r2i forum

Look at any R2I R2A Dilemma threads - one common thing mentioned (I myself might have mentioned this as well) as a Pro for moving to India is availability of Domestic Help.
Why are we so lazy that we can't (or don't prefer to) get our chores done ourselves??? Majority of people in western countries don't get the concept of "Domestic Help". Majority of Americans that I know, including overwhelming number of my colleagues in my previous company as well as current company are always into some DIY project with home improvements or working on their own cars etc. Few examples - One of my colleague was building his 2nd house on the mountains (in Colorado) and putting on his own windmill to generate enough electricity to power his mini-cooler. Another colleague of mine was making a storage unit for his daughter using lumber.
Go to any furniture shop, majority of them require assembling it yourself.
Lets forget about the arduous tasks, we can't even seem to clean our houses ourselves. As soon as you start making a little bit decent money, you hire someone to come clean your house every week!!! My husband's previous boss who owned a million dollar home in Texas (University heights) had no one coming in to clean her home. I was frankly surprised and at that time thought she must be just cheap. But no, majority of the middle to upper middle class Americans I know don't employ help for house chores or lawn care. Which leads me to think 'Are Indians just lazy?'. Offcourse I have noticed that in Indian households where both man and the wife share house chores, there is less complaining and less outside help employed but this is not very common.
Most of my Indian friends here have maids come in every week, buy roti's from Gujarathi ladies, have people come in to mow their lawns etc...And don't even talk about Indians in India... they have 2 maids, a driver, a gardener, a cook..and the fact that we can afford all that in India, is a big attraction for moving to India!
Are we just lazy??? We can't even handle managing our own household??? What makes us so different than these Americans who don't have this 'Domestic Help' culture?

I think its a combination of not having to do cleaning and other household word while growing up, manual labor being looked down upon in India, sports and athletic ability not having the same importance as intelligence and knowledge, no availability of skills training like carpentry, etc in schools. There are peons in offices to serve tea and snacks and maids or servants at home to do manual work.

Actually IT companies reversed the trend a bit with coffee machines and cafeterias for snacks, I remember in early 2000s younger IT folks right out of college used to go to coffee machine or to nearby tea stall for tea/coffee whereas the senior managers and VPs used to ask office boy to bring tea/coffee to their office.

shivaji;621996I think its a combination of not having to do cleaning and other household word while growing up, manual labor being looked down upon in India, sports and athletic ability not having the same importance as intelligence and knowledge, no availability of skills training like carpentry, etc in schools. There are peons in offices to serve tea and snacks and maids or servants at home to do manual work.

Actually IT companies reversed the trend a bit with coffee machines and cafeterias for snacks, I remember in early 2000s younger IT folks right out of college used to go to coffee machine or to nearby tea stall for tea/coffee whereas the senior managers and VPs used to ask office boy to bring tea/coffee to their office.

Its labor when we do it for someone else, but I am talking about doing our own household chores. Growing up in India, we never had maids (I guess cause we couldn't afford it??), I never heard my mom/dad complaining having to do all the chores (My dad would help out). Many of the Indian households I am talking about have all come from modest backgrounds like myself. As soon as we get money, do we somehow feel entitled to get OUR work done from someone else? Or is it sheer laziness and we think why do I have to do when I can throw money and get it done? Why do we let some unknown person into our homes, into our bathrooms and kitchens to see and clean our dirty homes? And then we almost brag about how many/how often we have someone else do the dirty laundry for us!!!

I don't think it's laziness. It's where we contribute most. What are we doing with that free time? Watching TV and grazing around or doing something else more productive?

There are certain things we average Indians do more compared to average Americans
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Family time and care - Taking care of kids, multiple activities to make them well rounded (sometimes this goes to an extreme, but that's a different story)

Taking care of parents and family back in India - Regular trips, phone calls, video calls, tech support for parents, counselling nephews, nieces, cousins on least resistant path to US of A.

