Anonymous
05/04/2025 13:48
Subject: How many domestic responsibilities can realistically be outsourced?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Is it possible for anyone to outsource everything?
Things like: washing dishes, cooking dinner, washing/folding/putting away laundry, cleaning the cat litter, feeding pets, getting and sorting mail, all household organizing and tidying, scrubbing/mopping/vacuuming
All of the tasks you described are done by our two hired staff at my house.
House Manager:
-Grocery shopping
-Cooking & dishes
-Light tidying (like sweeping up crumbs in the kitchen)
-Laundry (except for bedding)
-Pet care
-Organizing kid activities/playdates/rides
-General household organization
-Books all household maintenance appointments & car maintenance appointments
-Runs general errands
House cleaner:
-Washes all bedding
-Cleaning
-Does a deep clean each quarter
Is your house manager, your kid’s former nanny?
Anonymous
05/04/2025 13:11
Subject: How many domestic responsibilities can realistically be outsourced?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Yes obviously, but not at a price that would be affordable to most Americans. (And then if you do you have someone in your space all the time, which is not a lifestyle most Americans like. This is why some women stay home!
This. I hate having anyone in my space. I barely tolerate a weekly cleaner and do not get me started on a handyman or plumber who has to come back like three times.
Same. I think it's to do with treating people like people. In the great estate days, the rich folks treated their servants like furniture, at best. Just ignored them til they were useful, then went back to ignoring their existence. I can't do that.
Person above who lived overseas
In cultures where this is common people are raised from a young age to not see helpers as real people -- and the helpers are raised to see themselves similarly even more sadly. But they are also good at being discrete as part of their professionalism
Anonymous
05/04/2025 13:09
Subject: How many domestic responsibilities can realistically be outsourced?
Anonymous wrote:Is it possible for anyone to outsource everything?
Things like: washing dishes, cooking dinner, washing/folding/putting away laundry, cleaning the cat litter, feeding pets, getting and sorting mail, all household organizing and tidying, scrubbing/mopping/vacuuming
We outsource most of this - in addition to grocery shopping - but not sorting mail and not household organizing and tidying (that falls to me)
- The sorting of mail takes two seconds
- The people who work for us couldn't do the latter well but some people could
We live overseas. It's also possible to outsource driving
Anonymous
05/04/2025 13:01
Subject: How many domestic responsibilities can realistically be outsourced?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Yes obviously, but not at a price that would be affordable to most Americans. (And then if you do you have someone in your space all the time, which is not a lifestyle most Americans like. This is why some women stay home!
This. I hate having anyone in my space. I barely tolerate a weekly cleaner and do not get me started on a handyman or plumber who has to come back like three times.
But if you had grown up with this much household help, it wouldn't bother you.
Maybe? But I didn’t and… I can’t change the past? I don’t know what your point is.
Anonymous
05/04/2025 12:46
Subject: How many domestic responsibilities can realistically be outsourced?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:You can even outsource managing all this, with a house manager who then hires people to do all this.
OP again. Do people who outsource everything have multiple shifts of domestic staff at their homes 12-16 hours a day, 7 days a week? Because breakfast needs to be cooked early, and dinner dishes need to be washed late in the evening.
My husband is Bangladeshi and they leave the dishes for the next morning and someone comes just to do that.
They don’t have a dishwasher and they don’t want one because they want to continue to employ the lady who comes. She also does the laundry by hand.