Saudi Gazette/Okaz run a piece in which the columnist notes how very differently Western and Gulf Arab societies approach the issues of house work and domestic employment. He is stunned to discover that even wealthy people in the West do menial things in their own homes. He suggests that Saudis and other Gulf Arabs might learn a thing or two, and even more importantly, so would their children.

VIEW FROM THE ARABIC PRESS
Hani Naqshabandi

DURING the Second Gulf War I met a German journalist and we subsequently became great friends. Once while on a visit to Germany he invited me to dinner at his home, and it was only when I arrived that I discovered that he, in fact, came from a wealthy family. His house wasn’t so much a house as a small palace located on the outskirts of Frankfurt where his father worked in a senior position at one of the city’s major banks.

What caught my eye though was not the splendor of the mansion itself or its many rooms which housed my friend, his parents and two brothers, it was something more important than all that. It was the fact that this magnificent mansion was served by only a single lady. Just imagine! A seven-room mansion, owned by a man of wealth living with his wife and children, with only one servant! The “servant”, I should clarify, was in the European understanding of the concept, in that she was responsible for handling the mail and handling telephone calls and invitations. She did not iron, nor wash, nor clean!

To be fair, the cleaning was done by a woman who came three times a week, but the ironing, tidying of rooms and making meals, even the washing up, was done by everyone in the family themselves. The wife would cook, the children iron their own clothes, and everyone would pitch in to lay the table and wash the dishes, the father included.