I am happy to receive many useful comments from my previous post about getting a maid. I love it that my blog is like my own personal forum. Thank you to all those who gave feedback, their ideas and opinions. They are things that only those who have experienced the process can think of. Hmm… managing a maid really is no simple task is it? You’ve got to have really good people skills as well as good communication skills in planning and laying out the tasks and making sure its done and lots of patience and tolerance too. Its not just a matter of hiring a maid and saying “Nah… you do the work.” Its a lot more than that.

One of the commentors, Adrian reminded me about the issue of how we want our kids to interact with the maid. I think one of the things that the kids must be taught from the start is to treat the maid with respect and not someone to be at their beck and call to do their tasks for them. Kids, are well kids and they have to be told and taught otherwise you will have the scenario of the maids scampering around the kids at their whim and fancy, feeding them, chasing them around, wearing their shoes etc which is something I do not want my kids to learn.

I remember when I was a kid, after my mum passed away, my aunt came to live with us for a year to help us out. After she left, we had a maid to help out. Her name was Ah Yoke. We the kids did not know better then. Imagine this scenario. There were 5 of us and we all had the kick of constantly calling upon Ah Yoke to make us iced coffee. “Ah Yoke, Kopi Ais!” we would call out. We thought it was real cool to have someone make iced coffee for us whenever we felt like it. Poor Ah Yoke. I wonder how she ever got any work done around the house with the 5 of us interrupting her for our Kopi Ais.

Fortunately Ah Yoke was only with us for a short period of time so we did not turn out to be spoilt brats. We all learned independance at an early age because mother was no longer around to pamper us. We learned how to cook at an early age. We would take the soggy catered soya sauce chicken and refry it. Hahaha. We ate catered food for years. How I hate peeking into the tiffin carrier only to see the same unappetising dishes for dinner. We also had a timetable for whose turn it is to throw out the trash, sweep the floor etc. Of course we fought over the timetable too. Lol!

Anyway, this post is not about my childhood but it is a reminder that just as I am going to set the rules for the new maid, I will also set the rules for the kids from the beggining so that they do not rely on the maid too much and they are to treat her with respect like any other member of the family.


Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...