economic problems happen the first thing to eliminate is stuff like this.

@MollyMcGuire Where do you live? Very few people I know use some sort of help at home for household chores inside the home. The stats I have read vary from 8–15% of households have used the service. Even back when the economy was good I saw similar statistics.

Your answer implies Americans should be doing their own housework. That Americans love to pay others what they can do themselves. My whole point is doing everything ourselves is overwhelming a lot of time. it sounds like you think those who pay someone are just being lazy or spoiled.

Good question. People that I work with who are from other countries do employ people from their countries, who are happy to come here, live in, help with kids and housework and get the privilege of living here plus some cash. Alice on the Brady Bunch also helped out with childcare, which made her doubly valuable to the family.

I think in this country, a lot of people get mortgages beyond their means (which is part of the problem with the housing crisis – lenders lending more than people could comfortably afford to pay) and therefore, people have to get second jobs to pay the bills.

I have someone come into my house every other week to clean. In discussing this with coworkers, it’s surprising the number of people that do utilize help like this.

I also think @Aethelflaed makes a good point. Some women get upset when the husband has to be picked up after, and can’t put his clothes in the hamper or hang up his towel after a shower. I think it’s a whole issue entirely!

@jca Your answer made me think about how we in America also give our children some of the household chores. My mom is very against doing that. We were expected to keep our rooms clean and bring our plates to the sink or dishwasher after a meal and that is basically it. As I became older I started doing my own laundry because I wanted to, and did some more cleaning on my own. I think in other countries who have help in the house most children probably don’t have chores like unloading the dishwasher or taking the trash out either. My husband never had chores, except to put away his own things that he had used in their proper place and keep his room tidy. He and his siblings all appreciate a clean home, and when they wound up in America without a maid as adults, they maintained their own househols with no problem, I think partly because they were accustomed to having a clean home.

I agree with @Aethelflaed‘s point about daily tasks and resentment also. And, that it is a separate matter but related and there is some crossover. When I have a housekeeper come in once every two weeks it did create more time to catch up on putting things away and have free time with my spouse to relax and not feel there is a chore hanging over my head. I usually do some organizing when the maid is in my house. File some papers, do a couple loads of laundry, pay some bills, and then it is all done. My house takes 3–4 hours to clean all the surfaces well on my main floor, which goes back to your point regarding big mortgagaes, big houses, and gettng ourselves in a place that is probably not necessary. I don’t have a mortgage, but the house is much bigger than we ever wanted, and I wish I had listened to my inner voice before we bought it. We want to sell it and buy a house much smaller.

A big reason why it used to be that many middle class people used to have housekeepers and now almost nobody does is that in most States, it’s required to have minimum wage salaries – even if you offer room and board. In the 1960’s it would have been legal to pay Alice no cash at all and Mike Brady would have counted her room and board as her entire salary. Most live in maid jobs, the maid is considered working “on call” at all times except when she’s sleeping so she has to be paid overtime as well in a few states.

Most people can rustle up a spare room and a bed and some food. Not many people can rustle up 7 bucks an hour a day (plus overtime in some states) for a 16 hour a day job 6 days a week.

Is this satire?

Having household is expensive. You not only have the salary of the person, but you have insurance, health insurance, vacation time off, state and federal taxes – a whole lot of bookkeeping for this employee.

Given economic conditions in the US, the number of people who can live on their OWN salary, much less have extra money to pay a housekeeper, is tiny. Minimal.

Sure, I wish I had my own personal slave – who wouldn’t? But it’s not realistic in this day and age, and no matter how many domestic problems it might solve, it’s still a pipe dream for all but perhaps 2% of American families.

@elbanditoroso, having a live in is expensive. That’s not necessarily what @JLeslie is suggesting. We pay someone $70 every two weeks ($35 a week!!!) and it helps keep our house in good order.

@JLeslie, I think for the people who fight over it, they often really cannot spare anything. Especially with young kids, who people often plan for poorly in terms of finances—money can get too tight.

@keobooks: I am sure that my coworkers who are from South America were not paying minimum wage plus overtime. I am sure they paid a nominal amount – I can assure you they could not afford to pay minimum plus OT plus pay their bills! It’s an example of a worker putting up with it because it’s better to live here for a nominal amount plus room and board then live in poverty on the side of a mountain in South America. If they didn’t like it, there are plenty there that would love the opportunity and would switch.

