Houseboy

hi woody

our situation was slightly different, in that we hired a husband-wife team.


however we had no qualms about having our male helper change our daughters when the occasion called for it. we trusted him completely.


his cooking skills we never tested, although i am sure he would have tried his best and learned. his cleaning was fantastic.


if you see the boards, you will see multiple threads on "Drivers". given that our male helper recently got a job at as a driver and got a 4k pay increase with the new position, i think most men who have valid drivers licenses will likely try for those positions.


however - our experience was excellent. good luck.


(we let him go because his wife left hong kong and he had the opportunity to get an excellent job and he deserved it.)

We have a male helper. But again our situation is slightly different in that I have a severley disbaled teenage boy, and we needed the extra strength for lifting. He's fine with him, and has no qualms about changing his nappy (often not very pleasant as you can imagine), showering him, playing etc. He does basic cleaning, i.e. cleans the floors (every day), bathrooms, (twice a week), dusting once a week, and all the washing up. He also cleans the car once a week and occassionally goes out and does a bit of gardening. I do all the shopping, washing, cooking and ironing. Plus the childcare of the other kids. He doesn't drive, but is taking lessons at the moment, so I think he will be looking for a job as a driver when his contract expires. We could not afford to keep him on a drivers wages. But, whether rightly or wrongly I am not as comfortable about him with my 5 year old daughter. She likes him and they get on fine, play puzzles etc, but if I have to go out in the evening I don;t feel comfortable about him taking her to bed, I usually get my older son to do it. A few weeks ago, I came in from a night out to find him asleep on the bed with my daughter, I'm sure it was totally innocent but I couldn't get to sleep that night, and told him the next day that I didn't ever want him doing that again. He's very trustworthy, has a little girl himself the same age, but personally as a mum I'm just not comfortable with it. I would never let him bath the kids, but thats not specifically his gender as I would never let my female helper bath them either.

He doesn't cook, but I'm sure he could be taught to like any one else, I just can't be bothered to, its easier to do it myself.

Hi,


We have a husband and wife situation. Our male helper does driving and cleaning - but was basically taught the cleaning side by his other half. But Ihave to say he's better at it than she is. He's not very good at supermarket shopping though (comes home with the wrong stuff, or bad vegies etc) and can't cook. She's definitely the brains of the outfit, but that may not be true in all cases.


I don't like him looking after our kids, no real reason, just feel a bit funny about it and my husband doesn't want another man to be closer to our kids than he is!


If you are needing someone who can drive, I've recently heard there are female helpers out there who can drive. Why not find one of those if you need someone to do childcare as well - that will relieve a lot of your concerns.


Good luck!

To Woody,

yes we have had 3 female helpers in the past. I wouldn't particularly say I prefered having a female helper, to be honest I would rather not have a helper. But with my son that is just not possible, its either have a helper or move back to the UK and put himin care. Something we don't want to do unless its a last resort. But our attitude is certainly different, like I said I don't feel as comfortable with him around my daughter as I did a female, although I had less problems with a female helper round my son, although I never liked her putting the kids to bed either. I've never wanted my kids to look on our helpers as a surrogate parent. We've always made it clear from the start with each new helper that the kids are ours, and they are there for the housework. Unfortunately with my son we've had to make an exception especially as he's got older. I've never treated our helpers as one of the family, or a friend we've always kept boundaries, but it was definately easier to talk to my female helper. He definately works slower than our female helpers and we seem to expect less from him because he is male. I'm not sure if we will renew his contract but we will be sticking to a male helper from now on.