I really cannot stand the wishy-washy and horrendous English that my maid speaks. Her English already sounds terrible with her mother tongue interferance, coupled with her broken command and wrong usages, her sentences really make my hair stands at times. Though I've told her countless times (almost everyday) that she is to speak in Malay with the kids, she is still speaking in her terrible yet hilarious command of English. Here are some examples :
1) When Baby C cries, she will try her best to pacify her while she says this "Please wet wet ar..... mummy a coming, wet wet ar......." (she meant wait wait).
2) Don't climb up Kay Yi, nanti you the drop down.....
3) Faster go shower, you number one, faster a go take shower....
4) You no go out, you naughty.... (she normally says this to Sherilyn when she's naughty. She meant to threaten Sherilyn that she can't go for outings next time)
5) Faster you eat! (she loves to tell this to Alycia and Sherilyn during meal times)
6) Why you no drink you water? (she also cannot pronounce the word 'your' and often says 'you' instead)
7) Alycia : Kakak, where is mah mah?
Kakak : Mah Mah go....
Alycia : Where is mah mah Kakak?
Kakak : Mah Mah go, Mah Mah go...... (she meant to say that mah mah has gone out. Both Alycia and my maid normally get frustrated because Alycia does not understand kakak and kakak can't tell Alycia exactly where her mah mah has gone to.)
And I will be like a teacher correcting her broken English all the time. I just don't understand why she does not want to speak to the kids in Malay. Perhaps I should tell her that I will fine her 10 sen for each word of English that she speaks to the kids. If I don't do this, the kids will be picking up horrendous English too.
Health Freak Mommy ~ The Joys And Throes Of Motherhood
18 comments:
I think your maid is trying her best to learn how to interact with all of you :) trying to fit in since all of you speak English at home :D I'm sure she'll improve very soon.
same with my maid here..i ask her better talk in malay, so that my son also can learn other languages too.
i am usually rude to the maid if she insist on learning English from the kids. I would tell her,"halo !! bahasa english kamu semua miring. mau belajar english balik indon belajar sana, jangan anak saya cakap yang betul, kamu ajar cakap yang miring, rosaki bahasa english anak saya. sudah bilang, enggak boleh, enggak boleh lah. Tak faham kah, engak boleh?"
if she do it again, i just humiliate her again. Its nasty of me but this is the only way i could stop them from further damage. Thats why we have cctv at home,cos most maids just dont take no for an answer and if you dont interfere, things get from bad to worse. and in stopping them, you are at risk of them hurting your kids too
hahahhahaha, it just sound like my maid. My maid no choice have to speak english, but lately she did pick up some cantonese and mandarin and malay. Her english still bad, i still always don understand what she is talking, sometime i find that my boys can speak better than her. That's why i told her, don't teach my sons english if she herself also dont know how to pronounce. :(
Forgive me Shireen but I have a huge problem with this post and please allow me to explain.
Those maids are simply trying to communicate with your kids the best way they know how (the quickest way is a straight line - remember that these aren't uni grads, which is perhaps one reason why they get treated as the uneducated muck one finds under a shoe).
It's hard enough getting things across to a couple of adults who don't even hide their disdain for these poor third world idiots (which is their only crime, isn't it, to be poor and born in a country with a government that has forced half the nation into voluntary indentured servitude). What more with kids?
I know it may be seem too benevolent all of a sudden to bestow upon a mere servant the delicate instruction of the language arts and make like Prof Higgins, but surely there is the invaluable benefit to your children of kindness and respect. That poor people from poor countries with far fewer opportunities than to get married and pregnant at 15 and be shipped off to a faraway place to slave for people who treat them worse than their pets, also deserve some measure of respect. Respect for having summoned the courage and spirit to go to a place where they can hardly speak the language or stomach the food without having to endure day after day of verbal and sometimes even physical abuse by people who know nothing about them and won't even bother to find out.
That lesson is far more precious than making sure they speak proper English.