I have a rich aunt who paid $100 per week for a live in nanny, granted this was 20 years ago, but $100 a week was still way under minimum then, including “extra hours.” This was above board, through a nanny agency.

I can also tell you that thru my work, we contract agencies that hire out aids that help people with their personal care – bathing, toileting, cooking, dressing, cleaning. This is paid by the government – where everything is legit and above board, “on the books.” The government contract specifies that the person who lives in gets paid for 12 hours per day, straight time, no overtime, and is off payroll 12 hours per day, although they do live there and although it’s a given that they are working more than 12 hours per day, toileting the person if need be in the night. The 12 hours that they’re “off” is for sleeping, although, as I said, the person can wake up and need toileting up to twice per night. More than that and the person doesn’t qualify for that overnight service.

I think there are probably many instances of people working “off the books” meaning illegally and not getting minimum plus OT round the clock. If people don’t like it’ there are many more behind them that will do it, if it includes room, board and decent treatment.

@nikipedia: I pay mine $80 once every two weeks. Not sure how long it takes her but it’s worth it. Without it, my whole house would not be clean all at one time. It would be one hour here, a half hour there, this is messy while that’s clean, that’s messy while this is clean. It does free me up, too, to organize, do the laundry and maintain (dishes in dishwasher, etc.) and not necessarily spend my time cleaning.

@jca – I never said it was all states. And lots of workers get paid under the table and lower wages. It’s not really polite to ask your coworkers from South America if they are doing it all the legal way by paying them the legal wage, filling out the proper tax forms and all that.

The home healthcare industry was exempt from the laws – or at least they were in the mid 90’s when I worked for them. It had something to do with Medicare and I can’t remember it exactly. But you can’t be a fully able bodied person and hire home healthcare workers.

BTW, I thought the ones that I managed were horribly exploited. Many of them had legitimate medical degrees that were valid in their native country but not recognized in the US. I know this was not the norm – but my home healthcare employer was ritzy in comparison to others. They were paid 80 bucks a week and lord knows how much my bosses made. But the clients got their own personal MD to stay with them 6 days a week.

@keobooks: I don’t ask my coworkers if they are paying the legal wage, but I am sure they are not, knowing what they make (I work for government where it’s no secret what anybody makes) and I know what the husband does, if there is one, so you can get a pretty decent estimate of someone not being able to afford wage, overtime, etc.

Wow! a live in doctor. That’s a pretty nice perk to having a home health aide! The ones I’ve seen here are most likely not doctors. They’re young women who are happy to have the live in job, because it means they can get by without having to have an apartment of their own, and when the food is included, it’s another bonus.

Yeah most of the home healthcare workers I know out in the “real world” are high school dropouts and happy to have any work at all. But the place I worked for was really picky. I was totally in awe of these people who had MDs but chose to come to the US for whatever reason and take a very humbling position. Many of them were women from the Middle East and at that time, the fundamentalists were just starting to take over and it was just starting to become illegal for them to practice medicine in their own lands.

I will be very interested to see what Supermouse ends up typing about this.

I can’t speak for Americans in general, but I am pretty sure I would be better off if I was to utilize more any household help. Unfortunately, until I graduate and have a bit of disposable income that is not in the cards for me. In the meantime it is important for my mental health that I don’t get too worked up about the house being in model home condition. :o)

Before we got married my husband was entitled to the personal services described above. He was able to hire a personal care attendant to help with cleaning, laundry, personal care, etc. We live in a “spouse for spouse state” so now that we are married, he gets nothing Kind of an interesting policy IMO.

My step-daughters are both CNA’s and in my estimation they are both way underpaid for what they do. For in-home medical services that are covered because of his disability my husband has had the same caregiver for over 20 years. She is an LPN and has worked her entire career in home healthcare. Now she is in her 60’s with no health insurance, no retirement plan, and having had not a cent to spare to put away for retirement over the years. All this is to say I agree @keobooks, this is an occupation where practitioners tend to be under-valued to the point of exploitation.

@JLeslie I have a hard time understanding the thought process behind not asking children to do chores. My kids have to keep their rooms clean and beds made every day and three days a week they have household chores they have to get done. The way my husband and I see it, they live in this house, therefore they need to contribute to keeping their space clean. I also see it as an opportunity to teach them responsibility and the importance of doing a job well according to someone else’s specs so they are prepared when they have to answer to a boss in the real world. Of course there is also a value to teaching them how to properly wash dishes, clean bathrooms, etc.

