>I think it would be helpful to distinguish between a true remunerated employer-employee relationship like what you appear to describe above, and unpaid slavery like what is described in the article.

That's the thing, though. It's very difficult to distinguish. I know my parents and some family friends who treat their helpers like extended family. But at the same time, it's not uncommon to find others who do it worse. Still, there are those in between.

Like the author, I was raised with a helper around the house. As long as I remember, even when I was a kid, they were there. Unlike the author, though, my parents take care of them, (they're paid, they get vacations, even help when the situation with their families in the province is tight, etc.) but looking back, I can't help but think if having a helper at all (no matter how well treated) is part of the problem.

There's some effect to society that feels like a barrier. The mentality of "I'm just a helper" is real and even when you invite a friend's driver or helper to eat lunch with the group, they'll lie ("I ate already."). What's difficult too, is you don't know if "I ate already" means they weren't given allowance, they're saving to send some to their family, or just prefer to eat with others i.e. go make friends with the other helpers.

My childhood helper sometimes tells stories of some realities of other helpers that he befriended, and the variance is huge, but it's not a binary good/bad thing. It's more like a range of possibilities.

You're right. In the middle class, the relationship isn't as distinguished. Usually, the salary really is just an "allowance", like the author stated. Other families already consider feeding the help & providing a roof for them as their salary.

Those other families are masters in a master-slave relationship.

Not really. Historically, slaves were often not fed by their owners. They worked all day on the plantation in the Deep South, then went home and tended their own gardens because their owners did not feed them.

"Room and board" is valid compensation in some jobs. There are valid jobs to this day where having a place to stay is a large part of the compensation you will receive.

It is not as black and white as you seem to think.

I would argue that the salaries aren't enough, but as long as they have freedom to quit and leave, and their children aren't beholden to their debts, it isn't slavery.

That's where the complexity and much of the salient issues lie in the 21st century version: formal (de jure) freedom vs. de facto freedom.

To put some clearer relief around the point: the author's parents had no means of keeping Lola in their home by force. They had no right to shoot or maim her if she attempted to leave, and would have been convicted of murder if they did. But where would she go and what would she do, illiterate, with no education or practical experience with worldly matters, no skills, and uncertain legal status?

Few human beings will cope with that level of uncertainty, and to imagine that they ought to is, I would say, a conceit of someone who is unable to properly situate themselves in that person's shoes as a mental exercise. The familiar, with all of its unpleasantness, can be a welcome refuge from the fear and uncertainty of the outside world, especially if the familiar is all you know, you have few bases for comparison, and weren't brought up socially to embrace fear or uncertainty to any degree.