Our government treats their servants like this too, don't you recall Shireen? That whole, "I've already done you the favour of hiring you and therefore, owe you no more than you deserve". Would you have been okay if the government told your mom and my parents that she has to start speaking only Bahasa Baku or lose her job? They would've probably came back home, face all black for a couple of days, only to slink back to work the following week and speak Bahasa Baku even though they think it may be a load of croc.
You don't have to believe in karma or even God (but I know you do of course) or out of fear for your own safety because your maid might poison your tea (which you have had experience with, dear friend). Just do it for your kids. Ask anyone who's ever grown up in a home full of disrespect, harsh words and abuse (even if it's to the help) - it's not a pretty result.
As unwilling as you are to teach them English (they're paid RM400 a month for crying out loud) for reasons of not accidentally being too nice, they're probably feeling the same way about your demanding them to "teach" your kids Malay.
I say strike a deal - speak Malay to my kids and in return, you and I will speak English.
Just my two sen, no hard feelings.
Miss Allthingspurple, SHAME ON YOU!!!
They are human too! Treat them like one and not humilate them. Don't think you have stinking money then you can humilate people who work for you!
I taught my maid to speak English when she first arrived 5 yrs ago. This is mainly bcause I wanted her to cook for me by following recepies. She can now follow the steps without any problem. She can now understand quite a number of words & make simple sentences. I've told her that I'm proud of her that she now can speak & understand English a bit.
I agree with Jenn, we shd respect them. I always say thank you & pls & so do my boys when kakak does something for them. We all do the housework together & dont expect her to be at our beck & call always. Once a month, she goes to stay for a day at her relatives (she takes 2 buses to Puchong on a Sat afternoon & returns Sun evening). We r grateful for
I wasn’t bothered enough to reply at first but a fellow blogger who knew about my abusive and dishonest maids think I should do so and perhaps she is right. Maybe some of them out there are not aware of certain things that are foregone conclusion over here.
To this no name anonymous who dare not leave a calling card, I am not the matyr that you are. My series of maids in the span of 10 years can count themselves lucky I did not prosecute them for the various things they did or tried to do carelessly , intentionally or otherwise, to my kids (starvation, dehydration, abuse, dislocated arms, bruised eyes, intentionally or from pure carelessness), my cars (forgot that she is not to touch the remote while my cars are easing out, etc etc), my house (blew the kitchen up because forgot to turn off gas despite repeated reminders) due to lack of irresponsibilities and laziness to follow simple household instructions, and for landing one of my kids twice in hospital for the various irresponsible, lazy, dishonest, conniving attitude that they have.
And all these because some of them took thrill in taking advantage of our initial trust in them, and returning our kindness and courtesy with such horrific and heartless acts, taking us for fools.
And mind you, they are only required to pay full attention to the kids. Houseworks are instructed to be neglected ( instructions of which they accept happily) till weekends.
Most certainly I do not have the time to correct my 2 year old into leaning towards saying “boli” from her initial correctly spoken “ball”, “kaarad” from “carrot” just because my maid who spend 8 hours just mopping 4 small rooms and nothing else get done in her attempt to work as slowly as possible, express a desire to learn English from my toddler.
You may be a matyr but I do not find it in my heart to forgive those particular one for the things they did to my kids. And since I am doing all the work that I paid her to do because she claim “tak bisa” and because she is not clean, I have even less time to correct my toddler’s tweaked speech to its original correct form.
And most certainly we do not have the finance capacity to change 5 maids in a year just because they all turn out to be irresponsible, unreliable, conniving, lying and lazy because the maid agency do not replace maids for being dishonest and lazy. Only if they are pregnant or have aids etc.
Sure we can do without, as I have been doing without maids since April 2007, but the agency is not about to refund my money and I am not rich like some people to be able to let the agency fee of RM7,500 times 5 maids = RM37,500 , go just like that.
