Domestic Helper Concerns (sorry for the long post!)

[elle]

But just some food for thought and give some perspective. The average owner of maids in Hong Kong probably have the maid go through more. they simply can't house or afford to employ two maids. We see maids strapping babies while they go out for grocery or wet market shopping. The average maid has to cook for their owners as well, let alone the stewing and slow-cooking/infusion of soup from morning till night. So, I truly do not believe we have in anyway mistreated her.

Just because other people overwork/ treat their maids worse than you do doesn't mean that you treating your maid marginally better makes you a great employer. It definitely sounds to me like your maid is overworked and certainly is not getting enough sleep. We moved our baby OUT of our bedroom at around 3 months into her own room because it was so disruptive to our sleep. We got more rest getting up and going into the other room. Weeks of sleeping in interrupted intervals is miserable, months even worse. Expecting an employee to care of a child around the clock, up at night with baby several times and then and working up all day is too much. 8 hours uninterrupted sleep is not the same as 8 hours of sleep punctuated by waking every couple hours to feed/ comfort a baby.

I have never asked my maid to care for the baby overnight and I work full time. I know that she wouldn't be rested enough to safely care for the little one while I am away if she isn't getting a proper night's rest, in her own private space.

Also, you do not OWN your maid. I hope that is just a language issue, but if you truely think you are her owner, that is awful.

 

[mummymoo]

No one is trying to stereotype you or your wife, but I think most of us who work and take care of infants and toddlers or are SAHMs have made an assessment based on your post that there just isn't the numbers of hours in the day to do all your helper does AND get 3 hours of sleep, so by default she MUST be tired (irrespective of what she protests) and the fact she makes careless mistakes and drinks loads of coffee seem to support this.

Forget what your helper tells you. She appears to be trying to keep her job and make you both happy which as I've said all along makes her a keeper, but she may be less than forthcoming to you about her struggles. The fact that she keeps sleeping at 8pm (she's probably crashing and can't stay awake) despite wanting to please you probably tells you more than what her words are doing.

Think about her day. She gets up at 6.30am with your son and likely stays up for the whole day from thence onwards if she's looking after your son ( then she can't go back to sleep as he's awake, if one or both of you don't get up to care for him). You can't say she is able to start at 9am unless one of you is up with your son then, as she is up with him. Even if you two do get up with him, it's likely you've woken her up by going into her room and taking your son out or he;s woken her up by belting it out when he wakes up hungry and ready to feed.

Secondly, in the morning she would have to clean his bottles, dress him, tidy up his bed, change his nappy, then get her own breakfast and tidy up after you and your wife's breakfast. Then she's expected to play with him I guess? Or are you happy for her to put him in a pen, on a bouncy chair whilst she gets on with the housework?

11-12pm rolls around pretty quickly and she'll start to try and settle him down, put him to bed, and then it will be time for her to make her own lunch (yes this does take some time too) then eat it, then wash up then go to sleep if indeed this is what she does. Unless your son sleeps 4+ hours in the middle of the day, then I don't see how she'll be getting 3 hours sleep.

3pm. She wakes up, depending on whether she's expected to play and interact with your son or put him somewhere where he can entertain himself, then she can get on and do the washing, ironing, tidying up the bathrooms ect.

7-7.30pm you and your wife get home. She has to have made and/or eaten her dinner by then, so probably would have started by around 6.30pm to do all this.

If you expect her to interact with your son whilst he's awake then the only time she has to do anything is when he is asleep - so she won't get any sleep during the day.

She's been up since 6.30am and is knackered if she's had no sleep during the day. So she crashes at 8pm OR LATER as she's had to clean up after you and your wife have dinner (you don't answer the query that 1/2 hour for you two to cook and eat and then the maid to clean up is too tight to be achievable). Then is woken up at 11 to feed your son, and back to bed at 12pm or so. Then up again at 3am- 3.30 or 4am?

Somewhere along the line she has to clean your car too! Hopefully not everyday!

Just because Gracey's maid works these hours ( and it wouldn't matter if 100 geobaby moms chime in and say their maids work these hours) it's still too long in my opinion. 6.30am start to 11.30pm finish with being woken up at 3am! Heck EVEN if you let her work 6.30 am to 8pm and didn't wake her up at 11 and 3am it STILL would be along day. The fact that another geobaby mom makes her maid work these long hours doesn't make it right.

