Response to TWC2 post

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Expat Bostonians

It has come to my attention that my blog and myself were cited by TWC2 (transient workers count too) in a blog post entitled “Why are Singapore mums demonizing maids online?“.  The specific paragraph where I am cited reads is

On another blog, an expat mum writes: “Were we to hire a new helper, I’d bring my purse into my bedroom at night, and I’d be more aware of my cash, removing temptation.” She wrote this after her maid allegedly stole some money in 2011 and her blog relays in exhaustive detail the investigation, firing and eventual deportation that followed.

 

For context, I am being lumped in with a blogger who posts names, nationalities and the last 3 digits of work permits of “bad maids” as well as demeaning rules for maids, and a blogger who is worried that her maid will bring back contagious diseases from her day off.

You could knock me over with a feather.  I have never portrayed maids as anything but human beings that deserve our respect.  That we are not better than our FDW’s.  Yes, I wrote about the night we fired B–because my blog is about my experiences in Singapore.  Firing her will always remain one of the strongest memories of Singapore–because it threw everything into question–how I had not seen what was happening, how off was my judgment, what had I done wrong, did I really need a maid just because everyone told me to.

I wrote a rebuttal and emailed them

Dear webmaster

One of your bloggers-Farah-cited a blog post of mine in her article “Why are Singapore mums demonizing maids online?“.  Yes, this post is very detailed about what happened when we learned that our maid had stolen from us-it was written within the next 48 hours.  My blog is about my experiences in Singapore-and that includes my experience of being an employer.  I tried to always be respectful of my helper, even after we had a bad experience, by using an initial and not her name as it wasn’t mine to share.  My blog is my truth.

I resent, strongly, being categorized with people like Tamarind, whose blog I’m familiar with and am horrified by.  Saying I wouldn’t leave my purse out at night is hardly in the same line as Tamarind’s nonsense.

Farah chose to ignore this post written two month after we fired our maid where I talk about all the ways in which I failed as an employer.  My helper absolutely holds some culpability, but I failed too.  This post, not the one cited, is my post popular post on the blog in part because I take responsibility for my failures.  Not as popular, but it is also worthwhile to note that in my post written one year after, I realize that I am a better, more involved mom without a maid–not demonizing her, criticizing MYSELF.

Clearly, Farah did not any other post of mine in my “helpers” category.  I have never demonized having a helper-I constantly remind readers that one bad experience does not mean helpers are bad.  I do remind people that it’s okay to not have a helper–there is tremendous pressure on expats to have one, whether we are prepared to be good managers or not.  Most of us who come from countries where a maid is not common are NOT trained to be a good manager.

The points that I have been advocating strongly are that

A-You shouldn’t bow to pressure to have a maid if you don’t want one or feel ill prepared to have one.
B-People who have never had a maid before need to receive more support and training as they hire a maid.  A test that my (now) 4 year old could pass doesn’t constitute training.

C-Just because I had a bad experience and have chosen to go a different route doesn’t mean all maid are bad. That every family should choose what’s right for them.

Please remove the paragraph related to myself and my blog or amend it to reflect that while some of us have bad experiences, not all of us are demonizing maids and take responsibility for our own actions.  The way in which you portray myself, and my attitude toward helpers is misleading and wrong.

But there are many other examples I didn’t include in that post that Farah chose not to ignore…
I wrote a post highlighting the scheme run by some agencies that there are two sets of paperwork filed–one with the Philippines Embassay saying that the FDW’s pay is 600 SGD a month and another with MOM listing their actual (almost always lower) salary.  When we found out that, we increased B’s pay to reflect that and gave her back pay.  I deserve no applause for that, but the maid agencies deserve to be called out for that lie.

I advocated for maid’s rights, writing to MOM on behalf of the day off policy that many strongly opposed.

Farah says no one is writing about the positive experiences–I would refer her to the following posts–it’s there, but it doesn’t fit her narrative of me as a demonizing vindictive mom).
I talked about this mismatch of cultural expectations and cultural misunderstandings and how employers (which included myself at the time) needed to be aware of what they’re projecting on to and expecting of someone who is not of the same cultural background.

I wrote about how when getting vaccine updates for all adults in the household when a new baby arrives, not to forget your helper.

I wrote about how mother and child offers first aid classes for parents and helpers and that I’d signed B up for classes.

I’ve never written about it, but I held safe sex classes for B and her friends once a month on a Sunday to educate on condom usage, clear up misinformation, and to answer questions.

I didn’t write many posts about B in the months before because she deserved her privacy.  My blog is about myself and my family and she was not and is not a sideshow attraction for readers to gawk at.  I would reference that she was somewhere with us, but overall I tried to keep her off the blog because her story isn’t my story to tell.  Even though we’ve fired her, I still have tried to maintain her privacy because her story still isn’t mine to tell.

I am disheartened and a bit angry to be lumped  in with the other employers cited.  I don’t think that the advice to have your wallet in your room at night is wrong, nor does it demonize an FDW–I stand by that statement.  But choosing to highlight a post that was, until today, not all that popular instead of taking 5 minutes to skim my helper category is a misleading portrayal of who am I.

Ironically, TWC2 is an organization I believe in and would encourage readers to support.  I just wish in this instance they hadn’t used sloppy journalism.

Filed under: Helpers, Singapore | 9 Comments »

One of the downsides of NOT having a maid/helper

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Expat Bostonians

I’ve written fairly extensively on the topic of maids.  I have a whole category to go and read on the topic.  For the last year, when I’ve touched on the topic, it’s most often to share that it is possible to live without a maid (which is not the advice you’ll get from most expats/moving to SG guides/etc).  I’ve been open about how our experience with a helper went wrong, both the parts that were her fault and those that were mine.

So today, in an attempt to be open and honest about the pros and cons of not having a maid, I need to share a major downside when it comes to the choice of living without a maid in Singapore.

Where have I been for the last 2 weeks?  I had walking pneumonia.  So much fun. (sarcasm)

The first week I kept insisting it was a bad cold.  But after the cough just got worse and worse, I caved and talked to my doctor last week (whom I had to see to get some test results anyways) which is when I got the diagnosis.

“Get some rest”, she told me.  “Stay in bed for a few days, sleep, let the antibiotics help.  Take the cough syrup, but it will make your sleepy because it has codeine.”

This was sage advice.  I’m sure it would’ve helped.  But I didn’t follow it because I couldn’t.

Last week Ravi had a lot of work-related stuff going on.  I had several appointments (one of which I’d already delayed once because of this same illness the first day I’d felt ill, and another where the doctor was heading out of town), Ellie had school, and so forth.  My sitter came in and helped one evening, but for the most part I had to just survive until the weekend, when Ravi could largely handle the girls and I could sleep for long stretches.

It got so bad, I started to reconsider this whole “no maid” thing.

