I took A for her piano class today. I was waiting outside peacefully reading my book when I suddenly hear this woman dressed in a shiny purple kurta and head covered in a black dupatta shouting at the top of her voice. She was calling out to her mistress’s daughter, who had probably just finished a class at the music school. she was scolding her and telling her to come quickly or she will call her mamma. The girl was asking for 5 minutes to talk to her friend but this lady shouted again until the receptionist at the class had to tell her to talk softly.

The poor girl embarrassed by this whole episode got up and left with her. All the way outside the gate I heard that lady scolding her that if she dint come out soon after her class she would call her mamma.

I just sat wondering what just happened. We trust these helps to drop and pick up our children and this is how they treat them. She had no business shouting in the manner she did. I am guilty of doing this too in the past. But I knew my maid well. She never treated my girls like this…. Or did she? Everything made me doubt her all over again. But she worked 9 years for me and the kids loved her. Surely she couldn’t have.

Do we really know how the maids are treating our kids before we entrust pieces of ourselves to them? They might show something in front of us but behave another behind our backs. How will we ever know? I guess the answer is to ask our children. Talk to them about the time they spend with the maid. Ask them if she’s kind to them or not. We can encourage our children to talk to us if something is not right. There are times when they have to be strict too and we need to understand the situation. But shouting the way this lady was is unacceptable. I have seen my maid also be strict with my kids but not rude. I did give her some liberties because in my absence the kids went to her. But those were limited.

The come to know importance of knowing and observing. We should know how our maids are treating our children. Because this is certainly not the way I would treat my children. Then why would I allow someone else to. A grandparent…. maybe …. but definitely not a maid. (Grandparents anyway are far mor gentler to the kids than we are 😁)