In terms of needing sleep and keeping your jobs, well loads of parents including myself on this forum have done it. It is after all YOUR CHILD. My husband and I take turns doing the night shift, and guess what, when the parents do the graveyard shift, usually the child falls into line regarding sleeping through the night much more quickly, as the parents have a vested interest in training their little one efficiently.

 

[genkimom]

GTI,

I really hope you think carefully about what posters have written. You don't own human beings. You don't expect them to work superhuman hours and be perfect at their job, especially when they are new. Your attitudes have "horrible boss" written all over it, and I deeply want to believe this is mostly because you are new and this is your first time being a parent and your first time being an employer. Since you are all new at this, there is time to change, or at least reconsider, your expectations and attitudes.

It's terribly sad how some families treat their help; but just because you don't do the worst of the worst, it doesn't translate into being GOOD. If you want to be a GOOD employer, you need to consider the needs of your help more carefully. That will make her an even better employee, which will in turn makes your lives even easier.

 

[thanka2]

I agree that we need to spend more time with the baby for him to understand that we are his parents. It would hurt us to see him cry under our arms.

Anyways, on the issue of over working the maid. You have to take my word or else this will go to where. She was the one claiming time and again she's getting 3 hours of nap herself, thus not needing to sleep more. I can't accuse her for lying. I ask her if she's over-worked and lacking sleep and she tells me she's not and wants to wake up at 6:30am. Heck, when my wife was at home, she requested for more work!

Anyways, I guess you're all missing the point. It's not a matter of us as owners forcing work down her throat and lacking her work non-stop. The issue here is an adult who is requesting less sleep, more work than we thought is possible, and finally being able to do them, albeit sprinkled with critical mistakes that could cause our baby harm.

Its not too big of a deal cause she's been error-free for the past 3 days. She's stepped up her game!

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I still say, put the baby in your room. We co-slept with our baby as full-time working parents for 9 months after she was born. We were a bit tired, yeah, but if you want to be a parent you don't get a "free ride" actually--being tired and learning how to cope at work even though you are is really all part of it.

I think your helper doesn't want you to think any less of her so she's exaggerating trying to reassure you that she's "not tired" and "can take it". Even though my helper is honestly pretty amazing and rarely makes mistakes she would never admit to being tired or stressed or sick or overworked or anything even though I can see clearly from her face times when she is. She's the type that will just "shake it off" with a smile because she refuses to appear weak in any way. At any rate, you have to level with her and say:

Look, these are your duties (and be specific). We appreciate that you offer to do more but we have to demand that you focus on these specific duties--it's non-negotiable. You need to go to sleep at a decent hour at night and for that reason we're going to let you off at this time so you'll have down time. From this specific hour on, all child duties are on us. Please wash the dishes and clean up and then it's down time. We expect you'll be sleeping in until this specific time. If you wake up earlier, you are not allowed to work. Please stay in your room and rest. This is non-negotiable.

One thing that kind of stuck out from what you wrote is that your baby is going to bed at 11 pm. While, I understand the baby is a newborn and their sleep can be erratic. I just want to let you know that it's really not in the best interest of your little one to be keeping him/her up late like that--it actually can cause some health problems in children.

You'll get through this. The first two years are both critical and fleeting.

Just read below and feel it would be inappropriate to call someone an "owner of a maid"--that really harkens to slavery. I don't feel at all like I'm the "owner" of another person. No, my helper and I have a business agreement that has grown into a great partnership.

I don't know, but I don't compare myself as an employer against the 'very worst'--my goal is not to be able to say, "Well at least I didn't do this...." My goal is to be my personal best as an employer. Yes, there is a lot of mistreatment of help in Hong Kong--doesn't justify or really explain anything--probably not good to use this as an example.

Y'know what, our helper does sometimes wear our baby out to go shopping. But, y'know what? So do we! We pack her around (and she's 18-months-old) in a front carrier every chance we get. We're all a team in our family so we carry the weight just as much as she does. She does cook our meals as well and we do help her. I don't consider this mistreatment of anyone either. But, at the end of the day, we don't have her doing trivial things such as washing cars and we try to make her life as convenient as possible (ordering online and having most of what we eat delivered rather than sending her daily to the market etc.).