When we first came to Singapore for our look-see, I was told we’d need a maid.  That it was essential to survival in Singapore.  I was skeptical…until I came down with a double ear infection just before we went back to the states.  I was so disoriented and sick that my in-laws actually took Ellie for several days.  That experience is what motivated me to hire a maid immediately.  What if I got really sick?

2011 seemed to validate that–if you’re a long time reader, you’ll remember that I broke my leg just above the ankle and had to be in a wheelchair for 8 weeks while it healed, luckily avoiding surgery.  Then there’s the part where pregnancy involved hyperemesis (you puke and puke and puke all through the pregnancy–my pregnancy can best be summarized by laying on the floor of my bathroom having just puked or waiting to puke again).  Then I got hospitalized for pre-term labor for a few days.  Then I had the baby (which ended up being a 6 day stay).  Then the baby got hospitalized with a stomach flu for 5 days at a month old.  Then the baby got sick AGAIN with RSV and got hospitalized AGAIN at 2 months old.

2012 brought with it nothing more than a bout of flu.  Ravi managed to do both drop off and pick up a few times, my sitter was able to pinch hit a bit and friends helped out as well.  No hospitalizations, broken bones, or any such nonsense.

But this time I learned what it’s really like to have to stay standing when you want to fall over.  I didn’t ask for help from friends–I didn’t want my friends with kids to be exposed to me and whatever germs I might be carrying.  (Yes, I sent E to school–my kindness extends only so far, and I needed those 3.5 hours a day without her.)  Ravi couldn’t pinch hit for me because of work.  My own schedule meant I had to be up and about anyways.  My sitter came Wednesday, but it was her last day with us (she’s moving on to a wonderful opportunity in another country) and I did not have a replacement sitter.

What could I do?  I just tried to survive it.

There were meals of cereal.  There was a LOT of television.  The one hour of ‘quiet time’ accidentally became two most days (and yes, I slept while Rhi slept and E watched her tablet).  I went to bed early.  I became virtually silent here, on twitter, on facebook, and in real life.  I just gritted my teeth, tried not to hate all childless people and working adults who have “sick days,” and survived as best I could.

This is not meant to be a “poor me” post.  I got through it, the kids are alive and were pretty damn thrilled at the nonstop barrage of Sesame Street.  Ravi spent all weekend parenting, and I spent most of the weekend asleep.  I finished my antibiotics yesterday.  I have rejoined the land of the living.  I’m fine–cranky, still a bit tired, still coughing a bit, but fine.

This is just meant to show that not having a helper sometimes sucks, too.

Filed under: Helpers, Singapore | 2 Comments »

Reflections on 2012-the year without a maid

Posted on December 27, 2012 by Expat Bostonians

One year ago today we fired B.  Go here if you want all the gory details. The short version was that she stole money from my purse (600 SGD) and when the police arrived and told me go through her room (something I’d never done) we found far more troubling thefts.  As we did not want to play jailer for 3 months-the time we were told the case would take to come to court during which we would be legally responsible for B-we canceled her work permit and put her on a one-way plane home.

One year ago today, I felt fragile and lost.  I’d considered B a personal friend and had trusted her with my daughters-two of the people I care most about.  How had I been so wrong?  I’ve since written about where I went wrong (and where B did as well) here.  There’s no need to rehash it again.

Instead, today I want to take a moment to reflect on the past year and how it has changed me.

Over the past year I’ve stumbled and fallen, but overall I would say that I’ve found what works for me…without a maid.  (I’m not saying that having a maid is wrong, or that all maids are bad people, or that every family should fire their maid.  Different families, different needs.)

What I will say is that for me, this past year has been a revelation.

I am a better mom without a helper

Without a helper, I am closer to my girls.  If I’m on duty, I’m there for the good and the bad moments.  But I know my girls (especially Elanor) more completely.  I know the other parents.  I know the teachers.  I know her friends and classmates.  I know the shopkeepers at most of the stores around GUG because I’m there five days a week.  I know that Ellie cares a LOT about who was the classroom helper.  We have lots of talks on the drives to and from school.

This is not to say I’m a great mom every moment of every day.  Because I’m there all the time, I sometimes have days where I’m a bit checked out.  Today I was feeling run down and I mostly vegged on the couch and let the tv run and the girls play without a ton of active parenting.  I lose my patience with Ellie.  I feel overwhelmed at times.  I do not cherish every last second of my day with Ellie because she can be a pain in the ass (as all 4 year olds can be).  I don’t cherish the diaper changes with Rhi where she squirms like a rabid badger.  I don’t always love trying to keep track of both girls when they are going in opposite directions or trying to ensure everyone stays alive while I cook dinner or put away laundry or whatever chore.

I am more active in my life in Singapore

I will confess that I spent a lot of time online when we had a maid.  If I was lonely, I’d just call/skype a friend in the US while she watched the girls.  I was busy throwing up while pregnant so I skipped a lot of pick up and drop offs at school, which meant I didn’t develop friendships with teachers or other parents until this year.  I went places-but mostly those easily accessed by MRT or bus. I had a rut of places I went and ate at.

Granted, some of the reasons that I was passive in 2011 are valid.  I was in a wheelchair for 8 weeks following my broken ankle.  I spent my pregnancy prone on my bathroom floor having just thrown up or waiting to puke again.  2011 was never going to be a great year with those two things running the show for the majority of the year, so 2012 would likely have been a better year regardless.

But without the crutch of a maid, it’s me who deals with every delivery, (almost) every grocery run, school and all that jazz.  What that means is that I’m out in Singapore more.  I’m interacting with people more, and that has created new friendships.  Those friendships have brought me into a more present life in Singapore, and I find myself integrating better now than before. (I also grant that some of that is the product of having been here longer and likely also just part of the natural progression of things, but it does feel significant to me).

Do I miss having a maid?

At times, of course I do.  My house was FAR cleaner when I had a maid.  I didn’t deal with laundry for the most part.  I could get a night off whenever I wanted.  If I needed to sleep in, I did.  If I was sick, I stayed in bed.  But those are really shallow reasons to have a maid.

There are times when not having a maid has been a challenge.  I had a bad case of flu earlier this year, and Ravi took the girls for a day, but I had to battle through the exhaustion on the others.  I came down with an ear infection and had to wait for Ravi to get home from work to go to urgent care hours after I would have gone otherwise.  When something is getting delivered or the aircon needs servicing and I have a limited of window in which it can happen for example.  Ellie has been late to school because our aircon guys showed up late and weren’t done when it was time to go.

Biggest change in the last year

The biggest change in the last year is in me.  I am more confident-as a mom, in running the house, and in navigating Singapore (both figuratively and literally).  I am happier-I am great at managing a class of unruly 11 and 12 year olds, but I am not good at managing a helper and that caused a lot of doubt and stress.  I feel lucky to have made the new friends and had the new experiences I’ve had in the last year.

Most telling, however, is that I’ve gone from having a mental “when we’ll go home (to the US, permanently)” clock counting down at the back of my mind to being open to whatever the future might hold for us.  I’m thinking of things that are years from now, like the local Primary school for Ellie’s P1 year.