Daily cooking and cleaning, laundry (I don't think we outsource this much)

Immigration issues and job related worries

On top of all these, the unknown factor, there are so many things we have to learn here first time. I still do after spending close to 17 years.
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All the above and more take lot of toll and time on us. We also don't have enough expertise on fixing, repairing, maintaining household things as we didn't grow up with these. My view is for a one time thing, no point in learning, better to outsource. The time and energy we spend in learning is not justified. I spent 40 hours fixing a minor plumbing and drywall problem in 2003 in my then new home and I never do that again.

Also the American mindset from their childhood is one has to be independent and clean up on his own. But there are a lot we learn from them as we mature and spend time here. So, as time flies and we spend more time, we become more like Americans, sometimes more American than them.

SamSan;621994Most of my Indian friends here have maids come in every week, buy roti's from Gujarathi ladies, have people come in to mow their lawns etc...And don't even talk about Indians in India... they have 2 maids, a driver, a gardener, a cook..and the fact that we can afford all that in India, is a big attraction for moving to India!

We walk the talk. We truly believe, preach and live "the services economy" :))

Excellent points by ILuvHyd. In my humble opinion, this has nothing to do with India or Indians or Americans. Let me elaborate my point of view..

I've personally deliberated over this question of "am I being lazy?" over the years. As I got older and perhaps wiser, I've come to the conclusion that this all boiled down to how I valued my (free) time. After all, we all are given a fixed number of trips around the sun, and we all have to maximize the value (i know this is subjective to our own perception) we get out of our time. From a pure economic value perspective, it is best to figure out do-it-yourself versus outsource to someone who may do a better job than you. For example, I used to spend 2 hours every other week mowing my lawn up until 5 years ago. I enjoyed doing it some weeks, but other weeks I hated it. It was a simple equation for me to outsource this task to landscaping company when it only costed me $30. In other words, I could buy 2 hours of free time for just $30, which is reasonably cheap compared to my hourly working wage. As a bonus, my lawn looked much nicer, and professional with cleanly trimmed corners and edges. I could get the same amount of exercise and perhaps more joy by going out for an hour long run or a walk with the family. Net net I bagged an extra hour of free time. One could apply the same logic to snow blowing, plumbing, house work, chores, shopping, etc.

ILuvHyd;622002I don't think it's laziness. It's where we contribute most. What are we doing with that free time? Watching TV and grazing around or doing something else more productive?

There are certain things we average Indians do more compared to average Americans
[LIST=1]

Family time and care - Taking care of kids, multiple activities to make them well rounded (sometimes this goes to an extreme, but that's a different story)

Taking care of parents and family back in India - Regular trips, phone calls, video calls, tech support for parents, counselling nephews, nieces, cousins on least resistant path to US of A.

Daily cooking and cleaning, laundry (I don't think we outsource this much)

Immigration issues and job related worries

On top of all these, the unknown factor, there are so many things we have to learn here first time. I still do after spending close to 17 years.
[/LIST]
All the above and more take lot of toll and time on us. We also don't have enough expertise on fixing, repairing, maintaining household things as we didn't grow up with these. My view is for a one time thing, no point in learning, better to outsource. The time and energy we spend in learning is not justified. I spent 40 hours fixing a minor plumbing and drywall problem in 2003 in my then new home and I never do that again.

Also the American mindset from their childhood is one has to be independent and clean up on his own. But there are a lot we learn from them as we mature and spend time here. So, as time flies and we spend more time, we become more like Americans, sometimes more American than them.

Interesting list but I think we are fooling ourselves with that, creating excuses for ourselves. Lets me put some comparison on if this is exclusive to us Indians compared to Americans.

[LIST=1]

Family time and care - 1 hour each day at the most? Also only 1 parent drives the kids around while the other is home/at work. Not exclusive to Indians, i see my American friends focus more on extra curricular than us especially sports. They even go to all the school level games and do PTA stuff etc etc... so not exclusive to us.

