More on the Ayi Thing
My experience is that most teenagers don't think it's too cool to have an ayi following you around, fists full of toilet paper, in order to wipe your bottom. But maybe that's just me...
Someone once said to me that children are like people in a dark room, reaching out to find the walls. They will continue to grope and push forward in the dark until they find a barrier. Children need to have and thrive with boundaries. They also require opportunities to do things on their own. This makes them independent risk-takers who aren't afraid of trying new things. It also helps them to create neural pathways in their brains that actually help to make them smarter and better decision makers. If we don't allow them to develop this independence and to fall down occasionally, we are actually inhibiting their growth and development. We are doing them a great disservice.
To continue the theme of our parent responsibilities toward our kids and our ayis, I want to explore the notion of fostering independence in our children. Many times this is difficult when an ayi is involved due to the fact that many ayis don't feel comfortable disciplining our children for fear of losing their jobs. So then, how do we encourage our children to think and do for themselves, in spite of having an ayi who is willing to trail around after them, cleaning up in their wake? And how do we support our ayis in developing the confidence to train our children to behave in socially acceptable ways and develop enough self-awareness to care for themselves?
As a teacher, I've had parents ask me to accompany their 6 year old to the toilet because he didn't know how to clean himself properly after using it. His ayi had always done it for him. Give me a break. When I expressed utter disbelief at not only the request, but also at the fact that a 6 year old had been so needlessly crippled by his own parents' outrageous indulgences, the mother then asked me if the ayi could come to school with the child and wait until he had to go so she could then help him. I promptly said "No way, Jose" and strongly suggested that she actually take some time to teach the poor thing how toilet paper works as he was likely to need that key knowledge in the near future, like when he's a teenager, perhaps. My experience is that most teenagers don't think it's too cool to have an ayi following you around, fists full of toilet paper, in order to wipe your bottom. But maybe that's just me...
I think we who are rearing children overseas in our safe, little expat bubbles need to become hyper-aware of the pitfalls for our children that come with having an ayi. I really liked the idea that one of the readers of my last blog had of creating a behavior report or chart for children who are resisting accepting their ayi as an authority figure in their lives. This empowers the ayi with a tool for managing behavior and gives her specific outcomes to focus on when dealing with the kids. Depending on your values and beliefs, you can customize the behavior report to suit your parenting style and enable your ayi to develop a successful rapport with your kids and a management tool that allows her to assert herself without fear of reproval.
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It's amazing how some people treat their Ayis, I agree with Hanks Mama, we have to empower our own children to do these things for themselves. I heard from a teacher friend that alot of her children in her class couldnt grasp the fine motor skills of using scissors or doing up their buttons because the Ayi always did these things for them. I am so grateful to have such a caring a loving Ayi looking after my 1yr daughter, she even told me she dreamt about her on the holidays, which shows me just how much she is on her mind. And our daughter called and called her name, looking for her everyday. I try my best to treat our Ayi with the respect any individual deserves, the language barrier is sometimes difficult, and i advise any parent to get a chinese dictionary bigger than the lonely planet one., then i can really express myself in chinese to her properly.
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Wait...was the 6-year-old kid named Jose?
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I can think of nothing so selfish and unkind as to allow this kind of relationship to develop between a child and any caretaker.
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Yep: at another school that I worked at in another country, a driver came to school each day, sat in a car in the car park, and then at lunchtime collected the child, sat the child in the car and fed them. The child was seven. And a senior minister's daughter in that country! Very scary messages in those actions, I feel...
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What sort of preparation do these Ayis have other than their own child-rearing experience, if they even have that?? Is there a business opportunity here training Ayis and preparing them to work for Western families??
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I'm still a young'un, so no kids (or girlfriend for that matter), but I've witnessed this appalling phenomenon quite a bit before, and it continues to bother the crap out of me. I grew up in the states, but my parents have since relocated to Hong Kong. In HK virtually everyone has an "amah" which is pretty much the same as an ayi, only almost all of them are "live-ins" One of the first and most shocking things I found in HK is that nearly every expat apartment has an amah room: it's the size of a small closet, and the bathroom is a toilet, maybe a sink, a shower head an a drain. This depressed me. I, like everyone else, have dreamed of a day when I would be wealthy enough to have a personal staff: butlers, maids, gardeners, what have you, yet I was struck by how inhumane this seemed. Yes I would love a live-in helper, but if I've got the money to pay for one, I think I have the money to put that person in somewhat decent quarters, at least as nice as my children's. I have several friends that did grow up there, and many had two amahs, one for the cleaning/errands, and one for the children (in particularly disgusting cases, one for EACH child) and I can't fathom it. Of course, having an amah would be great, but how can a kid not be spoiled this way? When I was I think thirteen, I was made fun of, and rightfully so, for not knowing how to do the laundry. Mom had simply always done it for me. I felt ashamed, and that night I did the laundry for everyone in my house. This is as it should be. But I get the feeling that if I asked an expat child (especially one from HK or China) "You don't know how to do your own laundry?" They would respond either "Damn right," or, "Mommy doesn't know either." I'm all for the rewards of being an effective hard worker. You work hard, you make a lot of money, you move your family to the other side of the world, you should get the perks, you should be able to live a little more luxuriously, but that's no excuse. There's a difference between living well and living like a spoiled child, and I find an increasing number of expats adults doing that. I don't know what this all means, but I think every expat family with a child-caring should go at least a month with the child having no access and see how they do. They'll get it.
