When your child goes to school, does he ask his maid to flush the toilet for him?
Does your child even have a maid? Not in America, or at least not in my circle of friends, but that doesn’t seem to be the case in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

For a family like mine, who left the U.S., in order to instill a new set of values upon our kids and get them away from peer pressures and entitlement attitudes, this seems like a different form of entitlement: almost like going back in time.

In a recent article sent to me by an American blogger friend, Susie, who lives in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, I was shocked by what I read in this article.

Parents send their maids to chaperon their kids to school, and in some cases, these maids wait outside the school to carry the children’s bags and carry there drinks.

According to Samah Bukhary, a teacher at an international school in Jeddah, “Maids are abused and disrespected when they are made to do everyday chores children can do themselves.” Besides, how can kids learn to do anything on their own, and function in society, if their maid does everything for them?

While some mothers claim that they send their maids for “safety” reasons to chaperon their kids to school, other claim the kids are spoiled, as there are other kids in school, who do not have maids.

I asked Susie, “Where do these maids come from?” and she replied, “they are mainly from places like Indonesia, Philippines, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.” She continued to say that this has been going on for decades,(since the oil boom, probably starting in the 1960’s) and apparently is only getting worse.

So with many kids being raised by maids rather than parents, what is going to happen to these kids who are not taught to be responsible for themselves? Thankfully, we do not have this problem in the U.S., or do we?