When we first arrived in HK we had a lovely part time domestic helper. She had one child in the Philippines who was 5 years old. She basically saw her child once or twice a year. She cried in front of us on more than one occassion because she missed her little girl so much.
The flip side is that she was very proud that she could afford to send her daughter to a private school where she would learn English and have a chance for further education and thus have more choices open to her career wise. She was also very proud that when her daughter was sick she could afford to consult a doctor and pay for medication. When my son had to have a nebulizer she told me very proudly that her daughter also had used nebulizer!
When we hired our full time helper we gave our part timer a big bonus to send home to help her daughter. We have stayed in touch with her and have made it clear that if her daughter needs her we are there to help out financially. We even looked into whether we could hire this lady and bring the daughter to live with her in our house but this didn't work with immigration. Seeing a mother miss her child so much was absolutely heart breaking.
As time has passed I've become a bit immune to the plight of these poor ladies. Having a Philippino helper is so normal in HK that we do forget sometimes that these women are really doing it tough and many of them are raising someone else's children whilst missing their own children desperately. I feel very lucky that I was born in Australia rather than the Philippines....
Anyway, that's my emotional rant for the evening...