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Jakarta Post

By the way ... Life without maids '€” the reality that soon bites Jakartans

In the past few years, middle-income Jakartans have faced an inevitable reality: it is getting more and more difficult to find domestic help

The Jakarta Post
Sun, August 31, 2014

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By the way ...   Life without maids '€” the reality that soon bites Jakartans

I

n the past few years, middle-income Jakartans have faced an inevitable reality: it is getting more and more difficult to find domestic help.

Having two or more live-in workers is now a luxury only a few families can enjoy. It used to be easy to hire a nanny for your toddler and a maid for your domestic chores, paying them about 10 percent of the family income.

Now, not only do families have to pay more, finding a reliable one has proven increasingly difficult.

Hiring a maid for the day has increasingly become a new favorite option, but most families in greater Jakarta have to accept that soon they will simply have to adapt to a life without help.

Urbanites who have lived in developed countries for a while would know that most people operate without the privilege of having affordable maids working more than eight hours, seven days a week.

It is, of course, possible. Many families have done it.

But to make things easier, many things have to change in cities in Indonesia.

First of all, of course the families themselves have to adjust their own expectations about their level of comfort in the house.

Is it possible or necessary to mop the floor once a day and sweep twice a day? Ironing every single piece of clothing '€” even socks and underwear?

Husbands and wives and older children all also have to give up some of their leisure time to do their household chores.

Older children in Indonesia do not usually contribute to household chores except for the Idul Fitri holiday or in tidying up their own mess.

They do not know how to prepare their own meals, and some reach 30 without realizing that there is no refrigerator fairy to miraculously cleans the fridge once in a while.

Families also have to start demanding housing developers to stop tiling the floor with white, shiny tiles. It is really hard to keep such tiles looking clean, a few hairs and food crumbs are enough to make them look very dirty.

Such ignorance and indulgence have to end, soon, unfortunately.

But the good news is, the past few years have seen the rise of small businesses catering to such families. Laundry kiloan services charging by the kilogram are mushrooming, some with delivery services. Professional, good daycare facilities are also growing.

Families in housing complexes usually have menus of various homemade food-delivery services slipped under the door every month or so. That leaves dish washing, sweeping, mopping, doing the beds, and cleaning the bathroom for the families to do.

Such independence is not without perks.

Families (usually wives) do not have to deal with the less savory side of having an unprofessional worker anymore.

Because of the informal contract between the domestic helps and the families, such informal relationships can be quite a headache for some people. Unclear job descriptions and expectations push some domestic workers to resort to '€œcreative'€ manipulation to earn themselves days off.

You also do not have to worry about opening the access to your bedroom to some strangers fresh from a yayasan.

Besides your own family members, you don'€™t have to worry about some other people'€™s welfare. It requires extra energy to think about your maid when they fall sick '€” as well as to think whether they can adapt to life in the neighborhood or whether they are happy or not.

I hope that with more and more families adapting to a life without maids, businesses will follow suit and create an environment supportive of this lifestyle.

More affordable services for families, home designs that allow minimum care, and, hopefully, employers who don'€™t give you all that extra work thinking that you don'€™t have a pile of dishes waiting at home.

'€” Evi Mariani

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