All About Full-Time Maids

[winth]

[Moderator's note: Topics merged.]


Hi,

I'm seriously confused here.

My situation:
My boys are 5 years are 17 months when we first had a maid. She's filipino and is recommended by a fellow maid of my colleague. We used to have our house cleaned by part-time maid once weekly, while I do ad-hoc cleaning on our house. My boys are looked after by my mother all these while and we are doing PERFECTLY FINE, until her health deteriorated and she needs some help in looking after the boys who are obviously active and takes a toll on her. Daily she comes from Jurong to my house at Queenstown, so you can imagine it's kinda difficult for her.

We hired a maid to help my mum out, so that it would not be that stressful on her. This is the first time I have a maid and I'm totally depressed after she came.
The Pros
1) She's supposed to help my mum look after the kids so that my mum is able to rest more; my mum reported that she is able to sleep more in my house while she knows the maid is looking after the kids
2) She did the housechores daily, so my house is looked after more regularly
3) She helped us look after the baby and my Husband and I could have more time to ourselves

The Cons
1) I am totally inexperienced in handling maid issues. I need to spend evenings to talk to her, to tell her that we are family and she can tell me things too. She will be very good to me for the next couple days. The next few days, she'll be back to her old self again and she'll look at me like I'm bad at her (bec I didn't talk to her during evening time?). But I've got more important things to do!!! She seems to need more prep talk than my children!!!
2) My mother feels that she is not really helping too just that there is one extra paid of eyes to look after the kids (the maid is like a robot - we tell her she do, we forget to tell her, she won't do)
3) The house is like 10% cleaner than it was when we had a part-time maid, but we pay full-time maid rates for that additional 10%; and not to mention the utility bills came like 40% increase from our old bills
4) We might not be able to steal 'luxury' time away like that anymore without the domestic helper
5) Err... bec we are highly independent parents who don't need maid even when we go on family trips (to the beach), we haven't really seen any 'usefulness' of her to us...

We are planning on this solution
Send maid away; put my now 18 month old to childcare (maybe halfday or fullday?); mother takes care of 5 year old

What do you think of this plan?
Or maybe someone who has a maid can enlighten me how you make use of the maid? What were your concerns?

[lifestylelink]

ChiefKiasu:

Have you all seen this http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/content/maid-abusing-2-month-old-baby? I think the abuse is just about the worst I've seen. (Update - sorry... the videos were removed from youtube already.)


Here're my experience with maids:
Indonesian - Most compliant, hardworking, but lacks initiative and poor hygiene.

Myanmar - Very hardworking and willing to learn, but poor communications and lacks experience

Philippines - Reasonably hardworking, good comms skills, high initiative but with a mind of their own.

I have a myanmar maid, I like to add comment tha they have poor manners. Not sure if it relates to their poor communication.

My existing maid is leaving soon and likely to get another one from Myanmar. One potential candidate available and she can speak Chinese.

[ChiefKiasu]

Actually, I think you already know what to do. Follow your heart. You were doing fine without the maid and you feel having a maid crimps your style more than free you from the chores so that you have more time to yourself. So why keep the maid?


Spend the money by placing your toddler in a good full-day childcare where there are other kids to interact with and professional teachers to teach them.

[mintcc]

I also have a maid who is sort of under utilised.


I sent my 3 year old to childcare so basically she is free to clean the house and wash our cloths in the day. But she cook for us and help feed and bath my boy and do the dishes lah. The extra pair of hands does help since my boi is very active.

I have a time table for my maids from the beggining e.g. Daily task, Weekly tasks, her duties when we go out etc. I give her the time table in hard copy.

So I will expect the daily and weekly tasks to be done instead of me having to ask her everytime. Some times, she slag on the weekly tasks and after a few reminders, she get a pep talk. Utility bills wise, I find it useful to show the maid the bills and educate her on how to reduce usage.

Perhaps you can make some tasks like preparing breakfast, lunch, dinner, feeding milk to the baby her regular duties?

