Help! I lost my maid

The other day, I was approached by a friend. 'Please give me your professional opinion,' she said. Naturally, I was flattered. Her husband had an audit firm, why would she ask me for my opinion, which is clearly outdated, when she had a practising professional at home? As I sat down, I was about to tease, 'One has to pay for professional advice'. However, her next words brought me back down on earth, 'How do you manage such a big family without a maid?' It was clear to me now that my current 'profession' is a do-it-yourself fulltime mother! I find the term 'housewife' a bit deragatory, completely outdated and totally inappropriate. Whenever someone say that I'm a housewife, I would counter by saying, 'My husband is not a house!' but I digress. Back to my friend. Let's call her Flower. It turned out that Flower's maid had just ran away and she was thinking of not spending thousands of ringgit on another maid. My immediate response was, 'No need to have a maid! Your children are already quite big [Flower has 3 children aged 8 to 13]. You'd be surprised by their independence and capability when they live without a maid.' Flower went on to ask me how I manage the housework. I told her of my CAOF strategy (see http://silverysword.blogspot.com/2007/12/caof-time-management-strategy-for-over.html). She listened with much interests. I had the impression that she found ignoring any kind of housework as close to being sinful. It turned out she was quite a perfectionist when it came to cleanliness. She scrubbed her floor mats and pre-treated and soaked her children's school uniform. Her eyes grew when I told her that:- A) It had been more than one-and-a-half years since I washed my sliding door grille., B) I do not vacuum or mop the floor everyday, C) I would not hesitate to leave a sinkful of dirty dishes overnight if I was too tired to wash it, D) I converted my wet kitchen into an indoor drying yard and the supposedly dry kitchen is now my only kitchen so that 'sunning' of my laundry didn't have to be dictated by the weather, E) I used a robot vacuum, etc. As I told her about my 'practices' above, questions immediately followed each:- A) Wouldn't it get very dirty/dusty? B) Wouldn't the floor get very sticky? C) [Laughs] D) Don't you need to sun your clothes? E) A friend said that it does not vacuuming thoroughly. To these doubts, I said:- A) The dust is on the outside of the house where I don't spend my time. B) Use wet rag to wipe where my children dropped food or spill drinks. Try to mop at least one a week. C) My wellbeing is more important than leaving dishes unwashed for a day. D) I have not sun my clothes since the year 2000 when I moved into an apartment. E) As long as the high traffic area get cleaned I can live with dust in hard-to-reach corners and under furniture. 'I don't care if people call me lazy. I do what I can and what is important.' I declared. 'In the end it is all about setting your expectations.' She seemed convinced to giving a different set of expectations a try.