Urban families miss domestic helpers

Annastashya Emmanuelle, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

At this time of year domestic helpers become missed more than ever as the laundry piles up, the house becomes poorly maintained and housewives find it increasingly difficult to juggle all the household chores by themselves.

Middle and upper income households in Jakarta are often dependent on their servants to take care of the basic housework such as cleaning and cooking, as well as looking after their small children.

A family with domestic help commonly employ at least one maid to take care of household chores and a live-in baby-sitter to look after the children while the mothers are out the house.

There is no written rules on their rights and obligations. But most of them work seven days a week and the only time they can take leave is for Idul Fitri.

Domestic helpers usually return to their home villages to celebrate the holidays with their relatives for one to two weeks. Their much deserved time off usually triggers annual panic among many housewives.

A housewife, Karina Revianti, said that she often missed baths and meals as she had to take care of the house as well as her newborn baby.

Her two maids left four days before Idul Fitri and they will not return until the end of the week.

Although Karina still receives help from her husband, she has to tackle most of the household chores herself when her husband is at work. She later decided to stay temporarily at her parent's house until the maids return.

"Mother helps me with the baby and the cooking and I am also able to get some spare time for my self, although not much," she told The Jakarta Post.

To some families, maids are not only used to take care of household chores, but also to watch the house when the owners are all out.

"It's not the household chores that worry me...but without the maids, no one will watch the house when we're all out," said Widodo Budi Dharmawan.

Widodo, who lives in Menteng, Central Jakarta, said that he divided the task with his wife, while their young children, aged five and four, occasionally helped out with the smallest assignments.

Sri Emylia, a housewife with a two-year-old daughter, is lucky as she celebrated Idul Fitri with her parents in Payakumbuh, West Sumatra without being worried about her house here. Her two maids had agreed to leave for their villages earlier during the Ramadhan fasting month, and returned a few days before the holidays, after she had offered them a bonus.

She admitted that without the maids, she would be overwhelmed with household duties.

"I don't think I could live without them," she said, "Since they left, I have had to tackle the house cleaning, bathing and feeding of my daughter as well as keeping an eye on her."

Emylia said that she had had to sacrifice her personal activities to keep her house in order when the maids were away.

Much to her relief, her maids had returned, as agreed, and she took one of them with her to watch her daughter on her family trip to Payakumbuh, West Sumatra, while the other stayed in Jakarta to keep an eye on her house.