PS-While I applaud your article and your post, I must say that your opening metaphor is a little flawed. I mean, put anyone in a pitch black room and they will try to feel for the walls (or at least some furniture. I know it's just a metaphor, but still...)
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I think the issue of allowing the kids to develop as risk takers is in many ways more tricky than the question of discipline. I encourage the kids to challenge themselves physically, taking risks that could well lead to injury, even if I'm cringing inside. (Mind you, we faced this issue big time in the overly-protective USA as well, where I'd be subjected to scornful looks from other parents because my kid wasn't decked out in full regalia - helmet, elbow, wrist and knee pads - to ride her tricycle.)
Now, imagine that you are hired to take care of someone else's kid, how likely are you to let them take any risks at all? I'm pretty sure the reason the Ayi wouldn't let the kids use scissors is deeper than merely spoiling them - it's because the Ayi is terrified of them cutting themselves and losing her job.
Mind you, the problem is exacerbated in my case by the fact that my kids' mom was raised by multiple nannies in Thailand, Nepal and China, and has a similar protective streak, as well as the bit about not trusting the kids to be able to wipe themselves, which has nothing to do with the Ayi in our case, but just a general lack of trust that anyone can do a decent enough job of it, the kids and myself included. This lasted til they were around 4 or 5, at which point every time they would ask me to wipe them, I'd say, "Wipe yourself!!" and they'd say, "Mommy won't let me!" and I'd say, "I don't care. Wipe yourself." Poor kids would sometimes burst into tears, then, not sure where their loyalty should lie, but finally realized that Daddy thought they could do a decent job themselves, so they eventually learned to do it themselves (though never up to their mom's standards). I wonder how long it would have gone on if I didn't put an end to it! I'd be very interested to hear how many other people have experienced this wiping thing. I always thought it was just a case of the kids' mom's OCD.
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Yeah, this is totally a problem. But cheer up- you can avoid it by not having kids.
Actually, I've heard about a 5-year old who behaves one way in front of his parents and then when they leave him with the Ayi he totally changes. He hits her and shouts at her. I couldn't believe that a child of just 5 could be so deceptive. When the Ayi finally told the parents (after she had tolerated it for several weeks) they were amazed and really unsure about how to proceed. Do you have to learn to live without an Ayi to make sure your child isn't turning into a little Beijing Emperor?
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John, thanks for your comments and for your thoughts on the metaphor. I agree, I tried to paraphrase it so the blog wouldn't be so long but I was never happy with the final impact. Nonetheless, the point should be taken that kids need boundaries or they will grope aimlessly (in the dark) until they find them. I believe this helps kids (all people, actually) develop confidence and self-awareness by providing them with a secure schema in which to function while they make their way through life. Humans are designed to push boundaries and this is wonderful but in order to push those boundaries to innovate and "think outside the box" when the need arises, I think it helps us to where the lines are first. The world gets too big and too confusing for children when they aren't given parameters for behavior. Any thoughts on this?
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My final thought for both of these threads, is that it is not so much the kids who are getting spoiled by having an ayi, but me! Since the kids' mom took off, aside from occasional weekends at their grandma's house, I am pretty much raising them on my own, which I CAN do with minimal fuss in Beijing... with Ayi's help. I don't know how I would cope if I moved back to the US, unless I brought back a huge wad of cash, so I could afford a nanny there, or somehow finagled bringing Ayi along, which would be optimal for all concerned. Of course, the kids are now getting old enough to look after themselves for a few hours til Daddy comes home, so it may not be an issue for much longer... not to mention the fact that the thought of moving back to the US isn't really all that attractive anyway.
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Wow! we could really mess them up if we're not careful. They better be wiping themselves by the time they go to college, that's all I can say. It really is more bother and time to let them do it "all by myself" but well worth it in the longrun.
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6 years old?!? I wonder how the parent would have reacted if you offered a pack of Pampers...