BY PASTOR BISI ADEWALE

In this modern day, housemaids have become part of many family life and a whole lots of women are making serious mistakes the way they handle them. Some are losing their marriages because of this little mistakes. Remember the mistake of Sarah in the Bible.

You need to get divine wisdom to handle them. This is what I have put together as rules for handling housemaids:

RULE 1: NO MEAT FOR THE HUNTER

Never employ an house maid if you cannot really trust your husband with opposite sex or if he has history of sexual infidelity. An adult house keeper will be better who will come to your house in the morning and go in the night. Please don’t employ your ‘Hagar’, dear sister Sarah.

RULE 2: BEAUTY CONTEST

Never employ a housemaid that is more beautiful than you. She may turn out to be your nemesis and take your husband from you. Don’t employ somebody that will engage you in a beauty contest.

RULE 3: BE IN CHARGE

Never employ house maid you cannot control. Two drivers should not be in the same car.

RULE 4: NO NEED, NO MAID

Please my sister, don’t go for a housemaid if you don’t really need one. Buckle up and do your work. The problem of maids at times is bigger than the support they give at home. Won’t it be better to take your baby to crèche than leave him or her with a maid that will man-handle the baby and even snatch your husband? Hello men, please help your wife at home to raise your children. If you do it together, there may not be the need for a maid. Sir, supporting your wife at home will not remove “MR” from your name, it only makes you a real man.

RULE 5: TIME TO FIRE

If your housemaid suddenly becomes uncontrollable, stubborn and disobedient to you, while your husband sees nothing wrong in it, fighting or even beating you because of the girl.

Be very observant. There is something fishy under your roof. If you lose control of your maid she must gooooo!

RULE 6: COVER-UP

Don’t ever allow your house maid to wear see-through and s*xy dresses in your house. Somebody else (your husband) may begin to see through her in your absence.

RULE 7: FULLY KITTED

Don’t ever permit your maid to be tying towel around the house for hours just because she wants to go and take her bath. It is tempting. Help your husband. Don’t ever allow this. In fact, your blood sister must not even be permitted to do so. Any lady in your house must always be well dressed if they are not in their room. No spaghetti, tying of wrapper without blouse. Some girls are so careless that they wear pants and bras around the house. Hey! Sister, the house is yours not theirs. Don’t permit them to destroy it. Every lady around you must be fully dressed in your house. If they must wear night dresses it must be in their rooms. Protect the territorial integrity of your home. Failure to do this is one major mistake most wives do make at home. Don’t lose your husband to strange women that are close to you.

RULE 8: AVOID MATURE TROUBLE

Don’t employ a fully grown up, developed, breasted housemaid. She may become a fully grown up and developed trouble. DON’T permit it.

RULE 9: NO ROOM, NO MAID

Never employ a maid if you don’t have a separate room where you are going to put her. Making your maid to sleep in the sitting room can bring doom into that home, as she sleeps carelessly, enticing your husband who may accidentally see her as she sleeps and begins to pursue her.

RULE 10: NO BOY, IF GIRLS

Don’t ever employ a houseboy if you have only girls as children. Experience has shown that a whole lot of little girls are being deflowered by their mother’s house help. Get female a house help, if you have only girls.

RULE 11: NO GIRL, IF BOYS

Likewise, if all your kids are male, don’t employ a female house maid. There are lots of cases where house maids s*xually molest the boys of their madams. Rather, get a houseboy.

RULE 12: NO YOU IN HER

Don’t give your old dresses that your husband likes on you to your maid, lest your husband begins to see you in her. Those clothes that look beautiful and maybe sexy on you that made your husband to fall for you several times SHOULD NEVER be given to your maid. Don’t make your husband feel that there is no difference between the two of you and get carried away as he sees you in her.

RULE 13: NO HARSH TREATMENT

A young housemaid seduced her madam’s husband to bed and nearly took over the house. When she was interrogated; she said, that is her own way of dealing with her madam who had been so cruel to her.

Another maid ran into the house of one of their neighbours just to escape the man of the house who insisted on sleeping with her. She told the neighbour what happened and that she will never do that kind of thing with “Oga” because madam has been so good to her. She later left that house voluntarily losing her job. She said, “I will never hurt that good woman.”

What is the difference between the two stories? One woman was cruel and lost her husband and another one was good and saved her marriage.

Wives are fond of being so cruel and harsh to their maids. Most of the time they do treat them with disdain, shouting on them, punishing them, beating them and treating them without honour.

If you must get a maid, learn to treat her with honour. A maid you treat badly has many ways of fighting back. One of them is punishing your children or molesting them sexually behind you. The maid you maltreated can also decide to seduce your husband to bed. In extreme cases, maids are known to have poisoned the family of their employers.

By all means, try to be good to your maid. You may be doing yourself a great favour. Always remember that you are only privileged to be the wife in that house.

RULE 14: TRAVEL LESS

Avoid constant travelling, leaving your husband and children at the mercy of your maid. You may not meet your home the way you left it.

Must you attend all the parties? Must you be on the road every weekend? Must you move from London to Dubai on your way to Madrid in the name of business meeting? I think you should choose between becoming a successful family woman and the most popular, famous, known face in town and the richest.

If you travel constantly, I can assure you that you can become a victim of house maid wickedness.

RULE 15: TREAT HER WELL

Treat your maid always the same way you treat your children. Remember, maids have parents too. They are only unfortunate, and your children could have been in her shoe if not for the mercy of God.

