The Most Beautiful Post Reminding South Africans To Rethink Domestic Salaries

Kyla Mills’ beautiful post, which has been going viral since Saturday, is the most eloquently written request to South Africans to rethink the amount they pay their domestic staff, and to rethink the manner in which they treat these people who clean their homes.

Kyla’s post, accompanied by a magical photo of her and Ma Lina embracing one another, started simply with: “This is one of my mothers. I’m thinking of her tonight after reading comments on one of my Facebook groups on fair wages.”

Kyla then details her memories of life with Ma Lina, many of which are memories shared by so many white South Africans who grew up with a domestic worker who sometimes knew them – even cared for them – more than their own parents.

And in a non-judgmental, gentle way, Kyla reminds her readers of the sacrifices these (predominantly) women have made in order to earn the meagre, but essential, salary.

“Ma Lina lived with us. Her son, Lucas, and the niece she was raising, Dipuo, lived in a township. Growing up I seldom thought about who was bathing and feeding them while Ma was doing that and more for us,” she writes.

But – like some of the special unsung heroes of South Africa – Kyla did bother to think about Lucas and Dipuo when she grew up. As an adult, she informally adopted Dipuo’s son after Dipuo sadly passed away.

Kyla asks: “How do you repay someone who spent about 90% of her childhood knowing her mother was away from her, raising you?”

She says that when she employed her own domestic worker she felt “sick”.

“All the food we didn’t use and had to discard after their best-before date, all the luxuries we had, and all the resources we had access to suddenly became a source of shame.”

But, being Kyla, she’s found a way to make it work so there is love and compassion instead of sacrifice and shame – “We pay our domestic worker R350 for 5 hours of work on a Saturday. Seth makes us breakfast and we all eat together like a family. We buy her the lunch of her choice down the road while she showers in our shower and uses whatever toiletries she wants.

“We are not angels. We are people treating a person like a person.

“When Ma Joyce is ready, one of us drives her to the taxi that takes her to Diepsloot.”

Kyla says: “White people tell me I’m insane when they ask how much they should pay their “help”: “Minimum wage is like R20!” Yes. But paying minimum wage doesn’t make you a minimum asshole. “She uses YOUR shower?” Absolutely. If she’s the one who cleans it, she should sure as hell be able to use it. “My employer doesn’t buy ME lunch”…because you can afford to buy your own, friend.

“I understand that many people can’t afford to pay as much as we do. But I also know that there are millions who can.

“And we can ALL afford to treat our employees with dignity, kindness, and respect.

“It must be heartbreaking to arrive at a nice suburban house and get on your knees to be able to put food on your table. It must be even more heartbreaking to be told, “There are so many people who would work for less, you know,” when what you know is that your wages barely cover your expenses if at all.

“Most of all, how heartbreaking it must be to kiss another person’s children goodnight when your own kids are going to bed without you there.”

Kyla says she thinks Ma Lina was treated quite well by her family “but I am sure that it was hard. She never hesitated for us. Never hit us once. Never raised her voice. She always held us tighter than Mom and Dad did when she hugged us, just like she is in this picture.

“Please, before you settle on a value for wages, think carefully about the Lindt chocolate on the shelf while you buy pap for the people who make your lives easier. Think about the running costs of your own home and what it might be like to support a family with the money you’re giving. Think about the lives of the people your employees have a stake in, from babies to grandparents. Think about your manicured lawns and beautifully kept houses, and what an exhausted wreck you’d be if it was all up to you.

“Think about Ma Lina. I always do.”

Read Kyla Mills’ full beautiful post here:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155303012485636&set=a.10150112826510636.294371.726330635&type=3