Parents take on extra help as work hours get longer Joanna Dempsey, 41, and her husband Graham, 44, marketing director of a pharmaceutical company, employ a full-time nanny, Arianne Buchanan, 24, to look after their children, Stirling, five, and Beux, three, as well as a housekeeper, Theresa Blanchard, 50, who works three days a week. Mrs Dempsey, from Cambridge, who has recently set up her own businesses - Life Productions - which produces films of children for their parents, said: "The harder you work, the more support you need at home and because you are working so hard, when you are at home, you just want quality time with the children. But it is a vicious circle, you work hard to pay for everybody so that you can work harder. Current vacancies for nannies advertised through Nannies of St James, which recruits for high-profile clients in London, include a family advertising for a nanny to work alongside a maternity nurse, another family in Oxford who already have a part-time housekeeper and a family in Dublin looking for their fourth nanny. Rosemary Newton, partner at the firm, said: "The economy means people are more committed to keeping their jobs and their careers and their businesses in play and so are working longer and harder - people are really having to earn their money these days. As a result, I don't think people are seeing as much of their children but if you want to keep the kids at private school you have to keep your job and therefore you pay out more in staff costs just to make sure everything is running smoothly at home. Amber Jones, director of Tigerlily Childcare, said some families had also realised that nannies could not do everything. "We have two high-profile clients at the moment who both have nannies and hired housekeepers alongside," she said. We are seeing more of this with the weSalthy families definitely, it is two salaries so obviously families have got to be able to afford it but I think what families are realising, especially if they have more than two children, is that it is very difficult to get one person to do everything that the family needs.