Touchy Subject

I am entering a big minefield but I am going to attempt it and hopefully not get my legs blown off.

Help or live in maids is a delicate area for discussion amongst expats out here.  It is hard not to come across as judgemental but of course, I am going to be judgemental.  Just as much as those folks with live in help are very dogmatic in their belief that as an expat I should have a maid.  I feel fairly justified in taking an equally firm stance to the opposite.

There are many reasons why we do not feel it appropriate for our family.  Mainly because our children are now in full time school, we do not have a massive home and like our privacy and as far as I am concerned the small windowless cupboard in the wet kitchen which currently stores all our luggage and domestic detritus is not a fit home for anything requiring oxygen.  Yet, we are most certainly in the minority in making this decision.

Don't get me wrong.  For those families with very young children, for parents who work, the elderly or infirm or the downright lazy,  I see the value in having somebody to take the domestic drudgery off your hands. I think I would have sung a different tune if I had a little baby as I would most definitely appreciate the cooking, cleaning, laundry and shopping done as it would mean I would have all my time free to spend with my children.  That said, based on my parenting skills, that might not be such a good thing.  However, in theory it is a wonderful prospect.

Based on this, two things I saw this weekend baffled me.

We had a superb meal in a great food hall on Saturday at a place called Vivo City.  It has one of the best Hokkien Prawn Noodles I have ever tasted and I shamelessly drank the remaining prawn, noodle, chilli sauce liquids from my plate like an ill-mannered oik because I could not bear to waste a bit.  But I digress.

Vivo City is primarily a big mall and has a nice little play area for children including water shooting fountains in which small people can cool off.

It was here that we saw another family with a little boy, probably not even a year old.  The child was playing in the water in the sunshine with the maid while the parents stood in the shade and watched laughing, smiling and clapping.  Once I saw the mother run in to give the childs hat to the maid and then run back into the shade to sit down.  It is possible that both mother and father are allergic to the sun or to water or to their child. In fact, I am sure I have seen a Channel 5 documentary entitled just that,  "I am allergic to my children".  In this case however, the parents looked perfectly healthy but did not spend one moment engaging with their child but instead looked on very happily from the side lines.

I certainly will not win any awards for outstanding parenting of the year but I do love my children in my own unique way and the weekends living here are blissful. The fine climate and family friendly places make it a wonderful place for really quality time with the children.  Our weekends in the UK were boring most of the time because it was always raining or cold or glum.  Most of my friends would suck it up and say, nope, we just went out and jumped in muddy puddles and had a great time.  Well, good luck to you.  Not my idea of fun.  I refer to my point about good versus bad parenting.   So being the bad parents we are, we would watch back to back movies and nod off drunk on the sofa instead of taking our children out in the rain for some healthy outdoor merriment.

Here, however, we relish our weekends.  The island is so small, going anywhere is no hassle and transport is cheap and quick.  We have not spent a single weekend in since we got here because there are so many nice things to do and to eat that even if all you do is jump a bus and grab some food somewhere, it is still a really lovely experience and great time spent as a family, mainly because I am not cooking and am therefore instantly in a good mood.

So why on a lovely weekend would you choose not to be with your child while they are having such fun in the sun and the water and instead just enjoy viewing them from the distance as your help does, what I can see, is the really fun part of parenting.

A second case in point was a couple who left their maid with their child in the buggy outside and went into a coffee shop for about half an hour and then came out again and walked off together.  Parents in front, with the maid pushing the buggy, behind them. 

This is a lifestyle that is totally foreign to me but to some degree I should not be surprised by some families out here behaving in this manner as it is perhaps exactly the same way they were raised and their parents were raised so is the only life they have ever known.  We have heard some stories of newborn babies sleeping with the maids so they can manage the night feeds.  For me this is rather unsettling and unfathomable to our perspective on family life.

That said, the fact that I managed to notice all these goings on shows I clearly was not spending any time engaging with my children, because I was too busy staring at everybody else.

Also, a young Indonesian girl pushing a buggy behind a family out here is probably no different to some bonnet wearing aristo walking behind the Queen carrying her bunch of flowers.  In fact the maid probably has a better deal as the aristo most likely doesn't get paid to carry her Majesty's gerberas.

I don't really know what to think of it all.  It is a choice that people have made and I do not begrudge them.  I also know some families adore their live in help and cherish them dearly.  My struggle with this is reconciling caring for somebody so much as a member of your family and yet still being comfortable with them walking behind you in shops carrying everything you have bought while you carry nothing.