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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have a high level job at a local sub of a huge south Asian co.  My foreign coworkers tell me if I had the equivalent job in their country I'd have a nanny, a cook, a gardener, and a driver.  Sounds good to me! As it is I'm on mat leave with my 7 month old (Canada) and my house is never as tidy as I want it to be, I seldom look as great as I want and it's a huge production just to go out for a pedicure (coordinating with dh so he could watch her). [/quote]

But here's the thing that I think is being missed.  In a number of those countries where labor is cheap enough for a middle class American to live on one income and still have a crew of domestic help, the reality is that those societies have very strong caste systems that make it difficult for people to move up in income and status.  There are complicated issues.   There is a reason why the labor is so cheap.  And upward mobility is limited, especially in places where there are very strong ideas about class.

No, there's nothing wrong with employing a nanny.  But I think the people who are commenting about having a cushy embassy hobby job and a team of domestic help are really commenting on participating in a certain kind of system where most people don't really have a lot of choice in what careers they pursue.

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+1. One issue that arises for me personally is that our family in India both love their cheap labor and-- and this seems common-- mistrusts them at a deep level, as is true in any society where there are great disparities in wealth that the rich and (in India) middle class are able to take advantage of.

What would bother me is letting someone care for my children when my relatives won't allow someone to clean their houses unsupervised for fear that they will steal from them. (At least my Indian relatives follow the maid around with eagle eyes.)

Another thing that bugs me is because of our ideas about work and notions about what makes certain chores tedious beyond any measure of worth are grounded in capitalism and the market economy, the people who have LONG cared for children in these societies at all but the loneliest upper strata-- grandmothers, aunts, older sisters, mothers-- are being outsourced. Now, this is for their own good, we say, and there is sense to it: when women control their own checkbooks, they have power. Still. People can CLAIM there is no difference in a child's happiness, health, or future success-- however you define it-- if they are in the care of nannies most of the time, with only a kiss good-night to dear old mum, or if it's a cadre of raucous relatives caring for them (unrealistic, obviously, for OP, but not for many people in countries where the extended family system is now being eroded). Not to mention the gross injustice that many of these nannies caring for your kids are doing so at the expense of their own families. (To read: Mona Simpson's My Hollywood.)

Anyway, it's a complicated issue, to be sure, but OP, I'm glad like all of these complex issues your acquaintances have managed to put these in the "Judgment Box" so they can avoid actually talking about it. Sigh.[/quote]

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