Taking care of parents and family back in India - We do not do this on daily basis, I highly doubt if anyone does. Its mostly on weekends and at most a few hours when India 'wake' time overlaps with US 'wake' time. Counter for Americans, they spend time with their friends/ go to church activities much more (more emphasis on community than extended family). And I see many of them making frequent trips to their home state to see friends/family like my friend drives to NJ from DC almost once every month (to attend weddings/baby showers etc or see her family).

Daily cooking and cleaning, laundry - Again not exclusive to us Indians, although we might cook more especially if you are a vegetarian.

Immigration issues and job related worries - Immigration issues only in the first several years, most Indian friends I know are citizens or GC holders... nothing to worry any more. Job related worries are not exclusive to Indians. Doesn't eat up our time on daily basis.

On top of all these, the unknown factor, there are so many things we have to learn here first time. I still do after spending close to 17 years - Again this is not exclusive to us. Even though Americans are exposed to a lot of things from early on, most of them learn it for the first time when they actually do a project. Most Americans don't own a home right away, they transition from condo/apt, to townhome to single family just like we do. An american neighbor just asked me tips on taking care of the basement pipes during freezing temperatures as she moved from Chicago and had never owned a home before!!! So this is not exclusive to us either.
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They (Americans) do because they are good at this stuff....cleaning, building etc.

We do what we are good at --- delegating stuff to others. Hell, even for job interviews these days we have others take it for us while we just move our lips!

We are Do'ers....Managers. They are workers. Let's keep it that way. Let's not try to take away their jobs.

We should not blindly ape the West, as much as possible we should try to keep our culture and values alive.

Jai Hind!

edealfan;622008Excellent points by ILuvHyd. In my humble opinion, this has nothing to do with India or Indians or Americans. Let me elaborate my point of view..

I've personally deliberated over this question of "am I being lazy?" over the years. As I got older and perhaps wiser, I've come to the conclusion that this all boiled down to how I valued my (free) time. After all, we all are given a fixed number of trips around the sun, and we all have to maximize the value (i know this is subjective to our own perception) we get out of our time. From a pure economic value perspective, it is best to figure out do-it-yourself versus outsource to someone who may do a better job than you. For example, I used to spend 2 hours every other week mowing my lawn up until 5 years ago. I enjoyed doing it some weeks, but other weeks I hated it. It was a simple equation for me to outsource this task to landscaping company when it only costed me $30. In other words, I could buy 2 hours of free time for just $30, which is reasonably cheap compared to my hourly working wage. As a bonus, my lawn looked much nicer, and professional with cleanly trimmed corners and edges. I could get the same amount of exercise and perhaps more joy by going out for an hour long run or a walk with the family. Net net I bagged an extra hour of free time. One could apply the same logic to snow blowing, plumbing, house work, chores, shopping, etc.

Why doesn't a well to do American look at it the same way??? Although in theory your argument looks good, I think the free time is spent mostly on the couch in front of TV or browsing on the internet! Once we are out of office, why do we still assume our time is still worth the hourly rate that company pays us??? If so shouldn't we all just get second jobs? Its not like you will get paid extra money for 'not doing your house chores' on a weekend.
Being the cheap bunch we are (Indians as a whole), I would think more and more people would DIY rather than spending money especially for things that don't need any skill.

SamSan;621994Are we just lazy???

We are just helping the economy. :)

A maid takes about 5 hours to clean. Not that we don't clean the house during the week, but it is the most common use areas like kitchen and bathrooms. The weekly help is for covering the whole house.

I don't like rotis from Gujarati ladies, so no issue there.

Mowing the lawn - everyone in our community use professional service, so we Indians are not the only ones. They are better skilled and as they come in teams, the work gets done efficiently. We do love gardening and maintain it ourselves.

Handyman - what would be do without him? Again, their professional skills far exceed my capabilities and I like perfection. If one goes to HomeDepot or a flooring retailer, one would find a bunch of handymen shopping for their projects. They are all not servicing Indian clients.

I am aware of at least one other Indian on this forum who did the flooring and painted his new home. Kudos to him. I just lack the skill and don't find time to dedicate and learn such skills.

Okay, okay...I am lazy at times, alright! Have to give something for your thread. :)