Archive for the 'Maid' Category

Recently, we were invited to a late night wedding dinner which we declined. The person who invited us wanted to know why we would not let our maid put the children to sleep while we attended the wedding dinner. She seemed surprised. I am surprised that she is surprised.

To me the duties of a maid is that of a domestic helper. They are not nannies and not trained to be nannies. Quite often I see pictures of smiling maids carrying baby sized dolls as part of their training. I think it takes more than that to be able to handle babies, toddlers and kids. The main duty of a maid should be helping around the house to ease housework burden. Sometimes it may be necessary due to circumstances where the maid has to help out in looking after kids too but I think sometimes people forget that the important word is “help out”.

Sadly, quite often I see the maid ‘taking over’ the duty of a parent in feeding toddlers, bathing babies, changing infants and sometimes even helping older children with homework etc. They have become almost like substitute parents. Sometimes I see maids walking around the mall wearing the baby of her employer in a sling. Isn’t it strange that this special place next to mummies bosom that should be exclusive to mums and dads only is being substituted by another? It does not seem right to me that even such a personal ‘task’ is ‘delegated’ out to maids.

Just yesterday, I saw a very young maid chasing two toddlers around. She was obviously unable to handle them and she does not have the authority to scold or discipline. The kids were uncontrollable.  Where was the mother? She was chatting nearby. She only called out to the kids once after a very long time despite them getting into a lot of mischief while the maid tried to pick them up and carry them away from trouble again and again.

Maids are for helping ease the burden from housework so that we will have more time with our children. They are not supposed to look after our children for us so that we will have more time for ourselves. So my friend, I am sorry I can’t attend your wedding. I know my kids are older now but I will not let someone else put them to bed. Neither will I leave them at home alone at night for several hours with just the maid while I am out enjoying a dinner with my spouse.

I don’t think I am being overly cautious either. With kids, it is always better to err on the cautious side. We brought them to this world and it is our duty to protect and look after them until they are able to look after themselves. Out of topic here, recently, sister’s Filipino maid ran away after 6 months. Sister is not as cautious as me. She allows the maid to go out on errands with just the driver at times. Recently, the maid, my very old disabled dad, his nurse and the driver were out. The maid took RM300 to buy necessities for dad from the pharmacy while they were out. They waited and waited for her at the car but she never came back….

My life is rather mundane but this excitement, I can do without. On a fine Sunday morning, my maid’s aunt who claimed to be her Godmother came to look for my maid.

I was out with the maid at the time. We were buying breakfast. She told my husband that she had come to borrow money from my maid. She said that she had every right to take money from the maid because she was her godmother. Otherwise, she threatened that she will beat her up and call the police.

My husband called me and I informed my maid who said that she did not wish to she her aunt. She says that if she sees her, she will keep on coming back again and again. She asked me to pretend that she was somewhere else and asked her aunt to leave.

We knew that it would not be so easily resolved as that. If the aunt did not get to see her she would probably come back again and again. She had been calling her several times before this.

So she went back to the house to meet her aunt. I told her that if her aunt gave her any problems, she should not worry, we will call the police. As a safety precaution, we called the police anyway. I don’t feel very safe having a stranger come to my house demanding for money and threatening to beat people up. She may come alone now, but who knows what she will do the next time.

The police came in 5 to 10 minutes. Very fast. Three of them came. They were very kind too even though we told them that the matter had already been resolved by then. I don’t know what the maid spoke to her aunt about but she said that she agreed to send some money home for her and she asked her to deal with their relatives back home instead of bothering her. Then she asked for RM10 to give to her aunt for transport money back to wherever she came from.

As far as I know her aunt was working up north then she said that her employer had sent her to work here. She calls up at different hours from different phone numbers and now she turns up at my house. I wonder if her employer knows what she is up to or even whether she is still legally employed. Sigh.

Sandiwara in my otherwise mundane life but as I said, I prefer life to be mundane.

I have a good helper at home. “But you are not working. Why do you need a maid?”  Well, initially we got a maid to help out because of health reasons but it has turned out very well indeed. Because of her, I have time to concentrate on my children fully. I do not have to rush and slave in front of the stove, ironing board, toilet bowl, floor whatever.

