What Mums Really Want Is An Extra Pair Of Hands
A recent discussion in a Facebook group for mums that I was a member of caught my attention. A mother asked the members this question, “What would you do to streamline your home/life/work’s daily chores and to remove the chaos from your world?”. The post became one of the most talked-about topics in the group – so many mums can relate because they know the struggle.
In today’s generation, it is safe to say that mums in Australia have become more ambitious and focused on trying to juggle it all. In the past, many of our predecessors could only dream of having a career, while the women of today now have a voice and a choice. We get to represent in sports, take up a political position, run our own businesses, and other things only men were “allowed” to do years ago. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great and all but a lot of us are still weighhed down physically and psychologically, with truly unfair responsibilities at home. This results in a really slow career progression which then leads to our inability to earn more and contribute to our family’s financial security.
Most of the comments mums made in the Facebook topic I mentioned above talked about how they would love to have someone to appear first thing in the morning to unpack the dishwasher, clean the bathrooms and the kitchen, make the beds, mop the tiled floors, go grocery shopping, help with the kids’ homework or take the kids to school, help prepare breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and just about everything an extra pair of hands can do! This is what mums really want!
Getting help from the usual house chores may sound trivial but for most mums, especially those who work full-time, finding someone to help them out can be life-changing! Having a village of support, whether it be in the form of Au Pairs, having your amazing husband during his day-offs, getting a personal assistant to answer emails on your behalf, asking your kids grandparents to babysit for a short while makes a huge difference in the way mothers these days can achieve their career goals, contribute to their family’s finances or become a macro-benefit to the economy.
Another obstacle that doesn’t seem to go away or barely ever improves is the gender pay gap, lack of family-friendly policies or flexible working hours given by workplaces to parents. We talked and expanded more about this in one of our previous blog posts: https://99aupairs.com/blog/work-life-balance-can-working-mums-really-do-it-all/
It’s already hard to get back to work with decent living wages for working jobs, financially hurting to pay expensive affordable childcare that’s going to use all your money before you know it or make more money to pay rent and put food on the table – it’s even harder when we come home to a never-ending ‘mount-wash-more’, a crying toddler who seems to want something you have no idea what or wash the dishes piling up at the sink after a long hard day of work. Let’s face it, we sometimes just need to have a break from it all!
Being able to get enough sleep, waking up or going home to a clean house, getting a spa day or being able to get some free time from the mum routines shouldn’t be something that mums only get to experience every Mother’s Day. Studies have proven that when mothers feel fulfilled, relaxed, and happy with their lives, they are able to raise happy kids as well. That extra pair of hands, regardless of where and who it is from, cannot just help us wrap up our tasks for the day reducing our juggle stress (working mums or SAHM), it also helps us become an even better mum to our kids.
In a previous blog, I talked about why having Au Pairs is the best decision I’ve ever made and also attached my story as a host-mum which was featured in MamaMag, a leading online magazine in Australia. Au Pairs are young people traveling overseas to gain more experience in working with children, learn a new language, and experience a new culture. As part of the cultural exchange, Au Pairs stay with a family. The family provides the Au Pairs their basic needs and in return, will help look after the children and help out with minor house chores.
My Au Pairs contributed a lot in achieving the goals I have in life both as a working mum and a business owner. During the busy stressful days, they took care of the things I could no longer manage to do such as cleaning the house, dropping off and picking up kids from school, packing my kid’s bag, folding the clothes, getting them ready for the next day, and a lot more. I noticed I had more free time to spend with my little ones and mum guilt became a thing of the past.
Being familiar with the Au Pair program for 15 years and a host-mum to Au Pairs for the past 5 years has brought me to the conclusion that the majority of the time, what mums really want is an extra pair of hands. Whether you have your Au Pairs, your husband, friends, grandparents – that village of support can get you into hundreds if not, thousands of steps ahead from where you are now to where you want to be as a mother and as a career woman.
The idea of creating 99aupairs stemmed from my own experience – I wasn’t the only mum who struggled from not having enough family support or dealing with increasing childcare cost that slowly breaking their bank account into pieces. We created this platform because we knew that there are still so many mums who need an extra pair of hands. We wanted to make flexible in-home childcare support in the form of Au Pairs an easy and stressful process for working families who are tired of doing it all by themselves. If our workplaces and our home responsibilities do not get the flexibility that we need, we create our own by hosting au pairs.
You deserve that extra pair of hands Momma! Visit us on our website @99aupairs.com or send us an e-mail at support@99aupairs.com to start your Au Pair search today!