Maid of Honor?

http://dubaisally.blogspot.com

The above is the story of a Filipino housemaid. I guess all working women should read this, just to know exactly what these maids think of them and how little their world and minds are.

Often, the media tries to portray stories of housemaids, in a much victimized manner. But all the same, people who use the service of a maid are well aware that these stories should be taken with a pinch of salt.

I will tell you the story of a maid who worked for me.

I am going to call her Jo, for ease of reference [not real name]. She was employed with me for 3 years and was from a country near to mine. That is BG info.

For 3 years, I never treated her as a maid. Of course, Jo had to do all what a maid is expected to do- cooking, cleaning, washing and taking care of the kids when I was away at office. I paid her more salary than was the norm, because I liked her work and behavior. She behaved in the manners of a well-bred woman and was modest. I had to teach her our style of cooking, as the tastes vary from home to home and place to place. All that was not an issue, as I knew that training was essential in any job to suit that particular environment. I allowed her to make mistakes and corrected her gently.

Emotionally too, I treated her like a member of the family rather than just a maid. I used to send money for her children when it was their birthday, gifted Jo with money on any of our special occasions, like my kids birthdays, festivities, and in general when anything good happened [like my kids winning a prize in school or a promotion]. Whenever we went on vacations, I bought her - favorite food items, dresses, anklets, bangles and accessories, just so that she would be happy and felt cared for, even though we weren’t stinking rich employers.

When she used to be depressed about her home affairs, money matters, parents illness, I used to console her and help her as much as I could. She never liked travelling, yet when she expressed desire to see DSS and Alain zoo, we took her. I allowed my 2 year old son and 1 year old daughter also to get close to her. They called her aunty and were really attached to her.

But after about 1.5 years, Jo’s attitude started changing. She started picking fights with me and would always carry a long face. After the fights, she would come back to me and apologize [sometimes even falling at my feet- which I used to forbid], stating she was having trouble with her husband back home-he was a drunkard - that made her sad and angry - she took it out on me. Ok, ‘Just Human!’ I surmised.

The worst part was when she used to shout at my son and daughter. They were small kids and didn’t know that, after all she was just a maid, and not to be sad if she took out her anger on them. In retrospect, I realize, with all her shouting sprees, she was emotionally abusing my children too and victimizing them. But by the end of 2 years, our household was so used to the way she did all the work and made things easy, that we decided to overlook her shouting and histrionic behavior that happened once in a while. It was easy for me and my husband as we were sane, grown up adults. Jo, on her part, always took good care of my children whenever she was not in that over-dramatic mood.

It was my mistake that I overlooked the worst part. It was my mistake when we overlooked the increasing frequency of her instability. I should have known that such bad behavior was affecting my children's emotional well being. Partly my husband also is to be blamed, as he also kept pacifying me saying, "Just look at her work. It’s so perfect. All humans couldn’t be perfect in all aspects. You have to compromise sometimes. Her only issue is her shouting and ensuing histrionics. Just ignore it!"

So I let it be. She was a deprived woman, with a loser for a husband, her ‘apple-of-the eyes ‘children miles away, old parents and financially week. She deserved a little kindness in life and if I could give that to her, then so be it.

For the amount of work Jo did, I was thankful to have her. Rest of the histrionics, I trained my mind to ignore. I was sure she wouldn’t get the attention, care and money that she got in our home anywhere else. SO!!!

But what I didn’t notice at that time was that I had so much of negativity around me. Each day, Jo created a scene or started a shouting spree; I was also going through a lot of negative emotional energy.

Despite all this, I trusted Jo. I never ever dreamt of another side to this woman, who did all the work and did it perfectly. She totally sucked up to me with all her sweet talks and charms. She called me ‘sister’ and was available at my beck and call.

On Nov 21st last year in the evening, I reprimanded her for making an overly spicy dish. She just packed her bags and walked out. She had staged walk out threats many times before, so I was sure she didn’t mean it. I usually convinced her to stay back. But that day, I didn’t feel like doing so.

And she left. I was shocked that Jo, on whom I had invested so much time, money and effort would show such a bout of disloyalty and leave me and the kids just like that.