Life isn’t perfect, but it never is.  But I’m happier today than I was a year ago.

People said that I couldn’t live in Singapore without a maid.

In 2011, they were right–my broken ankle/leg and my pregnancy were severe conditions that necessitated a wheelchair and bedrest respectively.  I was sidelined and incapacitated by those conditions.  Had we not had a helper, we would’ve had to hire one, or begged for family to come and stay with us, or E and I would have had to temporarily go back to the US.  Yes, B turned out to be someone very different from who we thought she was, but without her 2011 would have been a far more difficult year.

2012, however, was the year I was able to take back my life.  I am proud of where I am today, even if I would be ashamed to let you all see my dining table and the giant pile of junk sitting on it as I type this instead of cleaning it.

 

Filed under: Helpers, Singapore | 10 Comments »

Expat Wife = Easiest Job in SG?

Posted on December 10, 2012 by Expat Bostonians

The easiest job in Singapore has to be expat wife.

The quote above showed up in the @hellofrmsg twitter feed earlier today (a person the account follows, not a specific comment to the account).  As I am an expat wife, I wanted to address this comment, but I knew it would take more than a series of tweets to do a fair job of addressing both the truth and the misconception of this comment.

First I think it important to note that the comment, and this entry address the life of expat wives in Singapore.  As my mother in law, and my friend Emily can attest, being an expat wife in other countries (the US and Japan respectively) is an entirely different ballgame than what I’m experiencing.  This entry is also based on my experiences, those recounted to me by my friends, the assumptions I’ve dealt with both here and back home, and does not necessarily accurately reflect every expat wife’s experience in Singapore.  However, this is the only point of view from which I can address this topic.

I’m going to try to address this without getting defensive, although I think it understandable that my very first reaction was to feel defensive.  Let’s hope that I can do it justice.  Please let me say as clearly as I can–at no point am I trying to evoke pity for the plight of the expat wife.  I hope only to promote understanding of what it is like to be in my shoes.

An acknowledgement of privilege.

I think that before I can address the assumptions inherent in the statement that “The easiest job in Singapore has to be expat wife” that I find problematic/troubling, I have to address the parts of that statement that are absolutely true.  I have to acknowledge the privileges inherent in being an expat wife.

Although not universally true, it is true that most working expats are compensated at a higher rate than locals. 

There is a lot of anger directed at foreign talent, and at expat wives for this privilege.  This anger is understandable, and absolutely in need of addressing by all parties involved.  I will say that my husband is well compensated for his work.  However, he is not the person who placed the numeric value on his job skills, nor is he the person who elected to hire him.  He applied for and accepted a job.  We have no knowledge of whether there was a local applicant for the position, or how they were evaluated in relation to Ravi.  The companies doing the hiring need to disclose what it is exactly that has them seeking out foreign talent–if local talent can be hired more cheaply, there isn’t a lot of logic in hiring an expat at a higher compensation.  If there are skills that they are looking for that local education isn’t providing, the MOE needs to address that.  But while we personally are not responsible for this trend, Ravi and I are participating in it, and our/expat ability to pay higher prices is partially responsible for driving up cost of living (among other reasons—expat wealth is not solely responsible for a cost of living increase).

Please do keep in mind that these interpretations of the tropes and perceptions of expat wife-dom are again based on my own incomplete understanding.  Please do educate me further about the assumptions behind this statement.

Due to our husband’s financial compensation, many expat wives have the option of staying home.

As an expat wife, I do have the luxury of being a stay at home mom.  This is not a privilege many/perhaps the majority of local moms share in.  Some local moms, like my friend J, have been lucky enough to have generous maternity packages.  But she is returning to work in part for financial reasons (and in part for personal reasons, including feeling fulfilled by her work).  This tension between stay at home moms and moms who would like to stay home but do not have the resources to do so exists in many cultures, including the US, and is not unique to Singapore.  However, expat wives are a visible symbol of this privilege and the frustration and resentment is understandable.  However, again, I don’t set policy for Singapore.  Singapore does not have the most family-friendly hiring/working/firing conditions for moms OR dads, and that is something I know that many are working to address.

The other truth that is inherent in my (and other expat wives) can afford to take extended vacations.  When my best friend Kate got married last August, I took the girls and went to the US for almost the entire month so that I could be there for the last bit of planning and to host the bachelorette party.  Before Ellie was in school/I had Rhiannon, I would often turn my husband’s two week trip home to the US into a month-long trip for Ellie and I.  I could, I suppose, take the girls on vacation without Ravi, but apart from going back to the US (where I have my in-laws, parents and friends for support) it’s not much of a vacation.

But our ability to do this is enviable.  Before I married Ravi I wasn’t in the financial position to afford regular vacations.  My family didn’t have a lot of money, and I was 20 before I ever flew in an airplane.  Growing up, I was jealous and envious of my friends who did get to go to Disneyland or to exotic places like California (I grew up on the other side of the US in Massachusetts), much less to places like London.  I dreamt of visiting them, but doing so was out of my reach.  I didn’t marry Ravi for his income, but I’d be lying if I didn’t openly admit that the income has increased my standard of living exponentially.

Expat wives sit around and shop on Orchard Road while everyone else does all the work.

The most common trope of expat wife-dom that I’ve seen is that we shop on Orchard Road, get pedicures, and gossip with other expat wives while our maids take care of our children and our homes.

Some of this is absolutely true.  I’ve met expat wives that fit that trope, and there’s a reason I’m not really friends with most of those women–we have very little in common.

But while I don’t fit that exact profile–I don’t often shop on Orchard Road (apart from Kinokuniya books at Takashimaya and occasionally Jasons’s Marketplace), and I don’t have a maid (anymore), there are assumptions in there that are true.  I am lucky enough to be a in a position to have a cleaning service, and I have a twice weekly babysitter.  I like a good pedicure (although I think my last one was over six months ago–babies and pedicures aren’t necessarily compatible).  I like to hang out with my friends–expat AND local.

More to the point, the assumption speaks to perceived luxury.  It is true that I have the resources to shop at more expensive grocery stores (although I definitely don’t have the buying power to even walk into Louis Vuitton or Prada).  I could hire another live in maid if I wanted to–and that I have the option of hiring a cleaning service that is more expensive than my live-in helper’s wages (although not wages+food allowance+taxes, I believe, although that’s not the point).

Growing up without money, I was frustrated that others seemed to get things so much more easily than I did.  I’m 90k in debt because I had to take out a lot of money to pay for my bachelor’s and master’s degrees.  Although as a teacher I was compensated at about the median income of the US (50K USD),  I had no ability to afford a home in one of the most expensive housing markets in the US–I was looking at a lifetime of renting.  If I had married another teacher, we would have needed loans to pay for our children’s education.

Expat wives expect Singapore to accommodate them, and not the other way around.