Let her eat the same food with your children, and eat on the same table. When you buy clothes for your children, buy for your maids too. It will be totally wrong for your maid to be wearing rags when your children dress like princes and princesses. By all means treat her well. See it as a privilege to sow seeds into the lives of others. Start from your maid.

RULE 16: CHILDREN RESPECT

Never allow your children to disrespect her. Let them respect her. She is older than them. Don’t tell them she is just an house girl. Let them see her as their sister and respect her like that.

RULE 17: KITCHEN OWNER

Don’t surrender your kitchen to your maid. She should never be the one cooking your husband’s food or serving him. Men always fall in love with the hands that cook and serve their food. If she can successfully replace you in the kitchen, your husband may not see the reason why she cannot replace you in the bedroom.

RULE 18: BE UNPREDICTABLE

Get home at times when your maid least expects you. Cut short your journey at times to arrive a day earlier than planned. Just be unpredictable. Don’t allow your maid to be able to predict you accurately. Your discovery may shock you.

RULE 19: WATCH OUT FOR CLUES

Occasionally, check the bags and the room of your maid. This may give you room to know what is going on in her life. You will be able to detect if she is stealing your money, food, properties etc. You may even see male or female condom or contraceptive in her bag. That will give you a signal to question the use and know who uses it with her. “Who is that person?” You should probe further to unveil the whole truth.

RULE 20: ASK QUESTIONS

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Probe your maid about her background, parents, experiences, plans, fears etc. If you make her comfortable with you, she will open up and you will be able to know who you are dealing with.

Most of the times our maids know everything about us but we know nothing about them. At times we don’t even know their real name. What a mistake!

Moreover, ask questions from your children because they spend more time with the maid. They may have many things to tell you if you are humble enough to ask questions.

RULE 21: NO IDLE TIME

Find a way of keeping your maid busy when you are not at home. Remember that idle hands are the workshops of the devil. Send her to a local school around you or make her to learn a vocation within the period you and the children will not be at home. If you leave her at home alone doing nothing, boys around can come and have their share of her in your house and she will be using your food to feed them. Some of them can even come as armed robbers at night. Some husbands are even known to sneak back home to go and meet the “small madam” who is idle and available at home and may also be willing.

RULE 22: DO BACKGROUND CHECKS

Check the state of health of your maid. Please let her go for HIV test. I know you must have heard the story of a maid who infected the little children of her madam by sleeping with the innocent children. Don’t overlook this. You may also need to check if there is any disease in her body that can infect your family.

RULE 23: GIVE YOUR CHILDREN SOUND S*X EDUCATION

Tell your children not to allow anybody to touch their PRIVATE PARTS. Please list the private parts for them to include: their male or female genitals, buttocks and anus. Let them touch the place as they mention them by names. Tell them also never to touch anybody’s private parts or put it in their mouth. They should all be well tutored to know that if anybody touches their private parts or if anybody asks them to touch somebody’s private parts or put it in their mouth, they should tell mummy or daddy immediately.

This is the basic principle of sex education. Please don’t fail to teach your children lest you regret you did not do it.

RULE 24: BE VIGILANT

Don’t sleep with both eyes closed. Most wives never discovered that their husbands were sleeping with their maid until the maid became pregnant. In a particular case, the woman of the house did not even know until the pregnancy was three months old. It was her neighbour that later called her attention to it. She said she never knew they were sleeping together, despite the fact that they have been sleeping together for about two years and the man even aborted a pregnancy for her before the present one. Maybe they would have aborted this, if not for the fact that the man travelled abroad.

Be vigilant. Open your eyes when you are bathing your children. Check them very well. Ask questions.

If you notice any strange behaviour in your children, maid, or your husband, if there is any strange hatred, affinity, or hostility between your maid and your children or husband, try to know the reason. The word is, be vigilant.

RULE 25: KNOW THE TIME TO FIRE

Most women do know the time to hire housemaids but ignorant of time to fire. No matter how useful a maid is to you, let her go if:

– She becomes uncontrollable to you.

– Becomes too close to your husband.

– Begins to disrespect your husband. There may be secrets that she and your husband cannot reveal to you.

– She is very lazy. If she cannot do what you employed her for, why keep her?

– You caught her in fornication or other s*xual immorality. Let her go before she infects your children and husband.

– She is fetish and demonic.

– You caught her in a compromising situation with your husband.

– You feel she is trying to seduce your husband.

– Your husband suddenly says you should send her packing without you seeing a reason for that. You better obey. He may have reasons he should never tell you, but that decision will be the best for you on the long run. If you insist, you may regret it later.

– She has grown to become a very beautiful lady. She was very young when she got to you but now she is a grown up girl, with fully developed pointed breast and tantalizing back side. She may be very good, but let her go at this stage lest you regret it. Give her, “her retirement benefits”, as she may grow up to be more beautiful than you are now and make your husband to go with her. That was the mistake Sarah made and modern women are still making it. Please don’t repeat it.

RULE 26: HAVE A GREEN BED

Build a green bed in your marriage. Don’t build a yellow or red bed. Yellow bed means struggle in your bedroom where your husband has to beg you for sex or even bribe you for it.

Red bed is when there is no sex in the marriage. Both yellow and red beds can give room for the housemaid who is more available than you to take over from you.

Please, build a green bed. Satisfy your husband. It is the wisdom you need to keep your home.