My dad grew up in Kenya.
This was back when it belonged to good old England! He told me they had four servants working for them. A driver, a cook, a butler and gardener. Apparently this was fairly normal then. Times were tough for us when I grew up in South Africa. We only had one maid working for us.
(The Archduke of South London I'm in your Girlfriend eating her organs, Fri 29 Jul 2011, 13:46, 2 replies)

agreed
My Mom grew up with a driver, butler, gardener and cook back in Zim/Rhodesia. We just had a maid and a "gardenboy"...

still, got money into the local economy and created jobs.
( zulu eh?, Fri 29 Jul 2011, 20:49, closed)

Exactly!
I've never seen the problem with having 'help'.

It when people treat them lower than the stuff they're cleaning off your porch that's the problem.
You're providing a job to someone who needs a job- keeping them off benefits (or at least lowering their dependency on them) and maybe even helping keep their kids reasonably respectable (working parents will instil more of a work ethic than deliberately-workshy parents into their kids- and show them the value of having an education/hard work early on so you can be the one with the servants).
From your point of view it can help to, say, have someone come round and do the cleaning or the washing- giving you time to do more work/spend time with the kids/eat croissants on the balcony.

The world needs more servants (or at least cleaners and the like).
( uberdeity Wondered why Owen Lars knew of the term "hell" on, Sun 31 Jul 2011, 22:17, closed)