I hope that most days this doesn’t apply to me or my friends.  But it is true that it applies to some.  To this I can only say that there are assholes in every walk of life–be they expat wife, cab driver, teacher, or sales clerk.  And there are days it applies to me, when I am the asshole (I share a day like that in this entry).

We get to live abroad, and that is a rare privilege.

Living abroad at all is a rare and wonderful privilege.  We (including myself) often lose sight of that in our day to day lives.  This is a million miles (figuratively) away from what I expected my life to be at 34.  Living in Singapore as an American is one of the easiest places I could live–I speak the local language (sort of-see this entry for an English/English FAIL), foods that are familiar to me are easily available, the water is clean, the schools are good, and a thousand other things I likely take for granted, when compared with being an expat in another location.  To be fair, my only other experience in living abroad was that of a student living with a host family in Aix-En-Provence, France when I was 20 for one month-where again, I more or less spoke the language (sort of-in a grammatically deficient form), I had my housing and food largely provided, and I didn’t have to work.

Further, I get to participate in daily Singapore life in a way that Ravi doesn’t.  He works a ridiculous amount of hours.  He works in Singapore, but only gets to be part of it on weekends.  And that’s just not the same experience.

Addressing the problems/troubling aspects of the statement

Now that I have tried to address the truths of the statement, I’d like to address the problems in it.

The conflation of expat with the words wealthy, white, and Western.

I know a number of expats.  Not all are western-my friend Y is from Indonesia, and she’s technically an expat wife.  Not all are white-my friends W, M, J, A, and P (P blogs as Notabilia) are western expat wives, but are of Asian extraction, not Caucasian.  My friend E is both white and western but not wealthy.

This assumption that expat=white is really problematic.  My non-white friends have all shared experiences where a different set of expectations have been placed upon them because people assume they’re Singaporean, or think that they should fit a different set of stereotypes.  I see this trope constantly–an example from twitter is the question of “what salon is good with expat hair?”, and I recently received a media request to help them find “expectant expat women” who were using “local medicine” for a reality program–a request I correctly interpreted to mean that they wanted some white blonde girls who were using TCM for prenatal care to be a spectacle on a western show.

Obviously terms like “expat” and “American” are universally problematic because few people fit stereotypes (or fit them completely).  But I think that when we’re addressing a comment like “the easiest job in Singapore is expat wife” it is important to draw attention to the stereotype being addressed.

I’d also like to add the assumption of straight, but the truth is that if you are an expat wife in Singapore you are either bisexual and married to a person of the opposite sex (such as me) or you are straight.  Which is a whole other topic to get into another time (the heteronormative aspects of life in Singapore that I struggle with).

The assumption of a certain lifestyle

I know a number of expats.  None of us (American or otherwise) are members of our nationality based “club” (the American Club, the Dutch Club, the British Club and so forth).  Roughly only half have maids.  Most of us are stay at home moms–but we are involved, hands-on mothers.

Very few people come to Singapore on “expat packages” anymore.  Ravi has what is called a “local package.”  His company paid to relocate us, and put us up in a temp apartment for one month.  That is it.  We don’t get a housing allowance, or a school allowance, or any of that.  Which is not to say “feel bad for me”-I’m just sharing that the financial/corporate support is very different from 10 or 20 years ago.

What I’m getting at is that few of us have the lifestyle imagined.  Which brings me to my next point.

Statements like this only serve to push expats and locals further apart, rather than help us connect.

I am deeply grateful for my expat friends, American and otherwise.  Being an expat is a unique experience, and it helps you get through the day to know that some of your friends understand the parts with which you struggle.

I am equally grateful for my local friends.  Kirsten, J1, J2, J3, M, D, and my many local friends whom I’ve only met on twitter or via their blogs (such as Singapore Actually) are vitally important to my day to day survival in Singapore, probably more than I can ever express to them.  I am a stranger in a strange land, and they are my guides.  They’ve advised me where to find stuff, what restaurants they enjoy, recommended pest control services and dry cleaners, and they are my first line of information when I just don’t understand something.  I know they will be the people who will help me navigate the confusing process of getting Ellie into a local P1 class when the time comes.  And just as there is no universal expat experience, they have a wealth of different experiences that help me form a better, multidimensional view of the topic we’re discussing.

However, finding local friends isn’t easy.  You can’t just walk up to someone at a store or on the street and ask them, “will you be my Singaporean friend?”  In my case, social media (my blog and my twitter particuarly) and people who were willing to reach out to me were my entry to friendships with locals.  If I weren’t a social media/internet sort of person, it would be hard to find local friends.

There is an assumption in both the local and the expat communities that they are “other” from ourselves.  Statements like that only build resentment and further firm that assumption.  As an expat wife, I want to be defensive.  As a local, I might feel a twinge of resentment.

But the truth is that my local friends and I have a lot in common.

Those of us who are moms want the best future for our children.  We love them, and want them to turn into wonderful people.  We might feed them differently, or discipline them differently, but we all share the same end goal.  We like food.  We like many of the same movies.  We support each other when we’re having a bad day, and provide a shoulder to cry on.  We step in and pick each other’s kids up from school if someone is going to be late.

My friend Kirsten and I share a love of Broadway musicals.  We have a similar snarky sense of humor and I’ll miss her snark during the New Year’s Eve show, as she’s currently abroad in a graduate program.

I’ve been lucky enough to attend a local friend’s wedding reception, and another friend invited us to her home for Diwali.

I would love it if every expat had a great group of local friends.  Maybe we’d have less animosity if they did.

There are often things that aren’t easy about being an expat wife

Let me again reiterate that I am not seeking, nor do I deserve, pity.  I have a great life.  But there are things that are less easy here than they would be in my home country, and my purpose in sharing those here is to shed some light on the parts of being an expat that aren’t part of the public discourse in the same way that the parts of our life that are priviledged are.

