Unemployment situation, cheap labor

Someone just rang our doorbell asking whether "we" needed anyone to clean the house i.e. work as a domestic help.

It is not uncommon here in Mexico for people to have domestic help, at least the middle and upper middle classes. We only have a maid who comes and leaves everyday as opposed to staying with us at home.

There is a special room built for this purpose in almost every middle class Mexican home.

The average number of maids a family has is three! To clean, cook and take care of the kids. In fact, I'm the ONLY dad who plays with his kid in the park.



They were two young girls probably teenagers not more 18-19 years old and one of them was pushing a pram with a kid.

Our help is an eighteen year old girl who is a mom of a 4 month of kid. When we moved here to Monterrey we asked neighbors to help us find domestic help.

The realtor who worked for the owner of the house sent a 12 year old girl. The lady wife and I debated on whether to hire her. We decided against as she had a terrible attitude.

Part of the debate was if we don't hire her someone else would. At least we would treat her better. We asked her why she wasn't in school. She replied, she didn't like studying.

The "sad" part is these girls will NEVER escape poverty and so will their kids. One of the biggest causes of poverty at least in the US is teen-age pregnancy. The other factor is single parenthood.

Which is why I support organizations like RoomtoRead.org (www.roomtoread.org) which provide scholarships to girls in the third world among other activities. They also build schools and libraries. I urge you to contribute to them as their overhead costs are extremly low.

My brother Dave and I used to volunteer for them and helped raised funds when we used to live in Chicago.

The only way to reduce poverty, reduce infant mortality for the next generation is to have educated mothers. Educated moms have fewer kids, have kids later after they've acquired skills that will help them succeed in life and also teach their children the importance of education.