I have a pretty good helper

I came on this forum - my first time in about a year - to make a complaint about my helper. Reading the threads I realise I have nothing to complain about.


As an aside, one of the reasons you don't hear positive stories on this forum, is that with a good helper you don't really need to come here. Without this forum though, I would not have been able to hire, organise our house and generally deal with having a helper - this is our first one.


I realise that a current theme is 'what did we do before helpers' This is what I did in Australia :

I had day care - I dropped my child off among many with a government stipulated child-carer ratio. I had a stranger I never really met clean the bathroom and kitchen once a fortnight. I was charged by the second I was late to pick up my baby, so staying late at work was a definate no no. I relied on my sister who lived near by (and she relied on me) to fill gaps. My kids played with their cousins and my best friends kids on the weekends.


I think we are all aware how lucky we are, but we all know that day care and family care are non-existant here, that leaves helpers.


My complaint feels niggly now, so I am not going to mention it. Rather, I am going to tell you all the fabulous things he does.


First I have to say is that my son has a communication disorder - that is he understands and speaks very limited speech. He has a severe processing delay - eg - you say hello, the team plays, showers and are drinking in the bar and he will say hello back. Very, very frustrating. Helper has taken to therapy with enthusiasm. We do therapy all day along with supplements and special diet.


He knows that therapy is all, and the house is frequently in dissary. We all pitch in on the house work as people contact is premium and while son is awake we are working with him. He (helper) has a genius for play dates and son has many a week (A big ask for most kids his age to interact with my son and still he has them) helper makes other kids feel great for interacting with son and our frequent outings are sought after - have had many parents tell me how much their kids look forward to a call about an outing.


When I first arrived, and many of you will remember those times when, dependents could not work, arranging even a single play date seemed an impossible task. Without his helper network, we would not have the social network of excellent children my son hangs out with.


BTW - he works 7-7, five days a week, Saturdays if needed, 2 weeks off a year, we fly him home once a year and we pay minimum wage (slightly above we round up to the nearest 500)

Puti it sound's like you are really happy and grateful for what you have. That in itself is great and long may it continue!!!