  • It isn’t easy to be 10,000 miles away from my closest friends and family.  Yes, I skype, tweet, blog, and facebook to stay in touch.  It doesn’t make losing a relative but not being a position to fly home for the funeral easy.  It doesn’t make missing out on friend’s weddings easy.  It doesn’t make them missing out on being a daily part of the girls lives easy.  it doesn’t make days where someone posts “who wants to go to X” on Facebook and I want nothing more than to go to X with them, but can’t because I’m on the other side of the world easy.
  • It isn’t easy to learn how to navigate the ins and outs of daily life in Singapore, especially the parts that you think SHOULD be easy.  I had to learn how to use a washing machine and dryer again.  I didn’t know what to do when we lost power, and I was frustrated because it seemed like such a basic thing to know.  For that matter, I didn’t know how to call an ambulance…something that became vitally important when I was laying on my floor with a broken leg.  These moments of confusion, especially the longer I’ve been here are extremely frustrating because I feel like I *should* know how to do them.  But they’re not situations that your “moving to Singapore” guides or seminars cover.
  • It’s not always easy to explain your life to your friends back home.  Some parts are just so mundane–I take the kids to school, I do grocery shopping, I drive.  Others are weirdly different–the country is smaller than my home state (which is a small state to begin with), and I’m still not used to the nonstop heat.  But then there’s the middle ground–stuff that’s too mundane to be interesting, but not exotic enough to be interesting either–such as what it’s like to hire a handyman and navigate a home repair (we don’t have the 150 dollar deductible/then hire a handyman yourself dynamic back home).
  • It’s definitely not easy to have a maid.  I’ve written pretty extensively about this (20 posts).  But let me boil it down to some essentials.  For those of us who come from cultures where it isn’t the norm to have live-in help are ill-prepared to be effective managers of live-in help, and the MOM “training” just isn’t adequate.  There are major cultural differences.  Having a stranger live in your home, especially if this is an abnormality for your home culture is problematic.  Having a maid didn’t just fail to work out for us because she stole things from us (although obviously, that was an issue), but because I sucked at being a maid’s employer.
  • It’s not easy to raise third culture kids.  If I were raising them in the US, I’d have a lot of understanding of their day to day experiences, inasmuch as any parent has.  Raising the girls in Singapore means that they are having a radically different childhood from our own.  Which is partially the point.  But it isn’t always easy to navigate how to parent them in a way that supports their growth and respects who they are/how they identify when you don’t necessarily understand their experiences.  For me this is compounded by the fact that my children are biracial, and no matter how much I learn about Indian culture-I’m not Indian, I’m not a person of color and I will never completely understand their experiences.  Something I plan to write about is that when I was filing my police report on losing my purse in Vegas (Oh yeah, I need to share about that too), the officer asked me what race my children were and when they didn’t have biracial or “other” she asked me “what do they look like-white or asian?” and used that, to my extreme discomfort.  It’s not easy to support a child who is learning Mandarin (which I’m so excited by) when I can’t read the weekly summary of what they’re doing in Mandarin class (because it’s written in Mandarin), I can’t speak the language to help her gain vocabulary, and as she ages I can’t support her homework.

Some final thoughts

I didn’t write this post to attack whoever first said that “the easiest job in Singapore is that of Expat Wife.”  I always meant to address being an expat during my week as curator on @hellofrmsg and this was an entry point to do so.

Filed under: Culture Shock, customs, Expat to Expat Advice, Helpers, Housing, Identity, medical, money, Singapore, Third Culture Kids, With Kids | 23 Comments »

Why is my time more valuable?

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Expat Bostonians

In the six months since we fired B, I have had to balance our family schedule against that of air con service techs, pest control, dry cleaning pick up/drop off, water delivery, and the occasional handyman call.  As with service people the world over, appointments are often made within larger swaths of time; between 10 and 1, after 4, or before noon (as examples).  The problem is that without a helper, I can’t afford such lackadaisical approaches to appointment making.

At some point in dealing with each of my service companies, I’ve had to utter the following sentence “I don’t have a maid, so you need to be on time.”

What bothers me isn’t that I have to be clear that we are not the average family with a maid who can be home all day if need be, waiting for a service person to arrive.  What bothers me is that each of my companies/providers then takes scheduling so much more seriously.

My time is treated as more valuable than that of a maid.

I am uncomfortable with this, even as I appreciate that the companies I do business with are at least trying to help me out.  It feels like a difficult needle to thread.

photo source

 

Filed under: Culture Shock, Helpers, Singapore | 4 Comments »

500

Posted on May 19, 2012 by Expat Bostonians

This is my 500th post at Expat Bostonians.

I began the blog on March 8th, 2010; 2 years, 2 months and 9 or 10 days (depending on how you count the time difference) ago.  A blog seemed like the logical way to keep our friends back home apprised of what life here in the Lion City was like.  Before I moved here, the only things I knew (or thought I knew) about Singapore was that some American kid had gotten caned here when I was in high school, and that chewing gum was illegal here.

In honor of my 500th post, I thought I’d share some of my favorite posts in chronological order.

2010–Lots of factual posts (what does the money here look like), not a ton of introspection.  I think I was so busy taking in Singapore that I couldn’t really process it.

Our look see visit to Singapore — This is a favorite post because it’s my baseline.  It contains my first photos and impressions of Singapore.  This is a post I look back at to see how far I’ve come.

Awkward–My first post about hiring a helper.

4th of July, Singaporean Style–Our first big American holiday spent in Singapore, and a favorite memory to this day.  I’ve loved the American 4th of July event both years we’ve been here, and I’m looking forward to our third in a few months.

Palawan Beach–Our first visit there, and contains some of my favorite photos.

Thailand, Part 2–Describes one of the coolest things I’ve done in Southeast Asia-the Siam Safari in Phuket.  A 6 hour adventure that tried to balance eco-tourism with preserving culture, and the struggles that come with it.  I’m a nerd, so learning on vacation=YAY.  Also-BABY ELEPHANTS! Extremely long entry, but one of my all time favorites

Christmas out and about in Singapore–I was totally thrown by stores being open and seeing Christmas treated as just another state sanctioned holiday.

2011-I got to know more people and began to really participate in the blogging community here.  I started writing posts that tried to get to the why instead of the what.  WHY were things the way they were instead of a book report.

Happy (sort of ) New Years–I live tweeted the NYE special with Kirsten and this post shares some of the highlights. Sort of New Years because it was 2011 in Singapore but still 2010 in Boston.

Skin Whitening…it’s a “thing” here–One of the first posts discussing my discomfort with the way whiteness is idealized here.

Having a Maid…the bad and the ugly–Singapore practically expects you to have a maid, but few people talk about the negatives.  This post explored the negatives both from the culture clash perspective and the issues within Singapore itself (the racism and abuses).

What do I do when the power goes out and other questions I forgot to ask–just when you think you’ve figured out expat life, something happens to totally upend your sense of comfort.

Hong Kong-Goldfish Market and Street Markets–On our child-free vacation in Hong Kong, Ravi and I visited the Goldfish Market in Hong Kong and it was another really memorable vacation moment.

Bad Expat (Part 1-ur doin it rong)–In which I explain all the ways I suck at being an expat.

Seth Rogen talks about Singapore–and SG isn’t happy–this was the first time I felt like I could explain and understand both sides of a US/SG critique and conflict of humor.

Things you don’t see/hear in Singapore–After a trip home, I began to realize there are some things I never see or hear in Singapore

Maids, Cultural Expectations and the Importance of Modeling (expat to expat advice)–A post that really talks about the cultural issues (small and big) that come with having a maid.

Pink Dot 2011–I was so proud to be at Pink Dot (an celebration of all love, particularly LGBT love and the only pro-gay event in Singapore) last year, when Google stepped up as the first ever corporate sponsor.

A negative experience at a doctor’s office and maybe some news–It feels strange to put such an angry post on my “favorites/top” list.  However, I think it is well written and it clearly articulates an issue I’ve had repeatedly with older male doctors in Singapore-being condescended to/spoken to as if I were my 3 year old.  As an expat, you have to constantly negotiate cultural issues, and, in general, it is best to learn to bend and to be flexible.  However, it is also okay to have lines that you can not, under any circumstance, cross.  This experience was one of them.

