How Auntie Became an Irreplaceable Part of My Family. And My Life.
All occupations should be treated equally. I have seen families where domestic workers are treated very unfairly, but there are also families where they are treated fairly. The perception of domestic workers have to change for workers to comfortably work in other people’s homes.
(Picture from the Mormon Channel)
For 14 years of my life, auntie Bennie took care of my brother and I. She would cook for us, wake us up, calm my brother and I down when we got into physical fights. Yes, although I always ended up to be the one who loses, I thought I had a chance every time. Ok, back to the story. So my point is, my auntie was like my second mom. She watched me growing up, going to my first day of elementary school, middle school, and listened to me playing the piano. When she retired and returned home, our family tried to find other workers to replace her. We tried one after the other, but we just couldn’t find the right fit — no one knew our family as much as auntie did. So now we gave up and just stopped looking for another domestic worker. Over the years, auntie has become such an irreplaceable part of our family. I still remember hanging out in her room when she irons our clothes, hanging out in the kitchen and learning how to cook from her when she prepares our meals. I learned more life lessons from her than from anyone else. And I miss her. my family visited her homeland a couple years back and invited her family to a nearby island for a vacation. That was the first time I met her family in person, despite I felt like I knew them personally because she would always talk about them.
Then, I realized how important her job was in supporting her family. Her income from working overseas was the main source of money that pays for her husband’s medical bills, her son’s tuition, her daughter’s spending, and lots of miscellaneous spending. I don’t know if she sees it this way too but I think her family depended on us as much as my family depended on hers.
Always knowing the importance of domestic workers in a family like mine, I am really glad that a bill was finally passed to protect the lives of domestic workers. I know that my story is one of the few where the family works well with the domestic worker, but there are thousands of stories that are the opposite because auntie would always tell me stories of her friends’ families.
My auntie recently got Facebook so we chat once in a while. She posts comments on my pictures and everything else. And although some of them are a little weird because she would comment how she thought I looked beautiful and how she misses me, which is not common to post as a comment in North America, I smile every time I see those comments because I know she still loves me and misses me.
Ok, that was a long story. If you are too lazy to read all that, just remember this point: all occupations are equal. Domestic workers should not be treated unfairly because of the nature of the work or because of legacy judgements. If both employers and domestic workers are on the same page, both can maximize happiness by simply caring about each other.
The idea of this post came from “Domestic Workers Bill of Rights: A Feminist Approach for a New Economy,” by Poo, Ai-Jen. Check out her post!
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