I would let the maid off to you transferring employment forms over to you so that you could continue your matyrhood, but she took off after we found out she tried to strike a deal with the Indon male contractors at the new constructions across the road to sell my baby for a mere pittance. And that was like 2 weeks after she tried to smuggle my kid out from my side while shopping at the Mother and Baby exhibition.
All I can say is, you have been very lucky your gentle reminders work with your maids. I must say majority of us in Malaysia have not have the good fortune of affording gentle reminders instead of harsh reminders, despite treating them like one of the family.
My 2 cents worth. Too bad if offence is taken.
My apology for turning this comment box into a debate, HFM.
To begin my long comment here, I wish to say upfront that I really do sympathise with all-things-purple’s unfortunate experiences with maids. If I had that many bad experiences, I too would choose NEVER to have a maid in my house again.
However, while I don't intend to 'debate' this matter in a negative manner, I do feel it's an interesting topic to talk about since it involves someone who lives in our homes, is (whatever the quality of our relationship with them and however we treat them) a member of the household and most importantly has plenty of interaction with our children.
Apart from that, of course, it’s an equally interesting topic cos it concerns human relationships and values.
On that note, Shireen, I hope you will allow me to express my personal view referring to opinions on maids attempting to speak English with our kids.
1) First of all, as someone who has just completed my Masters abroad, where there are plenty of students from non-english speaking nations, I say KUDOS! to anyone trying to learn a new language, especially as an adult. It is a REAL challenge. The embarassment of using the wrong word or tone, well, it takes guts to try anyway. Therefore, anybody, esp a lowly (as perceived by some) housemaid, attempting this challenge, has my utmost respect. I personally am daunted by the challenges of picking up a new language. Too thin-skinned, and no necessity, I suppose. I count myself lucky there.
2) If I were in say, China, I reckon I would NEED to learn mandarin, cos I want to COMMUNICATE to be understood as well as to understand others. If I work with them, I know for sure that speaking their language will help me relate better to them. The fact is, any overseas posting would see extra language ability as an asset. The willingness to learn itself is itself a valued COMPETENCY. Therefore, I see the maid’s interest and attempts (despite strong discouragement, even prohibition!) as ADMIRABLE. On that count, I certainly hope that one day my kids will show such perseverance and determination in their life endeavours. Really, I would be SO DAMN PROUD of them.
3) I always believe, whatever our backgrounds, religion, class, etc. the ageless wisdom of “Do unto others…” Regardless of whatever past experiences, there is NEVER any justification for being rude, or humiliating anyone. What more, when the other party merely wants to communicate and relate to us. I’m sure all sensible and reasonable parents will not only teach their kids the DESIRED VALUES, they will be LIVING EXAMPLES because children imitate us from very young!
If by our actions and words we say being polite is GOOD, the kids will internalise this belief that on the other hand, being rude is definitely BAD. If we say talking calmly and softly is GOOD and encourage and reward such behaviour, we of course will not want to knowingly confuse them by doing the opposite i.e. shouting angrily, which is BAD. Therefore, commonsense says, if we treat someone with disdain, contempt, our kids will do exactly the same.
At a tender and impressionable age, they will do BLINDLY. At pre-school and even primary school age, they simply aren’t matured enough yet to be able to reason about circumstances or past experiences that we may use to justify our decisions.
Having said all that, let me qualify my opinion by adding that I do respect everyone has a right (and reason) for their own decisions in how they want to ‘handle’ their maids while raising their kids. The thing is, both matters are unavoidably linked as our maids LIVE with us! The kids witness and experience our interactions with the maid! The maid is their carer, we ask our children to call them ‘KAKAK’. We INSTRUCT the children to address their elder with a respectful ‘kakak’ and yet, by our actions, we SHOW that the maid is not worthy of RESPECTFUL TREATMENT. This inconsistency can be so very confusing for the poor children.
Nevertheless, wWhatever people’s reasons to treat their maids the way they do, I do believe ALL PARENTS WANT THE SAME THING – to raise decent, compassionate and kind kids. If we agree on this, we need to ensure that we do not jeopardise our own good intentions, by saying one thing and acting another way. We need to be consistent. For the sake of our children, we need to think before we act.
