Buying time

Buying time

Today my wife had a really hard time with our daughter, and not for the first time she asked why we couldn’t pay someone to take more off our plate. This came on the back of a few others suggesting that we should get a domestic helper, and this made me contemplate the idea again.

Depending on where you are from, a domestic helper may or may not be legal - or practical - or even commonplace. In Singapore, it is commonplace. There are literally hundreds of thousands of foreign workers in Singapore doing not much more than housework. Some might say they are funded by capitalism, and in some sense they are. The Singaporean upper middle class is able - and more than willing - to pay so that they may be freed up to pursue more fulfilling activities than laundry or cleaning windows.

Not for the first time, I felt uncomfortable with this concept, and again I wonder why.

A stranger in my home

The first and biggest reservation I have with this is that the domestic helper stays in the home. To me, this alone give me pause, because it means not only allowing, but paying a stranger to stay in my home. The loss of privacy, of space, of freedom to be myself in my own home, irks me. On some level, I wonder if this loss will make me less inclined to be at home, which then seems to defeat the purpose of having someone take care of my home for me.

Conversely, the argument for having a helper in the home is that the help we need is not limited only to cleaning. We would have help to watch the children, to do the laundry, the cooking, and so on. We would have the benefit of being able to focus on our work, our children, and our hobbies, instead of spending our time on upkeep.

A stranger doing my bidding

The second reservation I have is the very concept of ordering a stranger to do my chores. Something about the idea of telling someone that they should do my laundry, or that they need to clean our windows, just doesn’t sit well with me. Perhaps it is connected to my upbringing; my mother was very adamant that we do as much of our own chores as possible, which meant everything from cooking to cleaning to laundry, and so I suppose I see it as part of my personal responsibility to make sure my home is well kept.

That being said, I admit is not a very logical reservation. After all, I am quite happy to have someone cook my food at a restaurant and someone else serve it to me, and even do the dishes while they are at it, so why wouldn’t I be willing to have someone do so in my own home?

A matter of ability

As I contemplate this, I see that in some areas of life I seem to share this same hesitation, and in others I do not.

For example, I have this sense of hesitation about outsourcing my side projects to others. If I have an idea, I am much more inclined to work on it myself, or with a friend. The idea of outsourcing barely crosses my mind. But I have no hesitation at all about outsourcing my dry cleaning, or my air conditioner maintenance.

Perhaps it is because I cannot do the latter? I have no equipment for dry cleaning or for air conditioner maintenance, but I can certainly learn the skills required for my side projects.

Perhaps that is the mental block I have; if it needs to be done, and I am able to do it, I feel like I should do it. And since I should do it, I don’t feel I should be asking someone else to do it for me. After all, it is my job.

Outsourcing

Now, if I am to change my mind about outsourcing, but still want my home to myself, the semblance of a solution appears.

If I were able to quantify all the housework, and pay someone to come and do it on the daily, but not to stay at my house, that would solve the majority of the problem. Of course, it still means we need to watch our own daughter, but isn’t that one of the things we wanted to be freed up to do?

I guess the question is, is there such a service?