“They say it’s like true love, good help. You only get one a lifetime.”
When reading “The Help” by Katheryn Stockett”, I’d picked up some catching quotes. Some of them give us the vivid description of the social and political situation which was happening in the 60s in America. Furthermore, some particular quotes emphasize the difficulties of the life of those people who worked as maids to somehow bring home the bacon. Such people had to work from dawn till dusk earning literally a couple of dollars to make their families living. They didn’t have any choice. At the very beginning of the book there is a quote:
“See, Miss Leefolt, she dress up nice ever day. Always got her makeup on, got a carport, double-door Frigidaire with the built-in icebox. You see her in the Jitney 14 grocery, you never think she go and leave her baby crying in her crib like that. But the help always know.”
This quote belongs to one of the main characters of the book, Aibileen. She worked as a maid at Miss Leefolt’s house.
From where I’m sitting this quote perfectly shows the reality of the society in the 60s. Rich people hired a maid to keep the house, buy groceries, cook, look after the kids and so on. People trusted their maids so much so that they used to leave a maid alone at home and were sure she couldn’t steel anything. More than that, rich white people considered a maid almost a member of the family. It was allowed for a maid to eat their food, to kiss and hug their little children. In a nutshell, choosing a maid, rich people accepted her and often treated her in a good and polite way if she was calm, silent and obedient. Rich white women pretended to be perfect housewives despite all the house work, cooking and nursing did their maids.
Nevertheless, there was the other side of the medal. Leaving their kids with maids, day in day out, young white women forgot about them, and a maid became a new mother for a child. Consequently, children got used to spending time with a maid and started treating her as if not a real mother but one of the closest person in the world. Growing up, kids continued sharing their thoughts and personal problems with their maids more than with their biological mothers. They trusted their maids more as they saw her all the time.