Again, I wish to say I sympathise with all-things-purple’s unfortunate experiences with maids. I am sure that she is just like all of us, trying our damn best to raise polite, kind, respectful and decent children who will hopefully one day contribute to a caring society.
Nobody said that being a parent is easy, right?
p/s i was wondering whether to publish this comment here or in Jenn's blog. I guess here is more appropriate since this blog is where the original post appeared.
Wow..this has spawned many comments! I quite agree with Jenn and Anon. I do feel bad for allthingspurple and am wondering if the said maid was guilty of all that, why wasn't she reported or charged? Surely there must be a mechanism for that. I so agree kids these days have to be taught respect for ALL living things, a value if they don't learn now, will never, and not only that,will run into many problems in school/work, even leisure. It's such a common problem these days with young kids/youth where they feel they are "entitled". Alas, we all have to work for what we want and that's the way it should be.
With regards to language, fear not, for kids will soon figure out which is the proper syntax/grammar etc. The most important thing is that we expose them to proper use, encourage them to read etc. My kids grew up with grandparents whose first language wasn't English and they did quite well, thank you! I think it's important to let your kids know that "Kakak" is trying hard to learn English, so we all have to help her and try to understand what she's saying.
On the subject of maids, I worked full-time after 2 kids, no maid, dropped them off at a daycare, wave bye and that was it! I have to confess I had a cleaning service do the house every 2 weeks, and we did eat out Fri nites. I found it more challenging as the kids got to school age as there were more activities, more homework, more playdates, more of everything! That's when I went part-time and no regrets! I would also like to say kudos to SAHMs as it's probably more challenging. I used to say that I went to work to get a break...and I wasn't joking!!
Nobody here is a martyr, allthingspurple, since nobody here has died from defending the rights of maids everywhere (not that I know of).
Nor do I mean you should do nothing if crimes are being committed in your household (your maid horror stories trump Shireen's, hands-down). Clearly these maids should not be within five centimetres of any children, much less be left alone with them all day.
However.
There are dignified and respectful (not just to your maid but to you as a mother and employer) avenues through which you can seek redress. You're a lawyer. You should know.
The point I'd wanted to make is that the danger of your children learning bad English is not as dire as your children learning from you that it's ok to mistreat the help, or anyone they perceive to be "unlike" them i.e. of a "lower" social class. Actions speak louder, and all that jazz, and children DO watch and they DO listen and man, do they ever learn. Some of these prejudices, which often go unnoticed until too late, are harder to undo than a few mispronounced English words.
Perhaps the other question you need to ask is after ten years of criminals for nannies (you said they weren't hired for housework, only nannying, although you did make them mop four rooms), is that perhaps you SHOULD either:
1) Hire a proper, qualified nanny or send your kids to a daycare, and leave your maid to do ONLY housework; or
2) Stay home to take care of your children AND leave your maid to do ONLY housework.
These are valid, reasonable choices, and less stressful in the long run, from a good-English-only and kidnapper-free childcare aspect.
Save for lodging a police report, I wouldn’t bother to sue an entity whose passport don’t even hold her full name or real name and of whom have ran away upon you discovering her ploy to kidnap your kid, whereabout unknown in Malaysia or Indonesia. That was our last maid. For our 4th maid who repeatedly didn’t close the safety gate resulting in my toddler falling down the stair, landing my kid in hosp twice (dislocated shoulder), we were angry enough to want to sue her, but let it go when she cry and plead that her family need her and her mom call up and cry etc etc. and we send her away. The maid who abuse and starve my kid while I was at work. My first maid. We were naïve enough to let it go when she plead forgiveness. We were only so grateful that we read the signs on time that suing her didn’t cross my mind. We were only eager to send her away. I don’t know if most Malaysian would let it go, unless it results in something so dire like crippling our kids physically for life.
