Life without maids and helpers

As the annual exodus of people returning to their hometowns during the Idul Fitri begins, many middle and upper income families start having headaches. Their housemaids, cooks, baby sitters, drivers are on leave, forcing the family to do the household chores. How could you survive without domestic helpers? asks The Jakarta Post's contributor Tri Hafiningsih.

JAKARTA (JP): The long holidays have just started. Everybody is getting ready to enjoy the coming celebrations: Christmas, Idul Fitri and New Year.

Imagine a week full of parties and family gatherings. What a joy. But then imagine the dirty plates and glasses, and all the mess. Oh no!

We are unfamiliar with the endless household chores like doing the dishes, laundry, cooking, housecleaning, or taking out the garbage and taking care of the children. And why should we bother with all these chores? We have maids, cooks, baby sitters, drivers, gardeners and even satpam (security guards). But now they are all away for the long holiday.

We know the risks and responsibilities of the annual ritual. We face the same problem every year. It would only last for two or three weeks but since we had not been doing these chores, we cannot cope without our domestic helpers longer than that.

As for Nanies, for example, the helpers are "part of the household system." She has had the luxury of having a family of four as her helpers, and a driver that has worked for them for years. Salamah, her husband Pak Nana, daughter Lis, and niece Lia are the second and third generations of helpers in the family.

Her husband Djamal Kamal, who owns a factory and designs furniture, prefers more privacy with "not too many people around." But for the family living in a spacious house on the 2,000 square-meter land in Condet, East Jakarta, life without helpers would probably be out of the question.

Another couple with three young children consider maids and baby sitters as their substitutes when they are at work. "Without them, I simply can't work," said Mulyati, who conducts math courses in her home in Cawang, East Jakarta.

Tradition

We still maintain the tradition of having the pembantu (helper) though it is sometimes difficult to fit them in more "modern" domiciles like apartments.

For the Imaldi Agoestian family who lives in an apartment in South Jakarta, two maids and a driver are the norm.

Imaldi and his wife Ninik are both employed. They simply cannot leave their five and nine-year-old daughters by themselves during office hours. So the two maids take care of the girls along with all the cooking and cleaning chores, while the driver drives the children to and from school in their family van.

There should be a well-designed schedule to follow during the temporary absence of helpers. Some families make their hometown- bound trips during their maids' annual absence.

Salamah and her family would make the necessary preparations for the Kamal family before they go on their annual leave to Sukabumi, West Java. It would be more work than usual. The preparations would include cooking several day's meals, as well as for the Idul Fitri celebration, putting them in containers, and storing them in the freezer. Pak Nana would have to do the overall cleaning of the house and its yard.

For the other helpers, the preparations would also mean washing the curtains, bedsheets, and cleaning the windows, ceilings, garage and storeroom.

When their two house maids are on leave Dina and Benny take turns in doing the washing, cleaning and caring for the children.

Kusuma prefers to postpone the "hard work" such as the cleaning and the laundry until the helpers are back. "As for dinner, the easier task, we dine out," she said.

New jobs

Most of us can afford domestic helpers because their salaries are quite low. There is no standard salary for a domestic help. In fact there are no regulations on the rights of domestic helpers and obligations of the employers. There is also no working contract to sign. Even if there were one, not all will be able to sign it because many of them are illiterate.

While the minimum labor wage for Jakarta is Rp 344,257 a month (it will be raised to Rp 426,250 effective Jan 1, 2000), a house maid generally receives between Rp 150,000 and Rp 300,000 a month. Some employers treat the domestic helpers as part of the family and provide them with their daily necessities - from toothpaste and soaps to clothes and sanitary napkins and also a decent room and proper food. But many housemaids have to buy the basic needs themselves, sleep on the floor and eat the employers' leftovers.

House maids have no fixed working hours. It all depends on the employer's goodwill. But generally they work long hours, from dawn, before the employer wakes up, till late at night, after the children have gone to bed. They also have to work seven days a week.

Many of the helpers who are satisfied and accept the working conditions would return to their jobs after the annual leave. But many more would look for better "opportunities" like working for families who promise higher salaries, or become factory workers, shop attendants, seamstresses or tailors as these are more promising jobs (though not necessarily higher paying).

Murni said she decided to find another job because as a housemaid, she did not have time for herself.

"I want to work in a factory, so that I can have time to hang around," she said.

Replacement

What would happen if our maids did not return to work? We would look for others to replace them. "Otherwise we would be in trouble," many of us would say.

In a panic, we would try every possible way to find suitable replacements. We would try to call family and friends to know if they have "spare" maids to work for us, or we would call labor agents to know if they have someone available.

If we are really lucky (it seldom happens, unfortunately), the new maid(s) would be available.

Then we have to cope with problems concerning the new maids. Some of us are familiar with newcomers who stay only for a few weeks or even a few days. They will say that they can't stay, and leave.

And there is the "freshman" type. This is the first time that they are away from their villages, so as they are really new on the job and they cannot seem to do anything right. Though they would accept a low salary and stay on longer, we would probably lose our patience of having them around.

It takes a mountain of patience to teach someone who does not understand that mopping also means cleaning the floor. "They just mop the floor, or wash the clothes. They don't clean them," commented Mortiara, who had to face this ordeal several times before getting an experienced maid.

But what could you expect from a maid who lives in the village and in a bamboo house without cement flooring? Perhaps, they had never seen ceramic tiles before, let alone, gas stoves, refrigerators or microwaves.

With all these problems, would you prefer to live without maids?

Benny admitted he could not imagine a family life without helpers. "For two or three months? Maybe. We've gone through that. But permanently? I don't know," he said.

It will be a long time before we will be ready to face household chores without a feeling of desperation that the maids have not returned or that there are no replacements too.

Maids and helpers are certainly an important part of our household. Family life without maids or helpers? Of course it is possible, but not in the near future.