Housekeeping and Helpers

About 1 in 5 households in Singapore employ a Foreign Domestic Worker. The Worker - aka Helper - Maid is considered derogatory - must live in your house, and you pay their salary, living and medical expenses. They do the cleaning, the grocery shopping, prepare meals, and take care of the children. A Helper is pretty integral to how Singapore functions.

I keep getting asked if I'm getting a Helper when I'm in the Supermarket (Grocery Store). I haven't seen any kids, many kids in there regardless of what time we pop in. Grocery shopping with 3 children is pretty low on my list of things I like to do.

In Canada our floors and bathroom never get cleaned enough. I always prioritize doing something with the kids over cleaning the house. What's for dinner is the perpetual question and I have even less clue about what to make for dinner in Singapore.

Jonathan's coworkers say we want a Helper so we can go out for dinner when ever we want to. Can you imagine going out at a moment's notice? Or having someone to play with the toddler, while you teach the big girls? That does sound pretty appealing.

We have gotten a babysitter a number of times here. First we coordinated it via the hotel for $12/hour. Now I use an app, which cost double, but I don't know who to call and means someone appears at my house with just a few clicks on the computer or iPhone.

It's a little complicated to get a babysitter, because you can't use someone else's Helper. They're only authorized to work for their specific employer. You also can't use a teen on a Dependent Pass or Student Pass. That covers most of the people we've met. Basically they have to be Singaporeans, so that limits the potential pool.

We can afford to get a Helper, but the concept seems so foreign to me. I'm not very fond of the idea of a total stranger coming to live in my house for the foreseeable future. I've always worried when other people watch the kids. Even just watching the older women do our Housekeeping at the hotel made me feel bad. I try to tell them we don't need anything and they give me heck for not letting them do their job. I'll say we only need new towels, only to watch them strip the beds and wash the floors.

To be fair, keeping up with the cleaning seems very important here. If a kid forgets to flush the toilet, the hot humid bathroom smells pretty bad until it is cleaned again. If we get crumbs on the floor, the tiny tiny ants take over. We have to be extra careful that there's no standing water left around. Mosquito only need 24 hours and about a tablespoon of water to breed, and with mosquitoes comes Dengue Fever. I'm learning where to put the food. Kitchens are not air conditioned, and as you can imagine food does not do well in hot moist environments. Anything with an open package needs to be moved to a sealed container, and most stuff belongs in the fridge.

There's not much barrier between indoor and outdoor really. Both in the hotel and now in our condo, the common hallway is open air. There are no weather seals on the doors, so the ants just truck on in. Geckos too. Windows don't have screens, which surprised me. I haven't actually seen any mosquitoes though. Spraying is a weekly event at all hotel and condos. And there are signs all over reminding you to be vigilant about eliminating mosquito conditions. Apparently if you go away, you even need to ensure all drains and toilets and covered over.

Basically I feel like there are a lot of things we don't know that a Helper probably would.