Maid

Talked to my old traveling friend yesterday. She is housebound now - taking care of her 2 kindergarten grandsons. Spent quite a long time on the phone talking about her woes having foreign housemaids her son employed. I remember traveling with her in Philippines some time back with 2 other senior ladies. We spent most time interviewing maids whom she wanted to bring back for her son and daughter-in-law. Both of them are working professionals. Finally she decided to have one lady who told her that she is poor and has to support 3 children as her husband is an odd-job worker. Evaluating her as very nice, responsible and sincere to work to help her family, my friend bought her air ticket, clothes and made her passport. She was a wonderful maid for about 2 weeks, later she turned to be nasty, refusing to do certain work, locking her room door and became argumentative. My poor friend, she was furious. Talking to her nicely had no effect. Obviously she came to Malaysia just for a holiday, not work. Frustrated, she sent the maid packing and began the search for a replacement.

Since then, she was shuttling from her house to her son's to drive the grandsons to school and back and feed them. Many different maids came and go, some lasted a day. Most complained the house is too big and need a lot of work. They dictated what they wanted to do and what they didn't want to do. The recent Indonesian maid is a classic example of rudeness and irresponsibility. She refused to cook for the children, no cooking, no sweeping the garden etc. Her work is only to look after the house and do some cleaning. So again, my friend has to drive 20 minutes to the house to feed her grand children, ferry them to school and back to her house for the same routine - picking the grand children back from school cook and feed them, wait for the son or daughter-in-law to come back, then only she can return to her house. She will not have her grand sons hungry and neglected. What a job!! Like me, She is not really keen to stay with her son, preferring her independence living alone.

I remember how much headache I had before with maids when my children were young, local ones at that time. My friend's daughter-in-law and son are lucky that she is available and still fit to drive around for her grand sons' sake. But she has to trade that with her freedom. Now she is hardly able to go anywhere and I don't think she is happy.

Listening to her, I am glad somehow that Ika, my daughter, quit her job to look after her daughter, Rania. Though I still feel that she should have a career so that she can be financially independent, the sacrifce is quite worth it. I wouldn't want my Rania to go through the different maids looking after her. It's impossible for me to travel from PD to PJ and staying almost permanently with her is not a good option. I hope Rania will realize some day how lucky she is. And I also hope Ika could have a career again soon, even working from home.

In spite of changing maids so often when they were young, thank God, my children turned out normal because we were lucky that some of my former maids were good and responsible. Of course, there were one or two who were like devils but I sacked them immediately. Furthermore I was teaching at that time and by afternoon I was home.

This is eastern grandmothering, I guess.