Maids and Nannies in ME

[HoneyandSonny 0]

Iam not sure if this topic has been beat to death..... Maids and nannies here, Iam really not use to the idea of having someone cook, clean and even raise my kids for me. Jw, what are some of your thoughts on nannies and maids?

[nurse1967 287]

Iam not sure if this topic has been beat to death..... Maids and nannies here, Iam really not use to the idea of having someone cook, clean and even raise my kids for me. Jw, what are some of your thoughts on nannies and maids?

Well I live in the states but I would lOVE to have a maid

[Nothing1234 2]

Iam not sure if this topic has been beat to death..... Maids and nannies here, Iam really not use to the idea of having someone cook, clean and even raise my kids for me. Jw, what are some of your thoughts on nannies and maids?

My attitude...hmmm...

Wish I could have taken my cousins maid/nanny home from Jordan with me to clean, cook and watch my twins. She was the bomb diggity!

On the other hand, I have seen how many are treated and know their pay is slave labor so its sucks but work in every one of the ME countries is hard to come by and pay stinks so who can compare what they do to what others do to survive there as well. There are worse jobs to be had over there for sure.

[Kenza 1]

Iam not sure if this topic has been beat to death..... Maids and nannies here, Iam really not use to the idea of having someone cook, clean and even raise my kids for me. Jw, what are some of your thoughts on nannies and maids?

My attitude...hmmm...

Wish I could have taken my cousins maid/nanny home from Jordan with me to clean, cook and watch my twins. She was the bomb diggity!

On the other hand, I have seen how many are treated and know their pay is slave labor so its sucks but work in every one of the ME countries is hard to come by and pay stinks so who can compare what they do to what others do to survive there as well. There are worse jobs to be had over there for sure.

My grandma has had the same maid since I was little

[~Jess~ 0]

They are very common over here....We dont have one, and I dont think i want one. I am considering though to have someone come and deep clean the house once a week or so, i clean daily but it would be nice to not have to do the deep cleaning.

When we were in lebanon his sister had a maid come 2 times a week and work for 4-6hrs a day.

My biggest issue is the kid raising thing. Id consider having one to cook and clean---but thats the extent, that would free up my time to be with my kids more----though this doesnt usually happen once a maid/nanny is brought in.

[HoneyandSonny 0]

How do you guys feel about nannies raising your children..Its just so foreign to me. I want to watch my kids grow up and I want to be a part of their lives. I feel like alot of these mom's with nannies really miss out.....I see it with my sister-in-laws kids

[sandinista! 1,816]

Iam not sure if this topic has been beat to death..... Maids and nannies here, Iam really not use to the idea of having someone cook, clean and even raise my kids for me. Jw, what are some of your thoughts on nannies and maids?

My attitude...hmmm...

Wish I could have taken my cousins maid/nanny home from Jordan with me to clean, cook and watch my twins. She was the bomb diggity!

On the other hand, I have seen how many are treated and know their pay is slave labor so its sucks but work in every one of the ME countries is hard to come by and pay stinks so who can compare what they do to what others do to survive there as well. There are worse jobs to be had over there for sure.

i get what yr saying, but still...

the working conditions for a huge number of domestic workers in mena turns my stomach.

[Nothing1234 2]

How do you guys feel about nannies raising your children..Its just so foreign to me. I want to watch my kids grow up and I want to be a part of their lives. I feel like alot of these mom's with nannies really miss out.....I see it with my sister-in-laws kids

Agreed. I want to be part of the babies lives each and everyday. I love any help we can get especially with twins its hard at times but we are just fine as it is!

[sandinista! 1,816]

How do you guys feel about nannies raising your children..Its just so foreign to me. I want to watch my kids grow up and I want to be a part of their lives. I feel like alot of these mom's with nannies really miss out.....I see it with my sister-in-laws kids

it works for some families. my neighbour employs two nannies for her three kids, and it frees them up to pursue things they wouldn't be free to do otherwise. they are still very much a part of their children's lives though. i don't think of it as a worse or better lifestyle, just different.

[Nothing1234 2]

Iam not sure if this topic has been beat to death..... Maids and nannies here, Iam really not use to the idea of having someone cook, clean and even raise my kids for me. Jw, what are some of your thoughts on nannies and maids?

My attitude...hmmm...

Wish I could have taken my cousins maid/nanny home from Jordan with me to clean, cook and watch my twins. She was the bomb diggity!

