Are house maids taking over homes, do we really need them?

Mrs. Nina O. (not real name) has been married for just about two years now and has one child, but she is already saddled with deciding what to do about her new house maid and needs help.“My husband got me a house help, a 19-year-old lady, from this northern state last month, to help me […]

Mrs. Nina O. (not real name) has been married for just about two years now and has one child, but she is already saddled with deciding what to do about her new house maid and needs help.
“My husband got me a house help, a 19-year-old lady, from this northern state last month, to help me with house chores and also take care of our little baby. I am supposed to be happy about his good intentions, but I am not,” she says.
“When the girl was brought to me, my husband was not at home. So I interviewed her and she told me where she is from and the amount she would be paid. Amazed that I had not discussed it with anyone, I asked her who said we would pay her that amount. She said it was my husband, that she had already seen him before she was brought to the house. I was surprised, because he never discussed the issue with me. I kept calm and introduced the girl to him when he came back from work and he pretended as if he had never seen the girl before. After two days, I asked him how much she was to be paid. The amount he told me was different from what the girl told me.”
To cut a long story short, Mrs. Nina said her husband told her she had no business in knowing how much he would pay the girl since it was not her money and he did not want her to know anything about the girl.
What really hurts her most is that anytime she scolds the girl in the presence of her husband, he scolds her back. Mrs. Nina wants to know if she is wrong in asking her husband for a maid. She also wants advice on what she should do regarding the intrigues on her home-front.
Favou rOdogbo, a telecommunications sales representative says: “why will a woman want a house help to do or take over her responsibilities in the home. She just had her first child, what would happen when she gets two or three more children? Some women are too lazy. We say we are trying to emulate the Western culture, tell me how many times we have heard the likes of Beyonce engage the help of house helps and relegating all responsibilities to them. We are Africans and should live as such. The big question is why using someone else’s child as your help?”
Maureen A. Emeka, a businesswoman wants to know why women employ house helps to do their job. “Please remind me again why women employ house helps? Just one child and she is seeking a maid? What then happens when she has more children? I think we women are the root cause of so many things happening in our homes. When you show your husband you are not capable of handling the home at just the arrival of the first child, then for sure you have no right to scold someone who is doing majority of the work. If you ask me I think that is why he is pissed off and does not want you to in anyway make life a living hell for the maid. A word of advice, tell your husband you don’t need a maid that you can take care of your baby and him perfectly well. This way you will save yourself all the drama.”
Sandra Naandi just like the first two ladies, wonders what has gone wrong with the woman of today. The mother of two says: “I keep wondering our obsession   for nannies, baby sitters and all the other fancy names they call them. It is now an in thing to have a house help even for the smallest chores of the house. Some have taken the craze to a different zone, they now use house helps for every particular chore in the house. All in the display of wealth and ignorance; some homes have as many as four to five maids all designated to different jobs in the house. These days’ women are the backbone of the home and the marriage in particular, yet we do not want to learn. It is high time we left all the extravagance and wised up.
“I will suggest she stops being lazy, of course any husband will tell his wife who is lazy it is none of her business when all you do is sit and gossip with friends while the girl works all day. These are your responsibilities and your husband should be proud of you and even try to give a helping hand when the work is too much for you. But in this situation do you think your husband can proudly say he is proud of you? Surely not! The woman in question needs to change and act fast before she loses her man to the maid, we have seen it happen and hers won’t be any different if she continues like this. A word they say is enough for the wise.”
It is believed there are always two sides to every story. Even as many see the indulgence of most women in the use of maids not everyone sees the bad side to it. Some have argued that these maids are necessary in some cases and cannot be avoided.
Bukunola Olokun, a nurse says: “Home management is not as easy as it seems, she has a baby to look after, food to cook, clothes to wash, she needs to go to the market and buy stuff needed in her home. The big question is where will she keep the baby to do all these chores? How long will she depend on neighbours for help, if they are an option as many would suggest?
“The point is that she needs help, but didn’t define the boundary of the help she needed. Now the 19-year-old is in her house, she has to be very careful with how she handles the situation, talk with your husband in private and be open minded as she approaches him for the talk. As for the girl, I would suggest she avoids any situation that will make her husband scold her in the girl’s presence, because that will empower the maid to start talking back at her and start misbehaving. No matter how we try to paint the whole thing black and look at it from the negative side, the need for maids has more positives than negatives. Life is so complex that unless you are in that situation, you won’t appreciate what the other person is going through. She should be patient and not nag her husband.”
Oghene Kome Uyo, a teacher, is of the view that women are diverting from the values set by our mothers: “It’s difficult doing house chores and taking care of babies but our mothers did so in the past without complaining or looking for maids, so why has it changed overtime. Why can’t we emulate them? Some ladies just want to act big, if they need help why they should take their children to the crèche so they can have enough time to do whatever they need to do. My advice is if she wants her respect in the home she should stand up and take charge of her home by carrying out her responsibilities, if not she certainly won’t getthe maid’s respect or that of her husband. By the way who says you need a house help to survive, ladies in Nigeria need to wake up and smell the coffee mate. If not she will not only end up paying her maid in cash but will end up paying with her emotions too.”
For Osheiza Sa’adatu, a lawyer says people should not judge blindly because they may not understand what the lady in question is passing through: “He who wears the shoe knows where it pinches. Don’t judge women who chose to have house helps. I don’t think any woman would just want a house help for the fun of it especially when it threatens the peace and comfort of her marriage. As for the woman, please shine your eyes and let the maid leave if you really don’t need her. But if you do, anyway you can, house helps are supposed to be managed by the wife not the husband.”