Tuesday, February 12, 2008
10:04 AM
I am scared for my life.
There's a line that grabs attention, albeit too dramatic and exaggerating for its own good.
The cause ? My mother's constant badgering of my maid, generously mixed with my own form of prejudice - thank you Straits Times - , and a hefty topping of insomia, to make a relatively strong concoction of paranoia and fear. (Sounds like mocha meets cappuccino.)
I'll start explaining now. I confess i just wanted to sound removed by exaggerating becauase that's what people who are frustrated with something do. They stretch the truth to make it seem more intense and then feel better because they feel like they've unloaded their baggage.
If i may digress further, and try to psycho-analyse this, people tend to stretch the truth because the truth pales in comparison to what they are feeling. A trivial matter may cause a deep emotional sitrring, but if they simply tell someone else what had happened it wouldn't do justice to their emotional status quo. So then being dramatic would help to unload all of their emotional baggage....... I think.
The point is that i've unloaded the emotional crap as aforementioned
Now to tell it like it is - the less stimulating version
I got a new maid last August. (strange how that sentence could be replaced to say something completely redundant like 'i got a new sweater last August.)
And for the last 6months, my mother has been pounding for her - verbally - every single day. There is not a day i do not hear my mother barking at her. It's really unbearable to hear.
To explain both sides and maybe undemonise my mother, she is very hard to work with.
From day 1, the problem has been communication. Or rather, miscommunication. Because she always manages to do what was told wrongly. It could be the simplest thing like 'wash this shirt in the washing machine, not by hand.' And it would be said very clearly with gestures to the machine, and she would say 'ya understand' and 'yes' and then we find out it's done by hand. But she'll make half a dozen of those minor mistakes almost everyday and that invariably gets my mother's blood pumping.
Sometimes it could be cutting the chicken wrongly even when it's been demonstrated many times before. Sometimes it would involve things that require a basic dose of common sense, that my mother thought was injected into everyone but then she would make a silly mistake. Often times she would argue back and say that my mother had given her different instructions. She always misunderstands because of this language barrier and then believes that she's right. (i admit that can be a pain) And now she's starting to lie.
So my mother's reason for yelling might not be completely irrational, but it isn't exactly .. warranted.
It's almost as if she needs a punching bag. She gets stressed out and she blows up on people when they've made the tiniest mistake or have said the wrong thing - this one applies to me. A sudden snap that would lead to heated repertoire - again, applies to me.
I guess when someone makes that many mistakes (talking about my maid now) it is convenient enough for her to vent on. Doesn't make it right though, does it? Imagine being pounded on day in day out. Everything you do is wrong or not good enough and you are being called out for it every time.
Now i love my mother but i'm not above saying that what she's been doing for the past 6 months is just plain wrong. It's only a small step above bullying. You don't come down people like that every day. She's just super stubborn and when she feels she's right, there's no other compromise. Cause my maid sometimes argues back - what a help that is.
If i could throw in my own little experience : it was somewhere in December i think, and i'd told her to do something ber she did it wrong (cant be more vague cause i cant remember what it was about). Anyway, she snapped back with a loud 'No!' and claimed that I'd said this and that. I mean i was shocked but i don't think she was aware of her volume.
Case in point, my mother views it as defiance and rudeness and she gets piiiiiiisssseeddd. And then i get to hear it.
TO be fair, other than that, she doesn't treat her badly. When she scolds, she doesn't use derogatory words, she scolds her for exactly what has been done wrong, only that it comes down really hard. She does care - or did care - because she didn't send her back to the Phillippines when she could have. She knows that my maid has a new-born and needs the money. And if she lets her go, what are the chances of her next employer firing her? How will she be able to support her family? Et cetera.
But it's getting to the point of unbearableness for her and she's starting to consider it again. I don't know how that will play out, but here's where my concerns come in.
I hear her going at it every day ( there isn't a speck of obscenity in that so please don't stray now) and all the stories from the newspapers of maids killing their employers start to weigh on me.
And now i feel wary whenever my back is to her. You know? Like she could just decide that she doesn't want to put up with this bull anymore and butcher me. I know i make it sound funny, but if you only knew.... I question everything she does. And it's making me weary.