Our second 4th of July in Singapore-Our second, and equally memorable 4th of July in Singapore

My tale of laptop woe grows–I take my laptop to a certified apple repair center, tragic hilarity ensues

Comparing Singaporean and American Pregnancy Guides–After having a baby in the US, I wanted to read a local pregnancy guide to figure out how the approach locally was different.

My first name is not Crystalann–I like the post more because of the really interesting conversation it inspired in the comments section about names and culture.

Validation-The post I wrote after my first fiction short story acceptance

Santa Cruz Boardwalk-A wonderful day with Ellie on vacation.  Ravi was sick, and I was pregnant, so it was one of our last big adventures just her and I before the baby arrived.  I also love the pictures.

Why I didn’t want to be in the US on 9/11-On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I was in the US and I was reminded of many of the things I don’t like about being an American, and why we have such a bad reputation abroad.

Just WHAT is in those 8 suitcases Part 1 and Part 2 –A photo essay of the kind of nonsense we bring back to Singapore from home.

Prenatal care in the US vs Singapore–Shh, don’t tell anyone, but I might like Singaporean prenatal care better.

Rhiannon Arcadia-I got to announce and post a picture of my newly born 2nd child.  Of course it’s a favorite.

An American Halloween in Singapore–We go trick or treating!

Happy Birthday Elanor–her 3rd birthday post

Slutwalk Singapore 2011–I took the girls to slutwalk because I want to raise them to be strong independent feminists.

Wicked Green Carpet and Gala–I won tickets to the black tie gala premiere of Wicked in Singapore.  My friend Kirsten and I and our lack of social skills went…hilarity ensued.

Oh Christmas Tree—We had a great Christmas Tree, until the cats went on the offensive

Disconnect-Firing B was not a highlight of my blog, but it was one of the most significant events, and for that reason, I need to include it.

2012-I’m really proud that so far in 2012, I got nominated for a Singapore Blog Award, was named a top blog by InterNations and have started contributing professionally at White As Milk.

Irresistible-The book with my short story in it was published (the short story is under a pen name, but if you read the book, you’ll be able to figure it out, trust me)

That does not mean what you think it means–English vs English FAIL

Lessons learned from my negative maid experience–I take ownership of my mistakes in the whole B debacle

What I love about Singapore that has nothing to do with my children–I had to really think about this as all my reflexive answers have to do with my kids.

Where are you from–I share a story about Ravi and wonder aloud how my 3rd culture kids are going to react to their home culture…or if they’ll even consider it their home culture

Stuff I wish I hadn’t brought to Singapore–Things that I’ve found around the house that have me wondering just what I was thinking when I brought them to Singapore

Elanor and the ACA–why health care matters–Elanor’s story (warning–possible triggers as it does graphically describe what happened to Ellie at a week of age, including how close she came to death, and includes a photo from intensive care)

When I was six–What life was like for me in small town MA as a kid in the 80′s

My misconceptions about Expat Life–Boy did I have it wrong on some things.

Ways that living in Singapore have changed me—the shallow edition

Wild Life Sydney Zoo at Darling Harbour–the highlight of our trip to Australia

My bank is trying to Punk Me-another absurd/hilarious tale of customer service hell

Filed under: Acts of Supreme Clumsiness, Asia, Attractions, Australia, Before the Move, Boston, Culture Shock, customs, Expat to Expat Advice, general places, headdesk moments, Helpers, Holidays (Not Singaporean), Hong Kong, Identity, medical, North America, Phuket, politics, Pregnant Expat, San Francisco, Singapore, Sydney, Thailand, Third Culture Kids, Travel, Travel by Continent, Country, Uniquely Singapore, US, With Kids | 4 Comments »

Maids will have 1 day off per week as of 1/1/13

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Expat Bostonians

Some of you may remember that MOM (the Ministry of Manpower) solicited opinions earlier this year as to whether maids should have a mandated day off per week rather than once per month.  I wrote this letter in support of a mandated weekly day of rest.

Today, there has been good news from the MOM, who has decided to move forward with the weekly day off.

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) introduced today a mandatory rest day for foreign domestic workers.

Under this new requirement – which will apply to foreign domestic workers whose work permits are issued or renewed from Jan 1, 2013 – employers and their worker can mutually agree on which day of the week the rest day falls.

If the employer would like the worker to work on her rest day, he should come to a mutual agreement with her on the number of rest days to forgo each month.

For each rest day forgone, the worker shall be compensated with at least one day’s wage on top of her monthly salary.

Instead of monetary compensation, the employer can also choose to give his worker a replacement rest day which shall fall within the same month.

For existing foreign domestic workers, this new regulation will not apply to the remaining tenure of their work permit.

Source

 

Is it a victory?  Absolutely.

Does it mean that those of us who care about FDW/Migrant workers are done and we can now move onto other causes to support?  Absolutely not.

  • There is still no minimum wage that a maid must make in Singapore (indeed, as I learned today, there is NO minimum wage in Singapore, period)
  • There is no cap on the number of hours a maid can work, nor a mandatory number of hours of rest per day–MOM gives suggestions, but there is no actual requirement.
  • An employer holds the passport and paperwork of the worker, leaving them without options should abuse occur and they want to leave
  • An employer can LEGALLY keep a worker from access to a cell phone, leaving the house, and dictate the smallest details of a worker’s lives, including how much food that person may eat in a day.

However, I do applaud MOM for listening to the voices of Singapore, and for changing the law.  It is an important step forward for Singapore.

Filed under: Helpers, Singapore | 3 Comments »

Expat to Expat Advice–Lessons learned from my negative maid experience

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Expat Bostonians

*If you are here in response to the TWC2 article or my rebuttal, please read the entire post before you comment*

It has been almost two months since we fired B.  I have wanted to discuss my feelings on maids and how they’re changed since everything happened, but I also wanted to allow enough time to pass that my response was measured and not just a gut-reaction.

While we have decided that a live-in helper is not right for our family, I still think that they can be an invaluable resource for a family.  I think that we had a “bad apple” as the saying goes, and that my experiences in no way should put you off the idea of hiring a maid.  However, that is not to say that I did not learn some life lessons, and were we to hire another maid, those lessons would not affect my relationship with her.

Some of these are probably just common sense, but I think they bear saying.

Lessons I’ve learned from my negative experience

1-Don’t leave your purse/wallet out.  Be aware of your cash.

Of everything that happened with B, the most understandable in retrospect was the theft of money.  Ravi and I were careless with our wallets, we didn’t monitor how much cash we had in our wallets, and in many ways, we created a situation where it was pathetically easy for B to supplement her income, regardless of how generous it might have been by Singaporean standards.  When you compare the peso or the ringgit to the SGD or the USD, the income differential is staggering.  Most people are honest, but most people will also give into temptation when it is presented on a platter.  I can’t say I’ve never cheated on a test when a teacher made it easy to do so and I didn’t study enough.  The theft of money wasn’t right, but it is understandable.  Were we to hire a new helper, I’d bring my purse into my bedroom at night, and I’d be more aware of my cash, removing temptation.

