Why are kids so attached to the maid?

My part time helper is fond of telling me the story of how attached her previous full time employer's kids are to her. She told me that they only want her to feed them and when the are out, they prefer to hold her hand and look for her and they even sleep with her. Well, its no wonder then, since they sleep with her!

I can think of several reasons why kids sometimes prefer the maid.

• Sometimes when mum is busy, mum tells the maid to drop everything and play or look after the kids. So in this case the job for that moment is to look after the kids without distraction. Of course the kids love this. Kids love attention without distraction. I am often guilty of being so distracted when I am trying to pay attention to the kids that I don't give them my full attention so if there is a maid whose job is to give them full attention even for several minutes in a day, of course the kids love it and them.
• Maids have no authority to scold or discipline the kids when they are acting up. Now this is something which I think is a big problem for parents who have to rely on maids. If you give the maids the authority you may worry about the maid abusing or over using this authority and yet if you don't you may end up with kids who abuse this lack of authority. Kids are smart. They know who they can bully. Its a fine line to draw. You don't want to have kids who are rude and disrespectful to the maid.
• During mealtimes, when the kid acts up, the maid is given the job to cuddle and carry the baby while mum eats. I see this very often in a restaurant. I'm not saying that mum does not want to pick the kid up. Yes of course mum loves the baby more than anything in the world but in a demanding situation pressed for time when you hardly even have time for yourself and to eat a decent meal it is very tempting to ask the free hand around to pick them up while you have a quick bite. So at the end of the day, you get a baby or kid who is more attached to the one who gives them the attention when they cry out for it.
• When you are out at the mall. I see a lot of mothers browsing around while the maid plays with and runs after the kids. Its very tempting to browse around when you don't have the time to do so instead of having pestering, whiny kids clinging to you but at the end of the day again you have a situation where the kids have more attention from the maid.

Thats all I can think of for now but I'm sure theres a lot more situations that you can think of.

What does all this translate to? Kids love attention so they end up loving and being more attached to the person who plays with them at home and outside, picks them up when they cry, and doesn't scold them. And most certainly they will get attached to the person who sleeps with them as in the case of my part time helper with her previous employer's kids.

I'm talking about kids but the same goes for the man of the house too. I know a friend whose maid treats her husband better than her. The maid is always ready with a cuppa or the newspaper, is there to greet him when he comes home and puts away his shoes, reminds him of his keys, bags etc when he leaves the house etc. Lol!

Related posts:

Read Mothering is really hard work Heres an excerpt:

"...........due to the lazy human nature, I must say that I am tempted, very very tempted, to ask the part time helper to feed, bathe, change, wash dirty smelly little bottoms and do all the other "hard" parts of motherhood while I just sit back and do the easy part of playing, loving and cuddling them.