My Experience with Nannies by Folakemi Taylor

When I first got married and had to get a maid I thought that was it. I found one teenage girl who was very hardworking and I felt I was set up for the long journey of running my home while working at the same time.

The first shocker I got was when I told her to do something and she said she would get round to it after she finished what she was doing at that moment. I had to really insist before she left the plates she was washing and went to bring what I needed from the back garden. Of course it didn%u2019t take long before I sent her packing because it was always one problem after another. The next girl was more interested in boys than housework. She befriended my driver, gardener, washerman and a lot of neighbours. I was the last to know but once I learnt of all her atrocities I sent her packing. By the fifth year of my marriage I had employed close to ten housegirls. Talking with other women I realized this is normal and some have even gone through more.

%u201CI used to get househelp from the village but once they find their feet they disappear then started using agents cos my friend said they were more expensive but more professional and reliable but I found that the first agent I got was a crook who asked me to pay a one-off N10, 000 agency fee and monthly N15,000 for the maid but the girl stopped work after one month. It was later I learnt that this was a normal fraudulent practice among the agents. Once you pay agency fee and the maid works for a month and collects her salary, the agent will recall the maid and take her to another person who will also pay agency fee and after a month they are off to milk a new victim. After this initial experience, I would hold on to half of the agency fee and pay up when the girl must have worked for some months. The maid I got in this manner was very good at first but she became quite mean to my children to the extent that they told me point blank that I should send her away because they are scared of her especially when I am at work. I got my younger brother to move in with us and keep an eye on things but he got admission to university in Rivers State after sometime and had to leave. Now what I do is to pray and fast seriously before I start my search for a new person and it has worked twice so far. The first one was God sent but left for a good reason, she still calls us and the second one left to get married. She was a very mature girl and she really stood in for me. She left after two good years and of course I gave my blessing and even supported her wedding financially. I know I will soon find another good one by God%u2019s grace. It has become a spiritual matter please.%u201D

-Idera. K

%u201CI hope you don%u2019t mind but I will not talk about my own househelp; I want to tell you about my neighbour%u2019s own. It%u2019s more interesting than mine. I am a stay at home mom for now because I just had my second baby so I see a lot of things going on in the estate. One of the disadvantages of this our new attitude of posing for our neighbours is that you see things and because you do not talk to your neighbor, you will not tell her what is happening in her absence. As my friend adviced when I was even contemplating it, my neighbor could tell me to mind my business. You see, the husband is a businessman who has a shop in a complex near our estate while the wife goes to work early in the morning and comes back late at night. I used to wonder how it is that once the children have gone to school in the morning I would hear the maid and her oga laughing so loud and gisting inside the house and at first I thought %u201Cah, this man is very nice o, he does not look down on the help; he relates to her well.%u201D In the evening when the children are playing outside, if oga is at home, he would sit out there as well with the maid and their gisting would continue. But it became worrisome to me that when madam comes and they are sitting outside, it is all quiet and he does not speak to the maid or when he does, he would shout at her and appear stern. I am really holding myself not to speak to her about this extra friendly behaviour but it might be innocent in quotes so I will just shut up and watch.%u201D