Having just returned from Nigeria, I can say that 99 per cent of mothers rely on househelps, nannies, driverd and so on to make life easy. The relationship between house-helps and African mothers isa long, bittersweet one.
If you live in Europe or in America, you could get by without help. It will be difficult but life will still go on. In Africa generally, the case is different. As people move into the cities, family ties are broken. Sometimes, even within Lagos for example, families may never see each other for months due to work arrangements, traffic and security. So, the house help is quite important especially in a region where there are no social benefits if you decide to stay at home as a new mum to take care of your child. And, even if you wanted to stay at home, would you want to take a baby through four or five hours of traffic, pollution and in temperatures of up to 37 degrees?
I remember aged 12 and with four junior siblings behind when my mother announced that we would no longer have house-helps. I was over the moon. All the house-helps we ever had stole from us. After that we manged fine and I learned a lot.
My advice to mums in Africa is to employ maids with care. Apart from physical violence I have heard of cases where maids pass on demonic powers, afflictions and many other ailments to the children. Some even kidnap the children and organise their contacts to steal everything in the house. I would only employ a maid if it was absolutely neccesary. Nurseries are much better but then you need more money for a good one plus you won't get all the extra help such as cleanng the car, sweeping, washing up and so on that ypu would with a maid.
I have noticed that more and more families now have washer-dryers, dishwashers and vacuum cleaners so probably soon the need for maids in by African mothers will decrease.
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