Let us be honest for once. Many of us are running small plantations in our duplexes and calling it 'family life.'
In a typical middle class Nigerian home, the first person awake is the help. Before 5am she has swept the compound, boiled bath water, ironed four school uniforms and started breakfast. The last person to sleep is also the help. She washes the plates after everyone has eaten, mops the kitchen and waits up for Oga's late dinner. Then we sit in church on Sunday and complain about how our bosses treat us.
Start with the most uncomfortable truth. A big chunk of the helps in Nigerian homes are children. Twelve year old girls brought from the village with one promise: 'Madam will send you to school.' Ask yourself how many of those promises you have seen fulfilled. The child wakes before your children, serves your children, carries your children's school bags to the gate, then stays home to wash their plates. She eats the leftover. She sleeps on a mat in the parlour. She wears your daughter's old clothes. If any other country did this to Nigerian children, we would call it trafficking. When we do it, we call it 'helping her family.'
Then there are the adult helps. No day off for months. Salary 'kept' by Madam until it mysteriously shrinks. Phone seized because she was 'always chatting.' Shouted at in front of visitors. Locked in when the family travels. Some of the most respected people in our churches, mosques and offices behave like small tyrants once the gate closes.
Now, the other side, because it is real too. Every parent has heard the horror stories. The nanny caught on camera beating a baby. The house girl who vanished at dawn with gold, phones and cash. The house boy who opened the gate for armed robbers. Families are scared, and that fear is valid.
Here is the controversial part. Many of those stories are the bill coming due. Treat a person like a slave for three years and do not be shocked when she leaves with your jewellery. Underpay a nanny, insult her daily, give her no rest, then hand her your six month old baby for ten hours. What exactly did you expect? Bad people exist, yes. Desperate, bitter, exhausted people exist in far greater numbers, and we are manufacturing them in our own homes.
So what should a sensible family do?
Check properly before anyone moves in. Use a reputable agency. Visit the guarantor's house yourself. Call references. Keep copies of ID. Agree on salary, duties, off days and leave on paper, before the first quarrel. Install cameras if you want, for safety. Use them as a weapon of daily humiliation and you will reap that too.
Pay a fair wage and pay it on time. In this economy everyone wants to squeeze, and the help is the easiest person to squeeze because she has no union and nowhere to report you. That is exactly why squeezing her is shameful.
If she is under 18, she should be in school. Full stop. If you cannot afford to educate the child, you cannot afford to employ the child.
And watch your mouth in front of your children. They are taking notes. The boy who watches his mother call the help 'useless girl' every evening will grow up to insult his own staff, his own wife, anyone he thinks is beneath him. The girl who hears her father say 'thank you, Blessing' at dinner learns something you could never teach in a lecture.
Some families get this right and it shows. Their help eats the same food. Has a real bed. Gets Sundays off. Attends evening classes or else learns a trade. Years later she returns as a caterer, a nurse, a fashion designer, and she speaks of that family like they were her own. That is a legacy. 'She served us for seven years and we never had wahala' is a low bar we keep congratulating ourselves for clearing.
The person in your kitchen left her own mother to look after yours. She has dreams, debts, younger siblings depending on her and a future your household can either build or else quietly destroy.
