House staff: do we or don't we?

We haven't moved yet and I'm already wracked with guilt and anxiety about servants. We currently have cleaning help for four hours a week, and that is enough. I don't want more, both because we don't need it, and also because the kids can do more and if there's constant help they'll never learn how to do things on their own. The current tenants of our Nairobi house have a part-time gardener and one full-time maid/nanny. We were asked if we wanted to keep them on, and since I don't know them, had barely met them, don't need a nanny and don't like household help hovering while I'm trying to work at home, I initially said no. Since then though, I've been gently persuaded/guilted into keeping them on for a 3 month probationary period. It's good for them, they aren't left unemployed, and it will be good for us, to have experienced help right away who know the house and garden, and who come highly recommended.

Take a look at the Monday June 13 post and comments from http://africaexpatwivesclub.blogspot.com/ for a brief discussion of life with servants. Is it modern and independent and admirable to do everything yourself (with the help of electric appliances) or is it cold and callous to refuse to employ house staff? And here's an opinion from a Kenyan who grew up in Nairobi and now lives abroad (from comments, http://africaexpatwivesclub.blogspot.com/): I really feel sorry for women in the West who have such a huge burden. They feel sorry for women of the south but they are the most burdened women in the planet. They have such demanding domestic work as well as the pressure to go out and have careers they are the real 'beasts of burden'.