2-You are the employer, not their friend.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be friendly with your helper, or that a friendship can’t develop.  I am saying that you can’t let “friendship” get in the way of an honest evaluation of work.  If I’m truly honest with myself, there were lots of “little” issues that had been ongoing for a while–little things like the cat box wasn’t being cleaned daily as I’d requested (and could not do while pregnant)–that I didn’t bring up because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by critiquing her performance.

Her standards slipped, and I allowed them to slip by not providing appropriate feedback…because I felt uncomfortable saying “you’re not meeting my expectations” to a friend.  A friend does you a favor–but a helper isn’t doing you a favor, they’re doing work for pay, and when you put “friendship” before employer/employee, you do both of you a disservice.  I also let “friendship” blind me to the cash theft, and it was the reason I wanted to believe her instead of Elanor when E told me that B had slapped her–I didn’t WANT to believe that a “friend” would steal from me/hurt my child.

You also can’t let concern over what would happen if you fire them blind you into giving too many “extra chances.”  I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I worried about how her daughter’s school would get paid for if I ever let B go.  That I let things slide because I didn’t want to be responsible for repatriating her, or making her go to an employer she might be less happy with.

I don’t know that I have great advice as to how to achieve this goal, other than to advise you to remind yourself of the relationship, and perhaps to build regular job performance reviews (monthly? quarterly?  I’m not sure) into the routine.  My discomfort with this sort of relationship and the fact that I’m just not good at this sort of balancing act are why I probably shouldn’t be an employer.

3-Unless you actually do share a culture, don’t project your cultural values onto them

This is another delicate balancing act.

Part of the reason she’d been able to take things of mine over a long period of time was that I had never so much as poked my head in the door of B’s room.  I have a strict fairly American notion of “privacy” and because of that, I not only treated B like a friend, but I treated her like a roommate–and I would never go into a roommate’s room without her permission or invitation.  However, if we hired another maid, I might stick my head in every so often and just glance around, or ask for things like performance reviews to happen in her space.  Part of the reason I have decided against hiring a new maid is that I’m not sure I actually could do that.

Further, when B asked to go out at night, I shrugged and said sure.  I had no problem with her going out dancing.  What I figured out afterward is that she was likely moonlighting at Orchard Towers as a prostitute (I found a LOT of hotel room keys–rooms that would cost a significant portion of her monthly salary, and a lot of clothes that lent themselves to that profession, rather than the one I was paying her for).  Now, on one hand, I have no issue with prostitution.  I do, however, have an issue with the fact that as time passed, she was staying out later and later…which affected her job performance for us. There is also the secondary issue that we could be held legally responsible were she ever arrested in a raid.

Again, I chose not to address the staying out late with her as things were mostly getting done, and I wrote it off as the kind of antics I pulled when I was 21 and went out to a club the night before a mid-term was due.  The difference, of course, was that I made those bad choices in college…she made them before she was taking care of my child.

Does that mean the slap from September happened?  I know E can push my buttons a hell of a lot easier when I’m sleep deprived.  As much as my American cultural values go counter to this, were we to hire another maid, I would think very hard about a curfew on working nights…not because of the prostitution (although, again, had she been moonlighting and gotten arrested WE would have gotten in trouble–so we have my values versus actual consequences there) but because it affected her job performance, and she was not mature enough to realize that she needed to party less during the week.

We gave her far more freedom than she’d experienced at any previous job…and I think she lost sight of her priorities.  Which doesn’t make it our fault…but I think if we were to hire a maid, I’d remember the cardinal rule of classroom mangement from my teacher days–you can ALWAYS lighten up, but it’s almost impossible to become strict after giving students too much freedom/responsibility too fast.

4-Think long and hard about leaving your maid alone in your home for weeks at a time.

We found photos of a mostly naked man in our home on her phone.  There were, apparently, according to other helpers (NOW they tell me) wild parties in our home while we were out of country.

In the future, I would hesitate to leave a helper alone in my home for weeks on end (we are often gone for 2-3 weeks at a time).  Most agencies will let your helper stay with them when you are out of country.  I scoffed at that as disrespectful.  Now I might.

I’m not saying don’t do it…I’m saying think long and hard first.

In the end, all my advice boils down to one thing–don’t be so blindly trusting.  Let trust be earned, not just given blindly.  Stop and re-examine if your helpers are still worthy of your trust from time to time, and don’t let yourself be blind to things you just don’t want to see.

Looking back, I can see that I deserve some share of blame.

Helpers do become part of your family.  But I think it’s important to remember that it’s a process, and that it doesn’t happen overnight.  Trusting too fast too much, and letting the friendship that you develop with them get in the way of honest job assessment is a mistake.

In the end, I have to admit that I am probably not a great manager.  It’s certainly a reason to not get another helper that lives with us.  I felt too invested in and too responsible for B–I’m much happier with the type of relationships we’re building now with the people we’re working with.  A live out cleaner feels much more low stakes (and I don’t feel guilty over putting my jewelry box and our important papers in the office, locking the door and taking the key with me), as does a live-out baby sitter (whom I felt no guilt over being picky about her qualifications). That is what is right for us.

Singapore requires that you take a test my three year old could pass to be an employer.  They even bring up some of this in their videos that you watch before taking the test.  However, the videos are so over dramatic (the  maid who falls out of a window and dies because she didn’t listen to her ma’am, for one) that they’re hard to take seriously.

There is a LOT of peer pressure to hire a live in maid.  Other expats will say “I don’t know how you do it!” or “I’d be so lost without my helper;” hell, I’ve said those things.  People assume that you can be available at any time, and that you have support people to deal with the kids or to be at home for the installation/delivery/pickup of whatever.  It can be exceedingly frustrating to have to explain time and time again that you don’t have that support.  Don’t hire a maid just because it’s the cultural norm for expats…REALLY think about whether you can be a good employer/manager.

There are plenty of people for whom is absolutely the right choice.  Were I to get pregnant again (not going to happen, but just to say “what if”) I would absolutely need far more support, and a live in helper would be the right choice.  If Ravi traveled all the time, like some of my friends husbands do…  If I worked full time…  If I were a better manager… Any of those might make a live in maid the right choice for our family again.

Your family is your decision, and never feel like you should have to justify your choice to have or not have a maid to me or to anyone.

I own that I made mistakes as an employer.  I hope that in owning those mistakes in a public manner like this that others can gain a more balanced perspective of the negatives without the sort of xenophobic bullshit that usually gets slung around, or without trying to paint the employer as a beleaguered saint.  I would never paint all helpers with B’s brush, nor would I ever argue that I’m an innocent with no culpability.