Finding a good helper who is eager to please is kind of a rare gift in HK. You should always treat your help extremely well--it's the best investment you can make.

I just come back to the fact that it takes time and understanding to work with and train an employee. As the saying goes:

"Two things to remember in life--don't sweat the small stuff and it's all small stuff."

She might not work out in the end but if you want to give yourself the gift of having a satisfied employee working for you, it's best to analyze yourself and see how you can go above and beyond the call of duty to make it work. Then, if it doesn't work out you can say you gave it your all.

 

[GTI]

Wait a minute... I'm not her owner? That's how she refers us to the agent! Haha, just kidding. Sorry. My bad. Was seriously a brain fog on my head at the time. People on forums have got to lighten up.

Ok, what I'm saying is that there are cultural differences among standards and that if this was posted elsewhere which I have, the response was very different. No one made an issue on work hours and focused more on treating the maid's forgetfulness by stating that she simply needs to be reinforced time and again for certain tasks to 'stick' and be remembered. It was great advice as I was reminded that she had to learn so much in a short time.

Not saying I endorse having their maids take their babies with them to the market plus cook for them, but I just won't openly criticize on differences ppl choose to make. Some ppl want fresh food daily. They leave work late plus live far. By the time they get home its 8, so going to the market would make it even later plus the time to cook. So unless they want to eat their dinners at 9pm, they are left with less of a choice than to have their maids do the tasks.

To beat a dead horse and for the last time, my maid was the one insisting to wake up early when we told her to wake up at 9. And when she wants a nap in the day, we have never stopped her. If she sticks to our schedule, she gets to wind down from 8:30-11pm. Then sleep from 11:30pm to 9:30am (I wrote 9 previously, my bad. But I truly meant 9:30 looking back at my schedule as I intended for an 11 hour work day). Baby will wake up at approx. 3am and 7am. We are asking her to wake up at 9:30am to take her shower plus cook/eat her breakfast from 9:30-10:30am to get ready for the baby's 11am feeding. I guess if we wanted to give her more sleep for the sake of 'she's not getting continuous sleep! Give her 11 hours!' argument, I could let her do her shower and meal AFTER 11am's feeding, but I seriously doubt she would accept it as we are having a hard time now persuading her to sleep through till 9:30am, let alone 11am.

So what I'm asking her to do is to shift her body clock by 3 hours so that she can sleep later at 11:30pm instead of now having to finish washing the dishes at 8:30 and sleeping from 8:30 to 11 for the baby's 11pm feeding, which is inefficient sleep (disrupted in 2.5 hours instead of 3.5 hours).

Anyways, we talked to her and she claims she prefers to wake up early and take a couple naps during the day. We allowed her to do so, so we're working to her sleep schedule.

...I have a feeling someone's going to come nit-pick on some detail again or strongly urge that their opinion and measuring stick is the absolute universal moral standard.

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[GTI]

GTI,

I really hope you think carefully about what posters have written. You don't own human beings. You don't expect them to work superhuman hours and be perfect at their job, especially when they are new. Your attitudes have "horrible boss" written all over it, and I deeply want to believe this is mostly because you are new and this is your first time being a parent and your first time being an employer. Since you are all new at this, there is time to change, or at least reconsider, your expectations and attitudes.

It's terribly sad how some families treat their help; but just because you don't do the worst of the worst, it doesn't translate into being GOOD. If you want to be a GOOD employer, you need to consider the needs of your help more carefully. That will make her an even better employee, which will in turn makes your lives even easier.

OMG, this is getting out of hand. The owner comment wad seriously a brain fog at the time. This really reminds me of the scene of Ben Stiller in the plane saying the word bomb and being dejected from the plane. People just have to relax.

I find it amusing how nothing gets across. Perhaps I need to use capital letters to scream it outloud? I suspect she is over worked. Asked her if I'm right. She tells me she's getting enough sleep and that she gets 3 hours of nap. I originally had her mop the floor twice a week, she tells me she wants to vacuum and mop the floor daily. Not that it's a huge deal, but letting you know that I'm aware and that she's resisting to let me help her.