For the purported mistreatment of the said maid by forbidding her to speak English to my toddler, I may say the same to said maid again, for she is the same person who clip a cloth peg on my baby’s finger time and again so that the baby would howl and cry for me, then cling to me for hours, and this happen whenever maid wants to do something else apart from watching my kid ie while I have my lunch in the kitchen, like when she spots neighbouring maids coming out from their house, and she wants to chat to them either over the fence or over the kitchen basin, and because by then, I would be upstairs holding my howling kid who couldn’t tell me why she is crying. Since my time is all but taken up doing everything under the sun which a maid is suppose to help but of which this maid did not do for various reason (slow in completing other task like mopping, forgot, tak bisa) teaching her English is way at the bottom of my list.
We were puzzled over those marks on Ashley’s fingers and over the cloth pegs ever present about the maid, and only knew upon installation of the cctv. And she is also the same person who wash her hands in my baby’s tub, to wash off the poo stain obtained from holding baby’s diapers, while baby is still sitting in the bath tub. This is despite my instruction to just shout at me if baby stood up, and not to touch baby with her hands cos her hands are stained with poo from the diaper, while I go fetch a towel. And all these happened way before the days of harsh reminders. Of course, when we resort to harsh reminder, and she does unspeakable things, I do know that it is the cause and effect of things.
Having said that, I do not forbid ALL my maid from conversing with Kimberly in English, since some of them were reasonably reliable enough to at least do housework giving me the free time to mind my kids. For that, I can afford the effort and time to correct my kid, although for some reason, the issue of correcting my kids or the time spend in correcting their command of language did not arise or didn’t cross my mind; until the term of employment of the cloth peg sadist maid when Ashley was born and Atin, my maid of 3 years, left for her sister’s funeral and to take care of her mom.
When this cloth peg user first arrived, I told her not to speak to the kids but only to me (a tip I got from my SIL when I complained to SIL) only to be met with silence and a smirk and a comtemptuous look from the maid that could have said, "i do what I like, you cant stop me" and the situation persist. Since my time is all but taken up doing everything under the sun which she is suppose to help but didn’t (save for mopping, washing dishes and some folding of clothes, with a lot of reminders and supervision on the clean way of doing them), teaching her English is the least in my priority of list. I am sure some people who have observed the said maid before, like a blogging CD online store owner friend of mine, would concur with me, of this maid’s attitude in life.
However, of the risk of our kids reading the wrong signs from our action, I must admit that you are right. I was not aware of that.
Having said all that, I must clarify that, with my first maid, I was naïve enough to trust her with my baby. After having such horrific experience of my first maid starving my kid and abusing my kid (pinching her to stop her crying or to make her cry herself to sleep, throwing her on the bed when she wouldn’t stop crying), we nowadays, depending on the demeanor of the maid, either give maid a chance to mind the kids, to see if they are reliable, always in our presence, or if proven unreliable, then they are only asked to do housework and we do minding of the kids ourselves until the kids are old enough to send to school.
Having said that, we have decided since April 2007 to do without any maids and we cook our food in batches to be frozen every weekend, and have cleaners in every weekend, until 2 weeks back, but that is a decision which I will come to later.
Was also wondering if I should generate further, but might as well.
to clarify the above –which I didn’t earlier in my haste to post because Ashley frets in bed and needed me to tend to her, when the “cloth peg” maid arrive, even though I told her to speak English to me only and not the kids, that being the first time I offers as such to any maid following the tip from SIL, I must also admit I myself has never followed through with it. Although I am sure it was not because of this that she rewarded me with pegs on my kid’s fingers and poo in baby’s tub among others, since my sarcasm, whether justifiable or not, was an after event.
But anyhow, what I wanted to say is, after taking a moment to reflect, I found that with my recent spat of bad experience over maids, I had tend to blanket all recently recruited maids alike, and I am wondering if perhaps not majority of maids are so horrifying after all, and that I shouldn’t have advise HFM as earlier, with my main reason being the impact on the kids.
