What options does a working mother with a new-born baby, worse for twins,
have now?
Since nuclear families are very common in Taiwan as in Western societies, married couples do not live with their parents. Therefore, if women in employment have young children under 3 before going to the kindergarten, they might ask their parents or parents-in-law to look after their babies. There are different ways to make it work. For example, they can bring the baby to where their parents live everyday and back home after work if the distance between both homes is not too far. Otherwise, they might let the baby stay with their parents and take the baby home on weekends or visit whenever they can. That also depends on how far they live apart.
Some are lucky to get help from their friends or relatives in the same neighborhood. Then the children will be brought to the ones who take care of them in the morning and go home at night. If not, you need to find a so-called "Nai-ma" in Mandarin, to look after your baby.
The pay to a Nai-ma depends on how many days a week and how many hours a day she looks after your baby. If you're blessed, can afford, and luckily find a live-in nanny, you are allowed to hold, smell, kiss your cute baby/babies whenever you like. But, remember to conceal your smiles from others, who should be jealous of your lighthearted motherhood. Surely it seems a good idea to have a hidden camera set up.
Everything is tentative.
The pay to a Nai-ma depends on how many days a week and how many hours a day she looks after your baby. If you're blessed, can afford, and luckily find a live-in nanny, you are allowed to hold, smell, kiss your cute baby/babies whenever you like. But, remember to conceal your smiles from others, who should be jealous of your lighthearted motherhood. Surely it seems a good idea to have a hidden camera set up.
Everything is tentative.
Everything’s only tentative Maria told herself. Otherwise, “this is going to get harder before it is getting better.”
After recruiting Kate, ten years her junior, she raises Maria’s spirits. She makes Maria laugh on a daily basis beyond the cubicle wall in the office. Sometimes, the jokes are weak, but Maria gives her smile to whatever, a smile having a sad quality to it.
Kate: a little more wine makes our world a bit rosier, you
guys!
Maria: You’re such a brat, Kate.
Carol: Just do it. Kate is right. Let’s
drink!
Maria: No! I think I just need
a cup of coffee. "Stale" is fine to me. Do you have some left, Kate?
Carol: I thought you cut down
on your caffeine intake. You
already had this morning.
Kate: Oh, Carol.
Don’t you know a cup of coffee is a prerequisite for starting her work? It doesn’t count! I
can make one for you, Maria. But, why? Are you not happy for me to? See my curriculum vitae will be updated in two years. Hurrah! Hurrah!
Carol: Stop it, Kate. Stop
swinging your butt. We’re here to celebrate for you, aren’t we?
Maria: We can’t
stop Kate. Can we, Kate?
Kate: Nope! Don’t
you know why I rented the tiny apartment without its amenity or a view at all, but insisted to move
out from my home? I decided to live my own life and move on for a couple years.
I think it’s a great pleasure to live alone and do what I really want to.
Happy!
Carol: I thought your boyfriend
will live with you.
Kate: No way! I want to be on
my own, but you know he is still my boyfriend.
Maria: Are you going to get
married soon?
Kate: No! I don’t get married
before I gain my master degree.
If I got married, I might face an unexpected
pregnancy, you know.
It’ll jeopardize my chances of career and success.
Carol: But, if you were
pregnant, couldn’t you find someone to look after your baby? Maria, what do you
think?
Maria: I don’t
know.
Maria’s
voice cracked. She tilted back her head and fought back tears.
She suddenly stepped back to those awful days. That’s the pain she
thought she’d gotten over. She’d rarely slept through the night when she was out
of town and her baby girl stayed with the nanny.
Carol: Why are you crying? Did
I say something wrong, Maria? Please don’t cry.
Maria: I’m terribly sorry! It’s
not you. The baby caring reminds me those days I was alone and couldn’t find a
live-in nanny. I brought my daughter every morning to the nanny’s place and
kind of ran away from my daughter while she was crying and grasping my hand… It was heartrending.
Kate: Oh, no! (Kate hugs Maria and so does Carol.) It was heartrending was. But, I remember you said your parents were around.
Couldn’t they help you then?
Maria: No, my father was very
ill. His health was in decline after the second cancer surgery. Every morphine
shot stopped his pain for only a couple hours but was injurious to his already
precarious health.
He looked rail thin and the weathered
lines on his pale face made me cry on the way back home with my daughter. So, I
felt guilty that I didn’t take better care of my father and my daughter either.
My daughter’s insecurity has appeared since she was very little.
Carol: Maria, let it go. Just
look at yourself and your daughter. You should be proud of yourself for what
you’ve been doing. You were not the one to take the heavy responsibility for
your father’s endurance.Sometimes, it just happens. And, you
daughter is a wonderful and smart young lady. I think she is fine.
Kate: Yes, Carol is right. Let’s
drop these heavy conversations. Okay? I’m not married and not pregnant. Why do
you, mothers, worry about? Wine! Wine!
Maria
and Carol burst into laughter. When she was in her mid-twenties, Maria learned that
the peace, love, or comfort that might elude one in the final years of life. It’s
also true that some pain has never fully been resolved. You just suppressed it
beneath a façade of normalcy.
In America, 75% of mothers with children at home are employed, who drop a toddler at a day-care center even though it’s not easy for them to do so (Miller, 2015). What about in Taiwan?
Could a mother always find a day care in her neighborhood to look after her new-born baby? NO!!!
Could a mother always find one to rescue her when she has to work overtime and it “is” time for her to pick up the baby from a day-care center? NO!!!
It almost never occurs to one to find a live-in nanny because it costs a fortune. Besides, it is few and far between that a local woman would like to run 24 hours a day to look after a baby even though the high pay is very tempting. While people complain the base salary is generally low, the high-paid job as a live-in nanny doesn’t satisfy the need of a woman worker. Single women like to find a job with regular working hours and enjoy kind of freedom and privacy after work every day while married women without a job might have their own family take care of. Some “married” women took it as a kind of odd job. Being a live-in nanny seems not a decent job at all.
Now, should she take the maternity leave or find someone to look after her baby before she is able to send her baby to a kindergarten? She is surely in a dilemma.
In America, 75% of mothers with children at home are employed, who drop a toddler at a day-care center even though it’s not easy for them to do so (Miller, 2015). What about in Taiwan?
Could a mother always find a day care in her neighborhood to look after her new-born baby? NO!!!
Could a mother always find one to rescue her when she has to work overtime and it “is” time for her to pick up the baby from a day-care center? NO!!!
0 comments