After living with my parents for several months, being in our own place means life goes back to normal or as normal as it can be for me. Errands to run, a pad to clean up, a family to feed, etc…etc… you know the drill of a stay at home mom’s life. However, this SAHM doesn’t have an assistant yet unlike so many families living in Indonesia, particularly in Jakarta. Yes, we have a driver from the company but as for a domestic help we haven’t find one yet. Oh something funny did happened when I was introduced to someone who’s looking to fill in that position, turned out she suffers from fear of heights. So the search goes on…

Discussing about these domestic helpers (including nanny or what Indonesian prefers to call as Babysitter), one of my friend also from a mixed marriage raised an interesting question. “How come it is much easier to run around doing errands back in the US than here? It feels like it’s a must to have a helper here.” We didn’t have a chance to thoroughly talk about this but I must agree with her on some level. Personally, I think the reasons why is because:

• Traffic in Jakarta is already a nightmare. One can easily get frustrated being caught in the middle of a traffic jam here let alone a two or 1 years old, right? People are losing their times just from this as to go to point A to point B can literally takes hours. Don’t even talk about the rainy seasons…think of it this way, with no rain, the traffic is horrible as it is add the rain you can say that it’s 100x worst!

• Most places are not very child friendly here such as banks. The bank that I use here always have a very long line of people and yes, the queue can be really long but imagine trying to do this with a bored toddler who’d rather explore the place? This is when I wish online banking in Indonesia is much simpler like back in the US, but then again with the frauds records here, I can understand the complicated preventive measurements these banks must take. It is a little of catch 22, don’t you think?

Being a mother and living in Jakarta again surely has become an eye opening experience. Meaning, I got to notice things that seems mundane in my single days. Such as how having an assistance can really spoil a mother, also the sometimes unfairness treatment these extra helping hands received from their bosses. Just like today, I saw a nanny sat on the kiddy table at a food court while the family ate right in front of her, on a regular table. I mean c’mon…at least let her sit on a decent table for God’s sake! Oh these are ‘minor’ offender in my book, I’ve seen worst! Yes, there are plenty of good families out there who will treat their domestic helper(s) very good just as there are plenty of bad workers.

I don’t know maybe it’s just me but I think to treat someone who is helping you to take care of your child (or your home or whatever it is) like she’s nothing is very very cruel. Growing up, my mother always has domestic helps but since most of them does not live-in we were raised not to be spoil brats. I remember how we still had to do our chores, and mine would be washing dishes since I’m the eldest of three. The point is, I grew up from a family who always treats our domestic helpers as part of the family. My mother never ever separate our foods from the ‘maids’ shares. We all ate the same food, no separation of class. So to witness such treatments really irritate me.

Funny, how these people will be so lost when all their helpers have to go back home to their village, usually for Eid and worried that some won’t even bother to come back because chances are when they’re back in their villages, meeting their peers who have the same jobs then comparison will starts flying out from wages to treatments and more often some will try their luck with different family. Why oh why I wonder? Maybe some of the answers lie beneath your treatments to these people.

Back to finding domestic helper, I specifically told Mr. X that I do not want to look for a nanny. I need an extra pair of hands and eyes to watch over Lil’ A when we have to go out and do errands or when I have to go meet up with some friends (or a romantic dinner with Mr. X?). Other than that, I can still handle him on my own. So we agree that although our new place now has a spare room designated for a helper, we would not want a live-in, besides he too wasn’t very keen of having someone in our place 24/7. She would only come in the morning and leave in the afternoon.

Honestly, I have no objections with the trends of having a nanny/baby sitter because now that I live here again, I realized how hectic it can be to just do anything alone the way I’m used to when we were still back in the US or in China. But to have one nanny for each child you have is a tad bit too much isn’t? I could never even imagine of doing that. Understandably most mothers now have their own careers outside the home front, not much different than other moms in the Western world, right? But to completely handover your motherhood roles to a total stranger is beyond me. No wonder some of these kids here are more attached to their nannies than their own mother and don’t get me started on the bratty kinds I’ve seen so far!

Again, let me stress it out, I really have nothing against hiring an extra helps, especially because here it is much cheaper to get one, heck  sometimes I wish we have one when we were still living in the US! However, from what I had witnessed so far is plenty of these parents are renouncing most of their parental duties to the nannies/babysitters. From the look of it, seems like some of these mommies never even miss their beauty sleep or knows what it’s like to feel like a-walking-zombie-coz-you’re-so-sleep-deprived. Granted, some of them never even lift a finger to change a diaper let alone smells like spit-ups lol as most of them will already have a nanny ready even before the baby was born.

Due to the facts that we have never use a nanny before, not even when we were in China where Ayi (Nanny) are also cheap, I am having doubts about trusting someone enough to watch Lil’ A for me. Call me paranoid but dealing with that sweet-terrible two phase can be hard even on me let alone for someone else…that’s my biggest concern. Right now I sometimes have to ‘hijacked’ my mother’s helper when I need to go places. She is an excellent women and I really wish I can clone her lol. She adores and loves Lil’ A, equipped with all the patience in the world when dealing with him, also she’s very protective of him and will not hesitate to warn other (mostly older) children at a play area if they are being too rough as she also realized that Lil’ A is in that monkey see-monkey do phase. We adore her but unfortunately since she is already married with a tween and living close to my mother’s house she can’t come and work for us. Oooh Ipah we love you!

Let’s just hope we will find one soon before December where it will be busier for us than other months.