[winth]

[quote]Actually, I think you already know what to do. Follow your heart. You were doing fine without the maid and you feel having a maid crimps your style more than free you from the chores so that you have more time to yourself. So why keep the maid?[/quote]
Hi Chief, thanks... it does to a very big extent actually. It seems like we no longer have freedom. It's suffocating and sometimes I still get a shock to see a stranger in the house. You know, like someone stalking you...
[quote]Perhaps you can make some tasks like preparing breakfast, lunch, dinner, feeding milk to the baby her regular duties?[/quote]Hi mincy, actually right from day 1, I have given her timetable and all the things to do too, just that she doesn't follow. We (My mum and I) still can't make out, whether it's really that she doesn't understand (our language? instructions?) or she's trying to do buy her way out so that she has lesser things to do :?

Is your boy on a full day or half day childcare program? I gather from your posts (from other threads) that (my guess is) you seem to be staying at Queenstown area or somewhere near this area, is there a childcare that you find is good for toddlers?

If you know Milk n Honey near Queenstown (which is like a stone's throw away from my place), that will be my last choice of childcare, dunno why but I've gone there 2x to look at it. Don't like what I see.

[mintcc]

[quote] I have given her timetable and all the things to do too, just that she doesn't follow. We (My mum and I) still can't make out, whether it's really that she doesn't understand (our language? instructions?) or she's trying to do buy her way out so that she has lesser things to do [/quote]
Hianz, yeah, they are like that....Try bringing her back to her agent and let the agent explain to her in her language to make sure she understands. then she no excuse liao.

Yup I stay near Tiong bahru. my boy is in full day CC at Sparkletots Alexandra at the community center at stirling road. They not bad for toddler when my son go in but not too sure about the new teachers for the toddler class now, may be go there and have a look?. They are pretty organised though.

I visited Milk and Honey when I am looking for my boi's cc . Don't like it either. How is the situation there like now?There's a thread for cc around the area is you need to look for CC
http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/forum/viewtopic.php?t=107&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

I think from the thread moral also not bad, but I heard from one of the mums in my current cc that most of the teachers are older and speaks mostly Chinese.

[winth]

Hi mincy,


Thanks! Didn't know there is sparkletots at queenstown cc... I'm not too ambitious with childcare centres, so PCF is definitely a good choice for me.

Called up moral childcare and they have no transport at all... Thot there was no hope liao...

Actually met my husband up for lunch just now and he feels that I've been very moody too. So we've come to a conclusion. Select the childcare, settle the logistics part and send the maid home... yippee!!! :lol:

[ChiefKiasu]

lifestylelink:

...I have a myanmar maid, I like to add comment tha they have poor manners. Not sure if it relates to their poor communication.


My existing maid is leaving soon and likely to get another one from Myanmar. One potential candidate available and she can speak Chinese.

We've had a myanmar maid before too, I thought she was ok in terms of manners. Our greatest problem was communication - she could hardly understand our English despite being a \"university graduate\". We have to let her go although she was really hardworking. Guess you are lucky to find one that can communicate in Chinese.

[tamarind]

matrix0405:

This is a very good post. 3 mth baby also can slap; obviously something wrong in her mind. Glad to see you caught and got rid of her before more trouble. Can you let us know what is the model of the camera you used to catch that footage?

I am not the employer of the maid. My blog contains a list of maids and their employer's comments. Any employer can email me their stories at [email protected].

You can post a comment at the page to ask about the model.

http://singaporemaidcomments.blogspot.com/

[lifestylelink]

ChiefKiasu:

lifestylelink:

...I have a myanmar maid, I like to add comment tha they have poor manners. Not sure if it relates to their poor communication.


My existing maid is leaving soon and likely to get another one from Myanmar. One potential candidate available and she can speak Chinese.

We've had a myanmar maid before too, I thought she was ok in terms of manners. Our greatest problem was communication - she could hardly understand our English despite being a \"university graduate\". We have to let her go although she was really hardworking. Guess you are lucky to find one that can communicate in Chinese.

I think you are right. Because their English is poor, thats why their communication skill is poor. But I don't blame them because although they learn English in school, there is little exposure and no chance to practice. They hated the americans.

Anyway, I've interviewed my new maid yesterday, her Chinese quite good, think she just lacked confidence, very nervous when I asked her to speak in English. But she did well, when answering question. And best of all, she told me she likes children.