Abused!!

This post was written with a rather heavy heart.

The Mrs was informed by our friend to watch the news yesterday as there was something about a maid abusing the baby under her care. Best part was the entire abuse was captured on camera.

Since we did not see the sms until much later we missed the news altogether. I was surfing the net and I came across a blog that had the link to the videos.

Disclaimer: In case you have not seen them and you are thinking of seeing them now, be warned! You know how I always joke about when I put up a disclaimer but this time I really mean it.

It is not very violent, not like there is blood or anything but from a father’s or any parents’ point of view it is bad enough. I think the word I am looking for that best describes my feeling is disturbing. Yes, that’s it! I find the video disturbing!

I find anyone who can lay their hands on any innocent baby to be really disturbing!

So if you are prepared to have the disturbing image in your thoughts for the next few hours then by all means watch them. There are altogether 6 videos but I believe 2 of them are the same.

Maid abusing baby videos

At the time of preparing this post I am still undecided on whether the Mrs should watch them or not. After all we have a maid whose primary role is taking care of Isaac. The last thing I want is for her to be paranoid.

When I watched the videos, I can’t help but to imagine Isaac being the victim. Seeing that their sizes are about the same plus the videos did not capture the baby’s face well, it is not difficult to superimpose Isaac’s face there. So when I saw the maid doing what she did to my Isaac, my heart just sank.

I guess being a father has changed me in more ways than one because I surprised even myself when I realized that the first reaction I got from watching the video was not anger towards the maid. Rather, it was a sense of guilt towards Isaac. I felt extremely sorry for letting such harm come to him. I can actually imagine his innocence big round eyes looking at me, questioning where was I when all this happened!

There were of course some discussion going on that the maid should be given the benefit of the doubt and a fair trial. While I agree that she should be given a fair trial before her sentencing, she should not have done that to the baby no matter what.

Granted she could be overworked or even ill treated by her employers but to take it out on the baby does not make it right.

A personal experience is my SIL’s maid. Not too long ago she was caught pinching the baby’s buttock just because she could not stop him from crying. It must have been going on for a while because the baby's buttock was bruised! We later found out from our maid, Vera that she had no idea she was going to take care of a baby when she was offered this job. I blame the maid agency largely for this although my in-laws should have conducted some kind of interview with her and let her understand her roles before she accepts the job.

We did the same with Vera. The Mrs spelt out very clearly that her primary duty is to take care of Isaac and she will be sent to my mum’s place during the day when we work and only return with us after dinner. The Mrs even made Vera repeat what she thought her duties were.

My SIL was so mad that she threatened to call the police (may be overacting a little) and send her back to the agency (this I agree). I do not know what happened after that but it seemed the maid begged for forgiveness and was given a second chance. I admire them of allowing her to stay because to be very honest, I am not sure if I can do it.

Another incident happened to my neighbour although probably not as serious, depending on how you look at it. They realised that they have some money missing along with an old handphone so they questioned their new maid and searched her belongings and true enough she took them. But what really broke the camel's back was they found a picture of their boy stick to the bottom of her flip flops. So she had been walking and "stepping" on their boy all along. Wonder what kind of Voodoo or Hoodoo was she practicing. My neighbour put it across very simply for us. She can tolerate anything rubbish from her maid but the minute she senses her boy is in danger then she'll show no mercy.

This is what I was trying to tell the Mrs, that we, employers are under the mercy of our maids sometimes. So whenever she made any request, if it is not asking for too much or out of the ordinary, I will try my very best to accommodate her because the last thing I want is to antagonize her and have Isaac bear the consequence.