Do I treat her real bad? I take her to the supermarket the first time and ask her what she wants so I can take note on her eating habits. Since then, I have bought food on her behalf. She was being super modest and said she can basically eat junk and eat like an ant. It was me and my wife who made her nod to eating fresh meat, veggies and fruits instead of canned goods cause we were concerned with her health. It's not too big of a deal, but I'm just letting you know we actually care and took the effort to persuad her to take better care of herself. If we did't we would've cheered secretly cause I could've saved some dollars plus be able to store 20 packs of ramen and China-made spam in the kitchen for her meals. Heck, she did't even want bread until I begged her to have it in case she's hungry in the midnight.

Again, I have a feeling you're stereo-typing a little too soon.

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[GTI]

No one is trying to stereotype you or your wife, but I think most of us who work and take care of infants and toddlers or are SAHMs have made an assessment based on your post that there just isn't the numbers of hours in the day to do all your helper does AND get 3 hours of sleep, so by default she MUST be tired (irrespective of what she protests) and the fact she makes careless mistakes and drinks loads of coffee seem to support this.

Forget what your helper tells you. She appears to be trying to keep her job and make you both happy which as I've said all along makes her a keeper, but she may be less than forthcoming to you about her struggles. The fact that she keeps sleeping at 8pm (she's probably crashing and can't stay awake) despite wanting to please you probably tells you more than what her words are doing.

Think about her day. She gets up at 6.30am with your son and likely stays up for the whole day from thence onwards if she's looking after your son ( then she can't go back to sleep as he's awake, if one or both of you don't get up to care for him). You can't say she is able to start at 9am unless one of you is up with your son then, as she is up with him. Even if you two do get up with him, it's likely you've woken her up by going into her room and taking your son out or he;s woken her up by belting it out when he wakes up hungry and ready to feed.

Secondly, in the morning she would have to clean his bottles, dress him, tidy up his bed, change his nappy, then get her own breakfast and tidy up after you and your wife's breakfast. Then she's expected to play with him I guess? Or are you happy for her to put him in a pen, on a bouncy chair whilst she gets on with the housework?

11-12pm rolls around pretty quickly and she'll start to try and settle him down, put him to bed, and then it will be time for her to make her own lunch (yes this does take some time too) then eat it, then wash up then go to sleep if indeed this is what she does. Unless your son sleeps 4+ hours in the middle of the day, then I don't see how she'll be getting 3 hours sleep.

3pm. She wakes up, depending on whether she's expected to play and interact with your son or put him somewhere where he can entertain himself, then she can get on and do the washing, ironing, tidying up the bathrooms ect.

7-7.30pm you and your wife get home. She has to have made and/or eaten her dinner by then, so probably would have started by around 6.30pm to do all this.

If you expect her to interact with your son whilst he's awake then the only time she has to do anything is when he is asleep - so she won't get any sleep during the day.

She's been up since 6.30am and is knackered if she's had no sleep during the day. So she crashes at 8pm OR LATER as she's had to clean up after you and your wife have dinner (you don't answer the query that 1/2 hour for you two to cook and eat and then the maid to clean up is too tight to be achievable). Then is woken up at 11 to feed your son, and back to bed at 12pm or so. Then up again at 3am- 3.30 or 4am?

Somewhere along the line she has to clean your car too! Hopefully not everyday!

Just because Gracey's maid works these hours ( and it wouldn't matter if 100 geobaby moms chime in and say their maids work these hours) it's still too long in my opinion. 6.30am start to 11.30pm finish with being woken up at 3am! Heck EVEN if you let her work 6.30 am to 8pm and didn't wake her up at 11 and 3am it STILL would be along day. The fact that another geobaby mom makes her maid work these long hours doesn't make it right.

In terms of needing sleep and keeping your jobs, well loads of parents including myself on this forum have done it. It is after all YOUR CHILD. My husband and I take turns doing the night shift, and guess what, when the parents do the graveyard shift, usually the child falls into line regarding sleeping through the night much more quickly, as the parents have a vested interest in training their little one efficiently.

I agree 100%. She wants to show her value during this 'probationary' period (I use quotations and don't really literally mean it in case someone here calls me abusive) by giving us 120% value.

I asked for her feedback. Needless to say, she says it's fine.

I agree that i might have to make her work less despite her opinion.

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