She didn’t even say a bye to my daughter who adored her and kept crying all the time, saying, ‘aunty, please don’t go. I love you. I am coming with you.” I had a tough time trying to pacify and console my daughter who was just 1 when this lady came and is now 4 and perfectly incapable of understanding people’s disloyalty or unethical behavior or betrayal of trust.

A week later, the grocery delivery boy of the shop in front of our apartment came and rang the doorbell. He told my mom a story of Jo that was utterly surprising and unbelievable.

Jo used to be in regular contact with this guy for over a year. My daughter used to go to a nursery school some walking distance away last December and she met this guy during those walks. After my daughter started kindergarten in April last year, this guy was a regular visitor to our home in our absence [Both my children would be at school and my husband and I, at office]. I am still not sure if they were having an affair. Both of them together used to swindle grocery [all cooking items- oil, flours, vegetables and fruits]. They used to sell it to some ayah in my daughter’s nursery school. I grimly remembered the times she fought with me, when I asked her how 1.2 liters of cooking oil could be done within a week! If my calculation is right, she has stolen stuff worth 200 bucks every two weeks. She used this delivery boy to get telephone cards purchased for her and to send the amount back home.

Also, this guy told my mom that Jo had said she had a lot of gold with her and whether he would sell it for her. She made this guy believe that it was her gold and that she was from our native place [which she was not]. She also added that my mom had bought it back for her from the bank locker when she came visiting this time.

Thank fully I used to lock our master bedroom everyday when I went to work. Jo was planning to steal my jewellery and get away with it. Thank fully my showdown with her happened before that and we were saved of loss of lots of money.

The question arose as to why this guy was now coming and telling all this to us. Jo owed him money for some telephone cards that he bought her.

Later we also found some cash missing from my mom’s bag. Also the children had a money box in which they collected coins. That was also missing.

I should have seen the warning signals one year back when her attitude and behavior started being so strange and unstable. It had made me go bonkers. At times, I used to wonder, if she was worth all my emotional strain?

I kept convincing myself that she was not a woman of high education, so her discretion power and reasoning might not be that good. I should support and help her as much as I could.

My friend as well as mom says that she was faking all her innocence, ignorance and stories of not knowing the routes and roads. I still feel in my heart that it is all true. I didn’t know her very well.

As my friend says, we should not allow unstable people affect us. I sympathized with her truly. I felt bad for a woman, who worked so hard, and yet received so much stress and demands for money from her in laws back home. I felt bad for a woman who was ill-treated and not taken care of by her husband.

But my sympathy for her should have ended at the point, where she tried to manipulate and take advantage of my weak points, my son and daughter and the need for a house help. When she used that as a tool to get to my nerves, I should have doubted her so called good nature and good helping mind. I

Anyway, a maid should not be so much of an obsession on me. She created so much negativity in me that, I just cannot bear even thinking about it.

Anyway as a warning to all families, who need a housemaid, because of our inflexible and unforgiving work times, the stressful lifestyle and the absence of an extended family to fall back on, this is my story. Don’t forget that a maid’s job is to do cooking, cleaning, washing and occasionally taking care of kids. Don’t try to make them better people at the expense of your emotional well being. I tried that and failed miserably. Jo tricked me royally.

Another crucial factor in my case was that my kids were smaller and were not going to school when Jo came to work for me. I had to see to it that she was taught to take care of the kids and to trust her with my precious babies. That was how our employee- employer relation naturally evolved to her being a member of the family. I respected her work and trusted her to be loyal to the family.

Anyways……past is past.

I was a fool thinking I could upraise a maid and help her and coerce loyalty out of her. My grandfather always said that, ‘Most house helps, fishermen and toddy harvesters would never go up in life’. It’s inbuilt in them, the lack of knowledge, pettiness, disloyalty and horrible meanness. Maybe not all maids are as my grandpa describes them. Yet, all three housemaids I had in my home, has been more or less similarly insincere.

Prophet Muhammad had said in Quran, to take care of people who are dependent on you, people who are weaker than you. I tried doing that. I will continue doing so. One Jo will never stop me from helping people who are less fortunate than me.

Back to square one, and back to Sally, I just wish she was honest enough to her employers and not trick them too much! I don’t think she is being ill-treated by them or that they aren’t fair enough. It wouldn’t harm her to be a good maid with a conscience.

God bless!