Edited to add–This is, by far, the most popular post of the last year on my blog.  If you want to know how things are going one year after firing B, you can read this post: “Reflections on 2012-The Year without a Maid“

Filed under: Culture Shock, Expat to Expat Advice, Helpers, Singapore | 43 Comments »

Small Tidbits

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Expat Bostonians

There are a multitude of things I want to mention but none of which really merit a blog post on their own.  So let’s call this one “small tidbits”

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QPX Hair Removal Update

I tried QPX back in early December and I promised to update you guys once enough time had passed that I felt I could really evaluate how it went…   5 weeks out was the first time I felt like I had to shave my underarms after getting it done.  Once my routine settles a bit, I’m going to spend one of Elanor’s pre-school sessions getting QPX for my underarms again and for my full legs.  I’m sold!

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I want to publicly thank my friends who have been instrumental in helping me figure out my post-B existence…while some are friends in real life, many are people I’ve never met in person, who made an effort to reach out and lend a helping hand or a kind suggestion.

Laura from Expat Adventures in Singapore suggested the part time cleaning lady we’ve hired.

Notabilia suggested the service we found our new baby sitter through (which I will review at a later date)

Kelly from Our Big Expat Adventure hooked me up with our potential car leasing company, and offering to cat sit the next time we’re out of country

Claire from The Dot Diaries is helping to keep me company on Wednesday when my dishwasher is getting delivered (“some time between 10-6″) not only to catch up on our lives, but to make sure someone is home in case it’s delivered whilst I’m doing a pre-k run.

My friends EK and MP for babysitting the girls so Ravi and I could go and see Wicked this past Sunday night with the tickets we’d purchased months ago as a mutual Christmas present.

My friend EM for offering to try out being a mother’s helper

Kirsten from Funny Little World for offering up her babysitting services once she’s back in Singapore.

Thank you also to the readers who have reached out via email as well, or offered a virtual hug.

You are all appreciated and I am more grateful to you than I can say.  It is not an exaggeration to say that I don’t know that I could have gotten on the plane to come back to Singapore without you.

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I have chosen to go with a new medication that will allow me to keep breastfeeding for the time being.  I never started the medication that was hostile to it, and while formula is going to be part of our life (I just don’t have the time to pump regularly, and I don’t want to, honestly) I am hopeful that we can continue breastfeeding as Rhiannon’s primary method of feeding for the next bit of time.  I don’t want to pressure myself into putting a clock on the wall, but if I can be mentally healthy and breastfeed, I would like to do that.  If the new drug doesn’t work out, then we will revisit what decision is right for the family.

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We’ve now had the cats for a year!  I don’t blog about them much, but Gandalf and Kerowyn are doing well.  I can’t bring myself to throw out the broken baby swing because they’ve taken to using it as a bed, and seeing them curled up in it together is just sweet.  I’d show you a picture, but they haven’t been there whenever I’ve gone to get my camera.

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I finally got a smile from Rhi on camera

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Ellie’s school had a CNY party last year.  It marks the first class party that the parents weren’t invited to. Which is not to say that every parent didn’t whip out a camera and get a shot of the kids in their CNY finest.

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I am LOVING our household of just Ravi, myself and the girls.

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YA books I’ve read and enjoyed recently—

  • The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
  • The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler
  • Scored by Lauren Mclaughlin

Don’t skip them just because they’re marketed as “young adult” books.  I really discovered the YA genre when I taught middle school, and I have to say that some of the best writing I’m coming across in fiction these days is in this genre.

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If you like American politics, are on Twitter, and are a West Wing Fan, you really need to be following @Pres_Bartlet  @joshualyman  @donnatella_moss  especially during the GOP debates.  You’ll laugh so hard you’ll cry.  If you’re me, you’ll just keep hitting RT

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Using the down escalator at Shaw Center on Saturday night took a chunk out of my stroller’s wheel.  I hate using escalators with strollers, but sometimes Singapore gives you no choices.  As a PSA, be careful that your wheels are in the middle of the stair if you must use the escalator.  Secondary PSA-Motherwork at Great World City can replace a Bugaboo Bee wheel when/if needed for a small fee (it is not covered by warranty–damn)

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Okay, enough rambling from me…

Filed under: Book Review, Education, Helpers, Holidays, Pictures, politics, Random Stuff, Singapore, Theater/Shows/Events, With Kids | 22 Comments »

One week in…

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Expat Bostonians

Life without a maid and with two children…is exhausting.  Hence the lack of posting…each time I’ve had the choice, I’ve gone with sleep over posting.

Things are hopefully going to start improving soon, though.  We hired a twice a week housekeeper, and while we didn’t nail the entire house, MOST of it is clean. I finally figured out how to work the washer and the dryer. I’ve also started investigating buying a “tabletop” dishwasher as dishes are among the worst offenders in terms of time suckage–I have to boil the water, do the dishes by hand, etc.  Anything that can cut down on time spent on housekeeping is a bonus-I loathe housework and I resent all the writing time I’m losing to dishes, sweeping, and other nonsense.  I may be a stereotype in that I love to cook, but while I love few things more than feeding my loved ones, I find no reward in housework; only unending drudgery.

We also have a potential mothers helper and a babysitter lined up.

I’ve unpacked all but one suitcase, but I unpacked in such an erratic fashion, I don’t have the usual collection of “what the hell did they buy” pictures.

As I noted in my last post, Ellie has started Nursery 2, which is a five day a week program as opposed to her three days a week in Nursery 1.  The transition has been a little rough on her between the jet lag and the increased time in school…she’s been conking out very early (for her).  She likes her new class, and there are two children from her last class in the new one, so that makes her happy (although not her “best friend”).  While having her at school five days a week is good in terms of spending time with Rhi, and getting other things done, it’s also a lot of running around and I’m adjusting to that as well.  It does guarantee that we get out of the house every day during the week, though.

Originally I had planned that we would be doing a lot of Chinese New Year stuff this weekend.  However, this past week was so exhausting that we’ve mostly stayed home this weekend.  It’s been a huge deal to have Ravi home for four days, and a lot would not have gotten done without him.  I’m dreading his return to work tomorrow, as one of the biggest shifts in not having a helper is also not having another adult in the home.  It gets really lonely with only a three year old and 3 month old to talk to.  And while I’m lucky to have friends who have offered to hang out, the whole at home alone with the kids thing is still new enough that I’m just overwhelmed by the idea (which is contradictory, yes, but no less legitimate).

I’m hoping it will get easier.  With the help coming on board, adding medications back into my life (I’ve been abstaining so that I can breastfeed, but things are at a point where the medication is more important than breastfeeding), and possibly the addition of a car (as I’ve learned from friends, leasing is surprisingly affordable when put up against how much I spend on cabs) things will begin to find a routine.  With routine things will sort themselves out.  My house will never again be as clean as it was when we had B, but the privacy (and that I’ve turned her room into a pantry that I love–or will, once I fill it with shelves from IKEA) is worth it.

 

Filed under: Helpers, Singapore, With Kids | 10 Comments »

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