Live-in Househelps in the past || House chores starring at me
Published on HivePostify by @pinkbeee · Mon Sep 07 2026
Finding live-in househelps at home used to be very easy in the past, (old days) according to the story my mother told me. She said in their time, it was always easy to get live-in househelps who would stay with someone at home and as well help with various available house chores.
The rewards for live-in house help then, was just to send the househelp to school. There was no monetary reward. She said in their time, wealthy people who lived in cities would travel down to interior villages in search of live-in househelps. These househelps were always taken from very poor homes and people who had so many children and were looking for how to reduce mouths to feed at home.
Travelling to interior villages to search for live-in househelps was one of the things that happened in my mother’s time. My mum even said that someone also came from the big city to take her as a live-in househelp. By then, she was very happy to follow the person because the rich woman had told her parents that they were going to send her to school. Also, people taken in as live-in househelps were mainly children (about the ages of 10 to 18)
Funny enough, this was the impression they always gave many parents in those days whenever they came to take someone's child as a live-in househelp. They would tell the parents that they just want the child to come and assist them with little chores at home and in reward for her assistance, they will feed the househelp well and also assist with the education of the child.
My mother was also taken as a live-in househelp in this disguise. She said when she got there, they treated her like a queen the first day and gave her a good meal to eat. In the night, she was asked to sleep on the mat as there was no bed for her. The next morning, she was woken up with very cold water. That was when her problems began. She worked on the farm day and night and never rested. When she got home she would cook and serve her masters, clean the entire house and work through the night. She also hawked goods for her masters on days she did not go to the farm and was also deprived of essential needs as a girl child by her masters. She was only allowed to sleep for just two hours per night and she struggled to survive all the stress. At the end of it all, she was never sent to school.
There were no general means of communication over there at that time and she could not call home to tell that she was suffering at the hands of her masters. After she had served with so much suffering for years, she was brought back to her parents worse than she even left.
This was the story of others too, so many people suffered maltreatment in the hands of their wealthy masters and because of this, could not become who they were supposed to become in life. This experience, which most parents have had in the past, has reduced the level at which parents release their children as househelps to masters. Although it is still happening in very remote villages.
My pending house chores
needs some cleaning
Even people who need help at home, no longer buy the idea of live-in househelps but will rather contact cleaning agencies or close relatives to assist with house chores after which they go back to their homes immediately. While most people tend to do their things on their own without any help at all.
Thanks for reading, Writing is mine, photo is mine and was taken with my Infinix smart 5 phone camera.
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Tags: #hive-187189#Life#Lifestyle#House-home#Cent#Experience