This family is begging for trouble

In the wake of some recent lip service about whether to mandate time off for maids comes a report about a Swiss family who give their maid not just one day off a month but every Sunday off. Not only that, they give her public holidays off. They also gave her a camera for Christmas and pay her fees for a photography class.

What’s the matter with these people? They’re spoiling the market for everyone else. Pretty soon other maids will want to have time off and be treated like human beings. Where will it all end?

Not to worry, these people will get what’s coming to them. It’s just a matter of time before she turns her employers’ home into a brothel, invites over boyfriends who steal from the home, gets pregnant, and maybe makes a few bucks from selling some pictures. God knows what else she might do. She’s been working here for fourteen years and so far she hasn't been caught doing anything illegal, but that’s probably just luck. Those naïve Swiss are going to learn the hard way that you just can’t trust a maid!

These maids are getting out of control!

Maids are in the news again. Maids in Singapore are a hardworking bunch. Many of them have to wake up at 5:00am and work nonstop until after midnight. The first thing they do in the morning is wash the car. They do this every day, even if the car has been unused since the previous day and is still sparkling.

We sometimes hear of a maid who isn’t given enough food. As cheap as food is here, some maids only get one or two slices of bread a day. Fortunately, they can sometimes get a bit of extra food from a neighbor’s maid.

Quite a few maids fall to their death each year while cleaning windows. The government has tried to teach employers how to safeguard their maids, but they still keep splattering on the pavement. I suspect many of them lean out too far because they are terrified at what might happen if they miss a spot. Many employers abuse their maids for the slightest reasons. And the abuse is not a simple slap or punch as you might expect. An informal SORRI survey of newspaper accounts over the last twelve years suggests that the most common forms of maid abuse are:

Beating her with a bamboo pole, broomstick, clothes hanger, or cooking spoon

Smashing her head into the wall

Scalding her with boiling water

Burning her with a hot clothes iron

For some reason, pinching her breasts is also a popular form of abuse.

Once in a while an employer (usually a woman) goes to jail for maid abuse, sometimes for several weeks, but these punishments are very light compared to those meted out for other offenses. I am sure many more instances of maid abuse never become public because the maid is paid to keep quiet, or she is too terrified or ignorant to take action. Some maids are sent home before they even earn enough to repay the loans they took to come here, thus going home in worse financial shape than the poverty that drove them to come here in the first place, simply because they were cursed with a lousy employer.

There has been talk of making it mandatory for employers to give their maids one day off every week. Predictably, most of the talk from the street opposes the idea. Some complain because they need their maids every day to take care of elderly parents, young children, or invalids. But many are more concerned that their maids will get into trouble by getting boyfriends, getting pregnant, or doing part time work. The thinking seems to be "I'm not paying her to have a life, I'm paying her to work."

To these people I'd like to say:

Your maid was a human being long before she became "your" maid. Her time off (if any) is hers. If she wants companionship on her day off that's her choice. If she gets pregnant she'll be on the next flight home, so it won't be your problem. If you're worried about the expense of sending her back and replacing her, that's the risk you agreed to when you took her. And Singaporeans tend to admire ambitious go getters of the non-maid variety, so why is it so bad if a maid wants to earn extra money? They didn't come here because they want to care for your family, they came to make money to support theirs.

In addition to giving maids tests to determine whether they are suitable to work here as maids, we should test would-be employers to determine whether they are worthy of having a maid.

Maid in the Shade

We’re getting ready for a new addition to our household. No, the missus isn’t expecting. But with Cherisse beginning primary school in January (which is half day, rather than full day like her pre-school) we will need someone at home to look after her. So we’re getting a domestic helper, commonly called a maid.

The maid agents in Singapore really know their stuff. They have data sheets on all the candidates. Most of the comments look suspiciously similar, often identical. They all love children, they all cook fried rice and their native dishes and are willing to learn Chinese and Western recipes, etc. There is even a photo, so the ma’am can decide whether to risk frightening her children or losing her husband. In fact, there is nearly everything you could ever want to know about the gal, and a good bit that you might not.

For example, the maid’s religion is noted. You can’t have some other God being worshipped in your home, could you? Some employers don’t want their maid praying five times a day—they’re paying her to work work work! And the maid’s skin tone is also indicated—either fair, tan, or dark. I have no idea why this should matter, but apparently plenty of Singaporeans are concerned about this or it wouldn’t be included on the form. If I were a maid I would resent this mightily. (You might sense that I resent this even though I am not a maid.)

But on the positive side, it’s better for your employer to be aware of your skin tone before you take out a four-figure loan to make the trip, so as to avoid being sent back for being the wrong color.