To wish she would be the same with us?

Yes you are being unreasonable. And no, you're not! She's only been working for you for seven months. She doesn't really know you that well. Or maybe she's grieving for the previous lady still and has decided not to get close to another family. Maybe she wants to keep everything professional. You can't have the same relationship with her as she had with someone else. But you can have a good relationship given time.

yes.

You call her your housekeeper but then refer to cleaners so I’m confused. I don’t have a cleaner but if I did I would hope to get on well with her though not to the extent of going out for meals with her. You sound rather jealous of her previous employer’s family. Don’t you have friends of your own?

Well she is both.
Of course we have friends of our own but as I said, we have always got on really well with previous housekeepers and they have become part of our family.

Perhaps not everyone wants that though. If she’s pleasant, trustworthy and reliable and does her job well surely that’s enough?

You are paying for her professional services. You are not entitled to her private life. It's called boundaries!

Maybe a friendship will develop, maybe not.
It's early days yet.

This is exactly why our butler got the heave ho!

Maybe she just wants to keep it on a professional level and doesn’t feel the need to socialise with you, it could be that she likes her privacy

Sack the ingrate!

The OP should try the problem pages on Countrylife or Horse and Hounds ….

one just can't get the staff these days...

Yes you are being unreasonable. This is a contract between employer and employee. What would happen if she wasn’t happy with the agreement ( pay rise for instance) not wanting to do certain jobs?
The friendship is over and potentially her job.
Leave things as they are.

The OP is either not in the UK or taking the p*ss!

I think if I was someone’s cleaner I would feel very uncomfortable if they kept inviting me to have dinner with them and clearly wanted to take the relationship beyond what I had signed up to. I get the impression that the previous employer and her family who the cleaner still sees are rather younger than OP.

You employed her as a housekeeper not as a friend or companion.

Did her job description include having to socialise with you.

Does she live with you? Is that why you have this expectation?

If you want her to socialise with you after her working hours, pay her overtime.

No disrespect but why would your cleaner / housekeeper want to socialize with you? It seems that she socializes with a family she no longer works for . That is completely different from going out with the people she works with. She works well , is paid well for what she does and you are happy to employ her. So IMO you should leave it at that. offering to take her out may sound patronizing!

To put things into context -
In a previous life I was privileged to have a real life live in housekeeper. She had her own apartment in our house & had been with the family for years.
Under no circumstances did we socialise with her but we loved her and she loved us. It was a professional relationship which worked well but there were boundaries.
I think you are expecting too much. She may quietly want to keep things strictly professional. You must allow her to do that or you risk losing her.

this is a wind-up surely.
maybe meant to hint at trying to recruit her for some 'extra services' ?

Surely some of you, at least, have heard of people having housekeepers??!
For the record, my neighbour was friendly with a lot of the people she kept house for.

MissAdventure I think we have all heard of people having housekeepers, I have friends with housekeepers, what we don’t understand is why you would expect to socialise with staff.

Yabu

She is hired to do her job.