
1. As a father, I never have a thought of daily chores in our home by doing only by a mother. Some people might think that job is for only meant for women and only women should do that. To pursue the same perspective, I agree with that.
2. But, what about a mother who have a day job. Don’t you think it’s a little bit unfair to them? Nowadays, the economy is forcing both of us to work in order to survive. The women have to do the same responsibility as the men have been doing for a thousand years: searching food for money, or mencari rezeki, the phrase for local malaysian have been using.
3. So fathers, don’t you think that we unfairly treat them? Let washing dishes, doing laundry, cooking a dinner, and housekeeping all by themselves, while we — man, a husband, watching TV and browsing on an iPad without feeling guilty.
4. Let’s get a maid then.
The Idea Of Maid.
5. Stop. First of all, I disagree the idea of bringing a stranger into our house, inviting her with a smile, politely say “make yourself at home” while we actually fake that. Then you have to provide her a room to stay, for a long time. Maybe years. And then the stranger help you clean up the house, do your laundry, keep the floor shiny, cook dinner for your family.
And in return for that service, you give her money. Called her ‘bibik’, ‘amah’ or, orang gaji, but maid – what we widely familiar with, is commonly hired in our household in Malaysia. It’s cheap in salary, can follow instructions, and can do everything. You can even smack the lazy out of them if you want. (You dirty bastard employer, don’t that!!). Still. I disagree with the idea of a maid being stay in one house with me and my wife, and my kids around.
The maid’s presence makes me uncomfortable to live my life to the fullest; being playful and childish, and burst with laughter. So I stick out permanently, for now, not having the idea of getting the maid as a domestic helper.
That gives a bag of burden to me. I have to do the maid’s job.
The Essential Tasks for Father (who live without the help of maid)
4. If you are happened to have two kids like me, it’s not going to be easy. Here are a few boring chores I need to do:
- Cleaning up dishes
- Read bedtime stories and sleep with my kids.
- Do the laundry every Thursday and Friday.
- Iron your own office shirt. (If my wife got tired that my armpit’s foul odor is still presence on office t-shirts, even being hand washed a thousand times)
- Tidying up the bed before I go to world.
- Bathing my kids every morning before I go to work.
- Send them to kindergarten.
3. What is good about not having a maid. Having a stranger around inside my house gives me creepy feelings. Yeah, of course i have to behave myself. Therefore, i might unable to become as childish as i am right now when i play with my children. I feel uncomfortable when i have a stranger inside my house.
4. What is bad about not having a maid? Sometimes I complained how tired i am, doing daily chores especially when I’m coming back late from work. I have a thought how helpful and less burden if I hire a maid. I could have sometime for me and my family. But, doing those boring chores only takes about 15 to 30 minutes. And I think the tiresome only plays in my mind. So, think positive inside my brain.
5. Dealing with the stress.
Handling both work and home tasks are really stressful. Plus, you have kids who are very naughty, you have to shout ten times, to get them sit and eat. So pursuing exciting hobbies might lighten up a bit.
Here are my hobbies
- Putting up my idea on interior designs that actually never set into actions,
- Playing guitar and singing out loud.
- Watching youtube
- Writing this blog.
- Brainstorming using mind map for my novel that never actually going to be completed in near future or any future.
It seems like they have no objectives, well, that’s what we call it hobby anyway. But, other things can never gives me a stress relief like the hobby did.
It give a peace of mind. So, to do my hobby is to find time, which is very limited. So, I have to get my kids to bed as early as 8.30, and usually they will eventually sleep at 9.30 or 10.00 o clock.
6. Outsource your task. I hire a domestic helper to overhaul my entire house, total cleaning every three months. I can do that by myself but I kind of a lazy anyway — to tell you the truth — so let’s have an expert to do the job. It’s worth the because my house will be as clean as Alamanda Putrajaya shopping mall.
7. Final look. Look. There will be no easy way to get this boring chores off of your burden. Hiring a maid will be the final answer to everything, if you have a cash to burn. I go and stay with ‘no maid in my house’. With many bad news about hiring maid issues around our local community, I think it is the time for dads doing some dirty laundries and bedding their kids.