My life is a rush as it is, even with a maid. Without one, I would be harrassed, irrate, even more rushed. I’d probably bark and bite anyone who is trying to cross me while I am rushing to complete things. The children would have a more irritable mum, and the husband would have a short tempered, stressed up wife. Hmm… actually he does have a short tempered, stressed up wife but in a lesser degree.

“Oh you are so pampered. You are a housewife with only two kids and you have a maid. You don’t have to go to work and you have a maid.” Well, actually we could do without one now that my health has improved somewhat but life with one ( a good one, that is) is so much more calmer. When I am rushing around making sure the kids get their bath and do their work, I look at the hot food on the table and the fact that I don’t have to worry about the dishes afterwards and sigh with such relief!

I look at the nicely ironed school uniforms and clean school shoes and sigh with more relief! The maid does not help me at all with the kids and she is relieved about that. In her previous employment she had to take care of two young kids about the age of mine and because she was with them so much, she became surrogate mum and the kids cling to her wherever she goes. She did not have to do much housework then, her main job was to look after the kids but she tells me that doing housework is easier. I can attest to that.

We have not always been this “pampered”. When the kids were younger and before my health issue surfaced, I used to look after the baby, the toddler, the house, the cooking etc without any help. Not even during confinement during the early days when baby was born for both babies. We did not have a confinement lady or any female relative who could come round to help out occassionally. I do have female relatives of course, but everyone is caught up with their own lives and routines, no one can come round to help. So we did it all ourselves, with the help of books and the internet and catered food during the confinement period. We look back at ourselves and laugh now but it was tough then. Very very tough especially since I had trouble breastfeeding both babies. I don’t know why both the babies have latching problems so breastfeeding was unsuccessful for the first two whole months for both my babies. Gosh, that was tiring!

Since we had gone through the tough, did it all ourselves time, we do appreciate our maid now, more then ever.

There are four distinct groups of people waiting for kids outside the school at dismissal. They are the parents or grandparents, the van or bus drivers, the personal drivers and the maids. If I am early I would usually just sit and read and sometimes cock my ears a bit. You can learn quite a few things just by listening. You can learn about school regulations, homework, activities etc etc.

Yesterday there were the group of maids as usual. They were looking at their handphones. One of them had the above video playing. “Nobody” by the Wonder Girls from Korea. They were scrolling through the phone to listen to songs.They were chatting in Indonesian Malay about the songs and how to get the songs. All of a sudden, they broke into English. All of them could speak reasonable English. They then spoke English to one another. One of them said “You got blue tooth or not?” The other one said “Yes.” Then the other one said “Can lah. Got blue tooth can already.” They spoke alternatingly in Indonesian Malay and English. Interestingly, they spoke English like a typical Malaysian with all the “meh”, “mah”, “loh”.

They are certainlyl very up-to-date indeed. Even their phone is more canggih than mine. No joke.

In order to renew your work maid’s work permit, you will have to go through the following steps but not necessarily all of them. I have provided links to my posts about each step in more detail.

Note: I am referring to Indonesian maid only for my post.

1. Renew your maid’s passport. You will need to do this only if the passport expiry date is not enough to cover the work permit extension date. For example, my maid’s passport expires in May 2011. Her work permit is till July 2010. Extending the work permit till July 2011 will mean that her passport expiry date is not enough to cover the work permit period. As a result, I have to renew her passport. Take note that when you renew the passport, it is for a period of 3 years and the date begins from the date you renewed the passport, not the date of expiry eg. in our case, the 3 years does not begin from May 2011, it starts from April 2010 ie the date of renewal.

How I renewed my maid’s passport at the Indonesian Embassy.

2. Register your maid with FOMEMA for health screening. This is mandatory for the first 3 years. If you are renewing work permit for year 3 going forward to year 4 onwards, it is not compulsory but you can still do it if you want to.

Renewing maid’s work permit – Step 1: FOMEMA

3. Take your maid for a medical check-up at a clinic of your choice. You choose the clinic at the  point of registering with FOMEMA. 10 working days after you have done the medical check-up, you can check your maid’s medical results online or call FOMEMA.

Renewing maid’s work permit – Step 2: Health Screening

4. Renew your maid’s work permit at the Immigration Department.

Renewing maid’s work permit – Final Step: Immigration

That is all there is to it.