Dahling, we just can’t live without a housekeeper
More and more women are hiring them and insist
STANDING in her kitchen late at night with a long list of household chores still to do, Molly Mahon felt close to despair. ‘My days began at 6am before the children were up, and come 10pm, I’d still be on the go, exhausted, ironing school clothes while ruminating over all the business emails that needed to be sent,’ says Molly, 40, the founder and CEO of a textile design company.
‘Meanwhile, the house was littered with the detritus of family life — piles of dirty dishes in the kitchen and clothes strewn over the children’s bedroom floors — because I didn’t have time to be a domestic goddess, too.’
With children, aged eight, seven and three, Molly knew that something had to give. And, it wasn’t going to be the career or the comfortable family lifestyle that she had worked so hard to build. Instead, she followed in the footsteps of her friends — and hired a housekeeper.
‘Several of them already had housekeepers and I coveted their calm, clean, orderly homes,’ she says. ‘ Having a housekeeper sounds terribly extravagant and, at a cost of £2,000 a month, it’s a huge expense. But, by late last year, I was so stressed that I feared putting my health at risk if I continued to juggle the relentless demands of my family and career, so hiring help became a necessity not a luxury.’
And so it was that Niccola Willis entered their lives in January. The 59- year-old, who lives nearby and who has a grown-up son, now works for Molly and her husband Rollo, 43, from nine to five, Monday to Friday.
Not only does she do all the household chores, she also picks up the children from school and cooks dinner. It all means that when Molly returns home from work she is confronted with a scene not of chaos, but of domestic bliss.
‘It has transformed my life,’ she says. ‘Now, when I open the door after a day at work, the carpets are vacuumed, there are fresh flowers in vases, the kitchen gleams, and bed sheets are laundered, ironed and put away.
‘After dinner, I have the luxury of reading with my children or indulging them in a longer bath time because I am no longer mentally running through all the chores to be done.’
As for covering the costs, without the distractions of caring for the family home, she says that she and her husband, who has started working with her, have been able to devote more time to furthering their business. ‘ The harder we work, the easier it is to justify paying for Niccola,’ she says.
AND Molly and her family are far from alone in reaching the conclusion that hiring in help at home is one way to bring some balance to the worklife equation.
A survey recently found that one in three British households now employs someone to help with the chores, spending £26 billion a year on help in the home.
And such assistance is no longer the preserve of the rich — one in four households with an income of less than £20,000 is paying for a cleaner. Indeed, more British households have domestic help now than in the Victorian era.
The reasons are simple — men and women working long hours, combined with a readily available pool of people, many from abroad, willing to do such work.
Housekeepers, in particular, have enjoyed a renaissance, providing help with both childcare and chores for those who cannot afford multiple staff.
Paola Diana is founder and CEO of Nanny & Butler in Notting Hill, West London, an agency which specialises in providing housekeepers and domestic staff. She says demand has rocketed by about 60 per cent in the past five years. ‘ The fact is that women’s lives are getting ever busier and they are struggling to juggle their careers, social lives, homes and families,’ she adds. ‘They are also realising that it’s ok to admit that they need some help to manage everything and that paying a housekeeper isn’t an indulgence, it’s a necessity.
‘A housekeeper can help to take care of their house and their life. They can look after children, too, so there’s no need for a separate nanny. If the kids are at school, they will take care of the domestic chores during the day, then care for the children until Mum and Dad are home from work.’
While it doesn’t come cheap — a good live-in housekeeper starts from about £400 a week and one who lives out typically costs from £500 per week. But for soaring numbers of women, housekeepers are becoming a life-saver.
That is the case for 40-year-old Ankita Stopa, an entrepreneur and founder of a food enterprise, who lives in Canary Wharf, London, with husband Robert, 40, a wealth manager. They decided to hire a housekeeper after the birth of their son Milan, four years ago. They also have a daughter Yasmin, seven. ‘Despite both working long hours, Robert and I had managed happily with one child, plus the help of an au pair and cleaner,’ she says. ‘But my business took off after I had Milan and it became incredibly stressful trying to combine work with family. ‘Plus, we couldn’t find an au pair who lasted more than a few months — one got pregnant, another hated the cold British weather, a third left to care for her sick mother, and a fourth returned to France to study.’ In the end, it was Ankita’s mother who suggested that if they were both continuing to work, they had to get more help. ‘Mum had been to stay with us and had seen how frazzled I was,’ says Ankita. ‘Her advice was simple: “You need a housekeeper to look after your home, the children and, most importantly, you.” ’
So it was that in May 2013, a friend introduced them to their Indian live-in housekeeper Anitha, 39, who moved in straight away.
‘Having a housekeeper has been a revelation, just as my mother promised it would be,’ says Ankita. ‘There was an inevitable settling in period. For example, on Anitha’s first morning she laid the breakfast table formally with plates and cutlery, something previous employers had expected of her, but we don’t.
‘Her remit is to clean, cook, do the laundry and ironing and, when she first started working for us, to look after Milan. But we also wanted her to feel like one of the family.’
So much so that when Milan started pre- school, Anitha was terrified she would no longer be needed. But the family had no intention of letting her go, choosing instead to pay for her to learn some extra skills.
Anitha says: ‘I was thrilled when Ankita said she wanted me to stay on with them last year and couldn’t believe it when she offered to pay for me to go to sewing and cookery classes, too.’
And it’s not only those with young children to care for who are relying on housekeepers.
Julia Harris, 49, owns a domestic employment agency Harris Recruitment, and lives in Cheshire, with husband Daniel, 53, a surveyor, and their two sons Charlie, 19, and Sam, 17.
JULIA’S live-in housekeeper Ruby, 54, has lived with the family for more than six years — but she, in fact, hired her first live-in housekeeper almost 20 years ago when her first son was born.
‘At the time, I was a sales manager in the packaging industry and with no family nearby, I knew that having full-time domestic help was the only way I could return to my career,’ she says. ‘It would have been impossible to make bold career moves and manage family life without a live-in housekeeper.’
Initially, Ruby helped with the boys so they were ready for school, as well as doing the chores. But now that Charlie is away at university and Sam is doing Alevels, as well as looking after the house, she has also become Julia’s ‘right-hand woman’.
‘We have friends over for dinner most Friday nights and when I arrive home at 6.30pm, Ruby will have laid the table and prepared most of the food,’ Julia adds.
‘She helps me to get my work-life balance right, so I’m a calmer host. And seeing how much her children and grandchildren love and respect her, despite being thousands of miles away, has taught me that, even though I’ve always been the primary carer for my sons, you don’t have to live in your children’s pockets to be a terrific parent.’