Well!
I must say the last 2 comments before mine is a timely reminder NOT TO MAKE ASSUMPTIONS and pass hasty/nasty judgment on people ala "A Nation of Tyrants" which, firstly, unfairly condemns ALL Malaysians on nothing more than hasty, holier-than-thou presumption, and secondly goes on to berate/shame the allegedly 'tyrannical' employer albeit in a qualified "theimperfect mom" style!!
NB: a timid reminder of what ASSUME stands for:
(Make an) ASS(of) U(pseudo-American mom) and ME (reader)?
-theimperfect Malaysian commenter who also wants to raise kind and compassionte kids fro a better Malaysia-
HFM: please allow this comment to be published with due fairness to allthingspurple and the rest of us imperfect Malaysians.
I must apologise to The I'mPerfect Mom for my last comment. Clearly I must've had my head too far up my arse (being too chicken to post my real name and everything) to have read her post properly before commenting (seeing also how I am totally presuming that all Malaysians who are residing overseas know NOTHING about how we middle-class housewives have to suffer, having to endure having maids to help us with housework we're far too high-class to do!)
Again, HFM, please allow this comment to be published with due fairness to Jenn and the rest of us anonymous commenters.
Gosh, I've never read a more biting comment than yours, Ms. (or Mr) Anonymous (no, the OTHER Anony, the one with my blog all over it).
Firstly, I own up to what I say. Which is more than I can say for you, m'am. Or Mr.
Secondly, my point was about teaching our kids compassion being more important than good English, a point made with respect and efforts to be diplomatic, not just wild accusations with words in quotations as if afraid people won't know who or what you're talking about. You won't have to worry about that - this isn't my first time commenting my mind.
Thirdly, my blog post was about the danger of our nation adopting an "entitlement" culture to treat those below your social class like crap.
Are you really defending a person's right to paint every maid out there the same just because she's had a few bad experiences? Their right to abuse them in front of children just because of a few bad apples?
Who's making assumptions and sweeping statements?
Since we're on that topic, do you think there are more maids who starve/torture/try to kidnap kids out there, than there are more apathetic, potentially abusive employers who will not think twice about humiliating these women?
You tell me.
And what on God's green earth does my living in the US have anything to do with this? Oh yes, here it is. America's nasty history of slavery and oppression - there you go. Maybe that's what influenced me to be more conscientious about who I put under the heel of my boot. In that case, I say good for me.
Perhaps you should come visit?
I apologise, Shireen. Then again, the traffic both ways is nice ;)
hi...How do you do? I'm maid. Indonesian maid. I can't speak english very well just..average..my malay also average And the girl ( 10 years old) said....I can't teach her english and malay cos I use broken language. So, she only let me help her study Match and science...for language thing..she will ask My maam... I guess..I need to learn more...
I like your article..thanks
I noticed that the owner has 53 posts on maids. But the first post stopped me in my track !! Whoa !
If there is any bad apple, there is only one.. Jenn!
How about you? You are defending every maids' right without knowing the real stuff. Why dont you come back to Malaysia instead and leave your children with maids and then tell us about your experience? But of course, you will then say you have very good experience to justify yourself. Most of us have no choice but to go to work to survive and leave our maids with not very responsible maids. I have no husband to support me and there is no daycare in my area which will take in infants. I have no pleasant experience with maids myself and i dont blame the majority out there for disparaging remarks over maids. Even when I tell my maid these are not safe, my maid do things their way all the time. And yes, there are more bad maids out there who starve and pinch our children (mine did) than abusive employer who are rude to their maids. We cannot be rude to them if they pinch our children?If you goggle around, there are more bad experience than good experience by far. Chit-chatting with my colleagues, I found more. Just take a look at the newspapers. How many maids run away with their employer's children?
As for our children, who are you to bother about their upbringing?
Owner, please also publish this for the fairness of all us abusive Malaysian employers.
- Norashikin A.Samad, a Malaysian.
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