I am not talking about illegally paying someone under the table, but O understand why that entered into the conversation. I think the law is $1,000 a year now? Or, for some reason I am thinking maybe $1,800? You can pay a household worker and legally not have to worry about taxes. I am not sure if they are live in how it is counted, if living exoenses you proivde ar estiamted in there too?

People who work as aides usually have some down time during the hours they work, but I still agree they are underpaid. Even the “down time” is still working even if it is waiting.

@SuperMouse I am not against chores for children, I understand why parents think they are a good idea. I also definitely think it is important to teach children how to do things around the house. How to cook, how to clean, how to do laundry, how to set a table. Kids want to help and they want to learn whether they are forced to do a chore or not. They also watch the adults doing the chores and know that is part of being an adult. They don’t have to pratice taking the trash out for 15 years to know how to do it when they hit the age of 18. Kids have to follow orders all day long. They are constantly told what to do, what not to touch, how to sit, how to hold their fork and knife, not to scream, to keep their hands to themselves, to do their homework, to share, the list goes on and on.

I do think they should be asked to help out every so often, and I hope they would offer to help at times, I hope they learn and mimic that between my spouse and I who sometimes do the other persons assigned chores. Sometimes he unloads the dishwasher, even though it is my “job.” I do think having a job is a great idea for kids, pay them some money to mow the lawn or shovel snow. Even better inntheir teens to get a job outsideof the house. But, as far as helping to take care of the household on a systematic routine of assigned chores I am not inclined to do it if I had my own kids, except for the things I stated already, cleaning up after themselves and keeping their room neat, but I don’t think parents who do insist on chores are wrong or bad. I don’t have a negative judgment. I just think it is different parenting styles. I tend to think parents who have chores assigned to their kids think parents who don’t raise children without a work ethic, so my comment way above was just showing how that is not the case. I think work ethic has more to do with the parents work ethic.

We used to hire someone once a month, but my wife “retired” and now she takes care of all the domestic work, including the work I used to do like cooking and shopping. I guess it is more relaxing. She seems to enjoy it. She gets to spend more time with the kids.

But if we hired a housecleaner, it would probably help the economy more. If my wife went back to work, it would help the economy more. But I think our job is to take care of ourselves and hiring someone for a few hours a week isn’t really going to make the economy take off.

@wundayatta I would agree that you two hiring one person a few hours a week isn’t going to make a huge dent in the economy. But I also think we have to stop thinking of job creation as something that giant corporations and only giant corporations do, mainly because it denies what power we do have to make some difference. One person hiring help doesn’t do much, but when, say, a million within a state do, each deciding that they will do their very small part to help? That does help.

By the way, most housekeepers get paid well for their time. Mine makes around $25—$30 an hour (she brings her own cleaning supplies). Most make above minimum wage that’s for sure. I just started hiring her after not having a housekeeper for the last 8 years, except for two instances during that time for a big clean. I have been working part time or not at all during that time, so I did all the housework. As you all know I had an accident, and I could physically do it, and my husband was already doing everything. She came every other week for several weeks, and we decided to continue having her come once a month more or less. I don’t have a regular time and day, but she squeezes me in when she has an opening.

Would Americans be better off? Most would have to be to be able to pay for the help.

@Sunny2 I agree with your point about many, if not most Americans not having the means to hire domestic help. I think that from that perspective this question is slightly out of touch with the economic reality most Americans face. No offense intended @JLeslie. I would feel like I was sitting in butter if I had someone to come even once a month to help with the housecleaning! That is so far out of my realm of reality at this point it isn’t even worth daydreaming about.

I think part of the problem in America is being a “maid” is seen as a undesireable job. If there was more respect for the occupation we might see more people doing it, and the problem with legal status would be less of an issue. The person who cleans my house is American. Same with the people who trim my bushes around my house. Just happens to be. Teens could make a lot of money cleaning rather than babysitting or working at McD’s.

@SuperMouse Oh, it doesn’t offend me at all. Most of my life I have not used a housekeeper. But, my husband has always been willing to get one (not live in, but once a week or every other week) since he grew up with them it seems normal to him. I am the one who feels like it is an extra treat, but I am a typical middle class raised American girl. A housekeeper was an extravagance. Hence the original question I posed, wondering if Americans do themselves a disservice with that attitude.

