Self Service

For as long as I can remember, all households in Jakarta have a maid, or two, or three and more. Everybody has a maid, even if you're not that well-off. Don't think about mansion-like houses and huge gardens to tend to. A 70 sqm house would have a maid...

When I grew up, I remember this maid from central java who took care of me when I was a kid. We moved house and started employing another girl for about 5-6 years until she decided to get married with the next door's neighbour's maid. She quit, but not before training her future husband's little sister to become our maid. The Christian Maid's Family Dynasty started then. Her husband became our driver until now. The little sister worked for us for about 10 years before she, too got married with another neighbour's maid. She got married, but this time no replacement. We endured 12 months without one, until my mom couldn't hack it anymore and asked my old maid; my driver's wife to come and work for us again. She comes in the morning and leaves in late afternoon much like a 9-5 job.

Yesterday over coffee, I found out that one of my staff doesn't have a maid. A family with 3 children still living under one roof. With no maid. I was amazed! The last time they had a maid was when she was about 13 yro. That was 13 years ago... "Our old maid passed away and we just couldn't bear the thought of replacing her with another person. We just kept on going. Every Saturday we had to clean up the house. It's a routine."

It is nice and convenient to have a maid, but it is not impossible not to have one. Now I live in a shared household with a maid who only shows up if we call her. That's nice. It's almost like having an elf in the house. The house work is done, but we feel like we're the only ones in the house.

Do we really need a maid? I guess if you're with young children and both parents work, it makes a lot of sense. It is better for many families to live on double income, even if it means that they have to pay someone to take care of the house and children. The trade off is to live with a stranger -- hey, I can take that anytime. I live with practically two strangers now...
I like having a maid. I know I don't have to. But that also means that I'm giving employment to those in need. And the argument goes on...