Nope. They have their own table, gamit like oven toaster, rice cooker, dishwashing materials & utensils in the kitchen. They eat with the boy, the driver, the stay-out planchadora. The househelp and yayas don't need to wait for us to finish eating before they can eat. Sila-sila na nag-se-schedule when they will eat kasi, obviously, hindi sila pwede lahat sabay kumain (some still have work to do, some have to look after our kids while the yayas eat, some have to assist in tending to our needs when we eat - like in bringing condiments, serving drinks, heating the food na malamig nila na-serve, etc.). They also cook their food separately since madami sila and I know they will not eat our food even if pilitin ko. But they give me mga food nila when they cook something na alam nila gusto ko or ng husband ko (like suman, gulay, pancit, etc.).
I actually grew up in a household (sa probinsya ito) na the househelp eat in the same table as our family (pagkatapos lang namin kumain, not sabay pa rin). However, hindi sanay sa ganito ang husband ko coz in his family, all the household staff have their own eating area in the kitchen. Pansin ko lang, the helpers treat their amos more as employers when it's done this way, rather than as parang kamag-anak nila (nothing wrong with that, of course, because in an ideal world, they should treat "kamag-anaks" with love & respect but in the real world, "kamag-anak" usually means they take certain liberties na hindi na tama or appropriate - in short, umaabuso).
So far naman, everybody's happy with this arrangement and nobody from those I hired as househelp ever questioned why it's done this way.
