Women must always make time to nurture and serve their partners, otherwise the intimate bond they share may be broken and taken over by the house help. Photo/FILE
Good house help is a blessing to find; someone who knows how to fill the gaps effectively and make key decisions when you are not around is someone you trust with the safety of your children and your household while you are away at work.
It can also be a relief to find someone who can step in when you get home exhausted from work, and make sure that you and your family are fed and have clean laundry every day.
So much so that in some households, it is the help who decides what to cook (and often goes for shopping and brings all the change), washes the kids early in the morning and prepares breakfast, serves it to you and your husband, sees the children off to the school bus, picks them up in the evening and prepares their dinner.
This lady has become so much part of the family that even when the baby refuses to eat she is the only one who can rescue the situation.
The baby only needs to be in her arms to eat the same food that you are unable to feed her.
Yes, some house-helps have all the qualities you desire to enable the smooth delegation of your household duties.
But in fact, this delegation may be causing your family unit great harm.
This is not about husbands sleeping with the help; this is about the nurturing role that women in the house play, which is very easily taken over by help who are seen as more depend and “present” than the lady of the house.
Mrs Edith Murogo, the founder of the Centre for Domestic Training and Development says some women have been stretched too much by economic and career demands that they no longer manage to play all the traditional roles of a wife.
“It is tough to spend the whole day out and still serve the family at night or early in the morning. Sometimes you come too late to do it, or physically worn out,” she says.
The most affected are career or business women, and single parents who do not have a partner they can delegate some of these duties to.
And while being busy with the running to and fro is inevitable, there are some responsibilities that one must try to retain and not delegate in order to maintain one’s position as the nurturer of the family.
What are the areas women need to take more charge in the family?
Academic monitoring
Your child’s academic progress is your priority. Giving your child a future by ensuring he/she is brought up well is the best gift you can give to the child.
“Some parents send house helps or relatives to prize-giving days or teacher/parent meetings. You can do that once or twice but it should never be the norm,” says Murogo.
Anthony Kimani, a businessman along Moi Avenue, says at one time, the head teacher of the academy his children attend had to send a house help back to get the biological parent to pick her daughter up from school after she had fallen sick.
“The girl had been dispatched with a driver as she always was during prize giving days and closing days, “ he says. “I would never allow it in my family.” It is your child and part of rearing him/her up is to give him a holistic education. The child(ren)’s spiritual growth
You must personally influence the spiritual life of your child. House helps come from various backgrounds and believe in varied faiths which can influence your child.
Always accompany your children to church. Never allow the help to take the children to her church unless you accompany them.
“Let the house help know the kind of faith you want your child to subscribe to,’ says Murogo.
The bedroom
That the privacy between spouses is of paramount importance need not be over-emphasised.
By all means, keep the house help out of your bedroom, whether you are in or not.
That is the place you do and discuss intimate matters and even at a particular time, your own children cannot be in there.
If you reach a point where you are too busy to, at the very least, clean your bedroom, then you are on the wrong track.
You need to reserve some time for your own personal things, if not for others.
Nick Chirchir, a surveyor supports this view. “We grew up without ever stepping in our parents’ bedroom. It should be treated as a special haven for husband and wife,” he says.
Your private garments
This relates to the above; no human being will take kindly to washing another’s private garments.
Some women have the audacity to give out their husband’s inner wear to their hapless help.
Agnes Nduku works for a pharmaceutical firm in Nairobi and is busy throughout the week, but spends Saturday morning washing her husband’s clothes. “I do not allow her to touch his clothes,” says the mother of two.
Nduku feels a house help is just that—a house help—and her role should be complementary to that of the wife.
“It is an abdication of duties if a third party becomes responsible for a husband’s hygiene,” says Nduku.
If you absolutely do not have the time to do it, teach your husband to wash his, if he is not doing that already.
As for yours, it goes without saying that these are yours to wash, and not anyone else’s.
Money interactions
If you are not the one who pays your house girl, start doing it, even if you have to ask your husband or partner for the money.
Allowing your house girl to talk about money with your husband is unhealthy.
This is because the more a man becomes a financial solution for a woman, the easier tender feelings can easily develop between them.
So be the one to broker any financial discussions in order to reduce regular unhealthy interaction. Let the girl know you are her boss. She will respect you more.
Personalised service
It may not always be possible to have a wife serve the family every day, but there is a reason you are a mother and wife.
Try to create chances where you play mother or wife as much as possible.
Serve the family their dinner, lay out their clothes in the morning, and tuck them into bed at night.
Also, try to design ways in which the rest of the family can contribute to household chores, removing the need to delegate nearly every task to the help.
It also pays to your man understand that you cannot always be there to cater to his needs.
Kimani (quoted above) says, “My house help will not serve me dinner when my wife is in the house. I have no problem with the house-help cooking, but serving is my wife’s responsibility.” He adds, “I know she (the house girl) is a better cook and that is why I insist my wife should participate in feeding the family by serving,” says Kimani.
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