On the other hand, I have seen how many are treated and know their pay is slave labor so its sucks but work in every one of the ME countries is hard to come by and pay stinks so who can compare what they do to what others do to survive there as well. There are worse jobs to be had over there for sure.

i get what yr saying, but still...

the working conditions for a huge number of domestic workers in mena turns my stomach.

yep...i agree. Door men and their families in particular made me sick. I couldn't get my mind around the fact that they live in small under staircase rooms with hardly enough room for all of them to just sit never mind lay down. On one trip to Alexandria our door man and his family lived in a space under the stairs (I kid you not) w/ a burner that had a tea pot on it and his VERY pregnant wife was working with him. My husband put my bags at the front door w/ me and went to park the car. She tried to take my bags from me. She keept tugging w/ me till I finally just sat on my luggage. I was pregnant too but I'd be dammed if I was letting her carry my stuff up 4 flights of stairs in that condition. I waited for my husband to come inside and he took everything up to our flat and teased me about struggling w/ her. He said, she'll be out helping someone else in a few minutes. It never ends.

OT...I just watched a show about the workers in Morocco cleaning the animal skins to sell. I would never in my life want that job....I could not believe the conditions. Thank god there is no such thing as "smell a vision"

[100% Al Ahly Fan 53]

How do you guys feel about nannies raising your children..Its just so foreign to me. I want to watch my kids grow up and I want to be a part of their lives. I feel like alot of these mom's with nannies really miss out.....I see it with my sister-in-laws kids

I agree with you and Annie. I love my son and can't imagine not spending most of my time with him. Mind you, I like an occational sitter ever once in a while, but KEY WORDS, once in a while. I think you are right a lot of women miss out.

As for a maid, I so want one! An occational cook too! While I'm at it I'll take a chauffeur too

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Islam doesn't require a wife to do housework, and allows her to request household help, so it's no at all uncommon among the upper class in many MENA countries. We always had servants growing up, but our parents raised us. We had servants when we were raising our children, but we raised our kids ourselves. I didn't feel bad about hiring help at all. They needed a job like anyone else, and they did very good work. Sadly, some people do treat their servants like slaves. This is a problem especialy in the Gulf region because there are many people who had slaves in the past; slavery was legal until 1964. Slavery is still practiced in some third world country as a means of paying off debts. Still, following Islam, one is required to be kind and respectful of their slaves and servants.

[Ban Hammer 13,340]

i have no problem with a maid, as long as she's dressed like this

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

I'd really like a maid and especially a cook right now. I don't know how to cook egyptian dishes and would like to learn to make them for habibi so he is happy state side. A cook could show me. His MIL has offered to come stay with us and teach me some recipes. Right now I'm just getting the drinks down. They even have different tools they use over here to prepare with. We're on a tight budget but I'd love to have someone come and deep clean our place so I don't have to do it myself. They don't have the cleaning stuff I am used to over here either so I'm improvising the best way I know how. Some mixed couples that I have met over here have told me if you hirer someone to come clean the place that only means doing the floors.

Edited June 16, 2009 by ~Flower~

[doodlebugg 10]

How do you guys feel about nannies raising your children..Its just so foreign to me. I want to watch my kids grow up and I want to be a part of their lives. I feel like alot of these mom's with nannies really miss out.....I see it with my sister-in-laws kids

The woman across the street from me has a nanny for her two kids. She lives with them. That would skeeve me out bigtime...I like my privacy!

As far as not having one because you want to watch your kids grow up, are you going to be working after you have a baby, God willing? I worked after having my kids, though it was parttime after the second and only 3 ten hour days. I wasn't exactly watching them grow up every second but I didn't have a nanny, I had them in a daycare where I felt safe enough to leave them. I used to cry at the thought of missing their first words/steps/etc. but you know I just had to suck it up and go to work because that was life. I may have missed a few "firsts" but seriously I was and still am very involved with their lives. I have very very good warm fuzzy memories of when they were babies/toddlers/kids and now a tween and a teen. They are very well adjusted (many comment that they had no idea they come from a divorced home), both make the honor roll each quarter (oldest always makes high honors), both have some really good friends as a result of making good choices and both do very well in their sport of choice, softball. (the oldest just got picked for the all stars ).

Ok I'm bragging but my point is that even though they had to stay with someone else they are turning out spectacularly and I'm ok with it all too.

(I wouldn't want a nanny because I'd be really scared about what happens behind closed doors but that's just me. The daycare they were at had cameras everywhere so nothing at all could go on without someone else seeing it at some point. )

Edited June 16, 2009 by humpkinpumpkin