Our family has been practically helper free since we started. Going 9 years now. The short periods I did hire a helper proved to be a nightmare when I saw with my very eyes how the nanny hit my 10 month old son with a balloon stick when he was just playing hide and seek with her. The mark on his arm proved this and yet that nanny lied straight faced. Needless to say, she did not last a month. Ideally, babies should be taken cared of by family members. I say this with conviction, because I only know so well how our patience could really be tested even by our own children. How much more can we expect stranger to have some compassion for someone who is not related to her. Makes sense, right?
But the thing is, life is not perfect. Especially in a household where both mother and father have to get outside employment to be able to sustain their family’s needs. Being helper free is not really an option. It is for us, though. Primarily because I chose to leave the corporate world to support my husband in the ministry and later work from home. But even for us, it can be quite a challenge already to be helper free. The demands of my job as a virtual assistant and web content writer and the fact that the house needs tending every so often, the house can easily become a mess.
We have been considering to hire a helper. I am most of the time working from home. He might be left with the helper once or twice a week. Given that my son can now communicate, if he ever gets treated badly, he can now tell me about it. I know my son so well that I know if there anything funny going on. An assistant that will help me around the house can really be handy. My son is very self sufficient. He doesn’t need a lot of attending anymore. Save for having to cook for him and remind him of his nap time and toys to pack away.
But the thing that we will definitely have to give up, if ever, is the privacy. We have been enjoying the four walls of our home with just the three of us and welcoming a stranger in will definitely shake the dynamics of our household. This is really what is withholding us from hiring a helper. So with that helper that I was supposed to meet last weekend not showing up might just mean that it is not yet time. 🙂
