I Don't Want to Pay Someone to Be My Bitch

Last night I had a nightmare about having a really big house that I had to clean and take care of, with a lawn and gardens and there were even goddam fountains! With fish that I had to feed! And lots of rooms with furniture and a piano that I didn’t play but needed to be tuned and in addition to the fish in the fountains there was a huge fish tank that needed to be cleaned (once a week.) I’m sure this was the aftermath of my post on having a really big house, but it was scary all the same. Even scarier than my nightmares about Legends of the Hidden Temple. (More on this later.)

But really, having a big house isn’t that scary, right? You just hire a maid. A gardener. A nanny? A fish feeder/tank cleaner? A dog walker? That’s what people with huge houses do, I think. And the idea of having a maid scares me even more than having a big house, even more than being a contestant on Legends of the Hidden Temple.

My parents live in a very small cape cod in Ohio, but they still have a maid. The whole thing just really creeps me out. I never know where to go when they are there or what we should talk about. I’m always in their way (the house is small!) and I end up practically serving them as if they were the Queens of England and I were a meager peasant hosting them for afternoon tea. (“Can I get you anything? Would you like me to put on a movie for you?...) I think I try to overcompensate for my guilt that they are doing work that I could be doing.

My mom is even worse than I am. She always ends up being BFFs with the maid, which I have learned is never a good idea. Our previous maid, Jessica, started asking for regular advances and bonuses, and because she had no one to babysit her daughter, she brought the little bundle with her to our house. And who ended up walking up and down the hallways burping the thing?! Rocking her for hours? Me! We actually had to fire Jessica, because we realized that this relationship just wasn’t working anymore. (Sound familiar, Jerry Seinfeld?)

I don’t like that kind of relationship, anyway -- the kind where someone is doing shitty labor work for me. The kind where someone is working for me and I pay them to get on their hands and knees to clean up the mess I’ve been making. I don’t want that kind of relationship in my life. (I’m sure that some people do need a maid. My mom has time to clean my house but got sick of my Dad bitching about what a pig sty the house is. That’s why my family has one.)

I felt even worse after reading Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, a woman that for two years tried to survive on minimum wage jobs and had a really hard time doing it. One of her jobs was a house cleaner, and her description of the job was horrible. The maids are often mistreated, poorly paid, yet so desperate for the money that they are overworked, injured, and often weak from exhaustion and malnourishment. According to Ehrenreich, they are directed to get down on their hands and knees to clean, even if it is not the most effective method, because it seems subservient to the client. They are warned to use as little water as possible so they are basically just slopping messes around on the floor. Oh yea, and they are usually treated like shit by the customers. (Unless your client is my mom, who will make you brownies, CD mixes, and give you carefully chosen greeting chards with your payment.)

I’d like to hear what other people had to say about maid services. Is there a good, healthy way to maintain this relationship?