I do think its sad that our standard of living in the US has gone down so much. I remember watching back to back Twilight Zone episodes and seeing that it was taken for granted that if you were a single man over 25 or so, you had a housekeeper or you lived somwhere that the landlord’s wife cooked for you. I also remember people talking about the laundry woman who would come pick up the clothes, iron and wash them and then bring them back to your house. Seriously, does ANYONE do this anymore? I used to wash and fold when I lived in California – but I mean—someone comes to your house and takes your laundry away to wash it..

Up until the 70s or so, we had much more disposable income than we ever had.

With the economy downturn, I think that it’s a little surprising that more unemployed people don’t work under the table doing laundry, cleaning houses or babysitting.

Don’t you think a lot of the changes are because we have all the large appliances in our home now? My mother was one of the few in our apartment bulding who had a dishwasher. It was the kind you hook to the sink. My husband grew up without a dishwasher (I just asked him a few days if his mom had a dishwasher when he was young and he said, “her name was Maria”). His home also didn’t have a clothes dryer, they had one of those things with a crank that you roll the clothes through and squeeze out the water.

There ar fewer and fewer laundromats to do your own laundry. Buildings have their own laundry rooms, and houses almost always have their own washer and dryer.

@keobooks part of the problem is that people think that domestic jobs such as the ones you mention are below their station in life. I remember my father saying that if he had to dig ditches to put food on the table that is what he would do. I am starting to wonder if that kind of thinking is the exception rather than the rule. I want to be careful not to say that in the “good old days” people weren’t afraid of hard work because I think the “good old days” are really just a myth. The general mindset probably isn’t that much different now than it was 50–60 years ago.

@JLeslie, we didn’t have a dishwasher growing up and to this day I mostly wash dishes by hand. We also didn’t have a clothes dryer. We did all of our laundry in a wringer washing machine (and rinsed it in rinse tubs) and hung it on a clothesline to dry. Every Saturday doing laundry was an all day family event! I have never met anyone else my age (who grew up in the U.S.) who did laundry that way.

@SuperMouse My husband didn’t grow up in America. We are in our mid 40’s.

When you think about, we all do these chores for ourselves, but then if we do it for someone else somehow there is shame or a lack of pride associated with the job. I find that very unfortunate. Anyone who does a good job no matter what their job gets my respect. It can be bagging groceries and sweeping floors. My real estate partner and I used to do the cleaning for some of our rental properties sometimes. We would do the apartment together, quick money. 2–3 hours work $75—$100 bucks in my pocket.

When I was dating my husband one thing I believed about him is he would always work hard to support himself and our life. He would as you say, did ditches, if he had too. I was working then too, it was a shared feeling, He was not concerned with whether jobs above or beneath him. In fact when we met he was just worried about having a job that would keep him in the US. He would have worked anything if the comoany would help him maintain working papers. It winds up he is a successful corporate executive, but really there was no way to know when we started sating where exactly his career would go. Even today I feel if he lost his job and we needed income, both of us would do what was necessary to live. That our work ethic is always there.

Hmm. Where I live women who don’t work still have nannies, housekeepers, maids, etc. I think it’s a status symbol.

My wife tutors for a very rich family. She says that even when the parents are home they have help coming in and out all of the time.

Here, only Latinos and SE Asians perform household duties. Being a housekeeper/maid/nanny is not for white people. Strange.

If demand for those things did increase significantly, they would get a lot more expensive. Part of the reason it’s not common is people still assume devices like vacuum cleaners are big labor savers. And, well, maybe they are compared to the broom followed by a mopping. :|

@tinyfaery It’s been my observation that once a minority group (I realize in California being Latino is not necessarily a statistical minority) infiltrates a job white people less and less do that job. I don’t just mean because minorites are being hired and taking slots, I mean the job becomes perceived as a job Hispanics do, or black people do, etc. I think there are several reasons this happens, one being new immigrants are more likely to take those jobs in all societies, and two because people feel uncomfortable being the only one from their group at a job, especially probably white people who are accustomed to being in the majority. Even language can be frsustrating. My girlfriend had always been one of the least bigoted, liberal person I know, friends with everyone from every walk of life and ethnicity, but as her place of work has turned into little Latin America, and the employees often speak in Spanish while at work on the selling floor to each other she has become impatient and somewhat unhappy there.

I was watching a show on TV about names, if what you name your child affects their success, what names sound white or black, etc. The researcher observed that some white names eventually get picked up by minority groups and then that name loses favor in the white community.

In the midwest I actually notice the maids in the hotels are “white Americans” because I don’t expect it. Same with my lawn care here, young white guys, sometimes they have a black guy with them, back in FL almost always Haitians and Central Americans.

Yes, I think if modern Americans got the stigma out of their minds that accepting outside help is a weakness of their abilities or character then families would benefit. There are a few generations like my parents’ though that decided house help was elitist and exploitative yet with embracing both partners to work full time outside the home, the home suffered, the relationship suffered because inside the home, the mindset remained old fashioned.

We pay once a month for housecleaning only but even that feels like a HUGE help and luxury that affords us to enjoy our few days off together instead of spending that time cleaning house.

@Neizvestnaya Interesting. I was not thinking of the stigma of having help. Even though I mentioned about there is this expectation of women especially to be able to do it all, work, clean, parent, etc.

@JLeslie: I hear it all the time, the contempt for women who have a housecleaner or a nanny come to the house. There’s jealousy but more, there’s the assumption (women) must be lazy or not good parents. My husband grew up in Panama where having houseworkers was normal so he’s backed me up when my own mother has sneered about the “waste” of paying someone else to clean.

I look at it like this: I have two days off. Do I want to spend half of my days off (meaning one day) cleaning, or do I want to spend it doing something I really enjoy?

We’ve had that discussion. I travel for work, always have and my wife would bitch that I didn’t do enough around the house. We made enough money to have a housekeeper come in a couple times a week. We tried it and my wife spent more time cleaning than ever because she didn’t want the housekeeper the think we were slobs. So that didn’t work but every time my wife bring up my household chore I offer to hire a maid and she shuts up.

When my mom moves out into her own place again, I’m paying to have a housecleaner go her place once a month so I don’t have to worry about her on a stool trying to get a dust, webs or change out an air filter or worse for her to slip in the tub while cleaning it.

When we had a clearner, my wife would clean for the cleaner, too. She said she wanted her to spend her time cleaning, not neatening. I figure that the reason why women like my wife have cleaners is to impose deadlines on themselves to get the cleaning done. Without the cleaner, they’d let it slide. Cleaner guilt, I guess.

@wundayatta: I clean before my cleaning lady comes. I actually asked that question on Fluther once: Do you clean up for your cleaning lady? I will empty the sink when possible, load the dishwasher, stuff like that. If I have something important I will put it in a special spot, otherwise she’ll shuffle it around and it might be hard to find.

I don’t clean very much before my housekeeper comes. A little straightening or piling up stuff so it is easy to clean around. I make sure there is an empty sink and everything in the kitchen put away. I had a lot of stuff laying around in my bedroom after the accident, hospital stuff, and I just threw it all on top of the bed so she could dust and vacuum. I don’t care about her judging a small mess in the house, but I don’t want to make her job difficult, and I don’t want to pay her money to shuffle my slopiness around. my office is sometimes very full of papers, I just have her skip that room and do some extra chore like some baseboards or something.

@Neizvestnaya My mom has never used a housekeeper, but she definitely would not sneer. My maternal grandma told me when her babies were born, the first two weeks home she had a nursemaid to help her with the baby, do laundry and light cleaning. I don’t know if that was very common back then? She had a lot of money when she was very young, but her father died whe. She was 5 and the money was lost eventually. Married to my grandfather they were middle class. Some of her attitudes came from her youth, but her practicality came from having to watch her pennies as an adult. She didn’t use a maid again until she was quite elderly and it was impossible for her to do it.

I don’t clean up before the cleaning ladies come because they’re going to do things their way anyhow. Basically they want to know what solvents and stuff I want used on what surfaces and then they expect me to clear out. I’m ok with that.

As most of you know, my husband and I struggle a bit, financially. One of the very last things we’d give up is having a maid service come in every two weeks. (We’ve had to give it up once in the past, for about a year, and we were both very unhappy about it.) We both suffer with chronic pain, and we both hate cleaning. For us, this service makes a huge difference in the quality of our lives. It’s very much worth it to us to pinch pennies in other places to be able to afford it.

In general, I do think most people would be happier if they handed off some routine things to other people. If something eats into your quality family time, or you hate to do, by all means, pay someone else to do it, if you’re able!