Of babysitters and domestic helpers

I hired my first domestic helper, now called “kasambahay,” when my firstborn was seven months old. Niknik, quite dark with a big body build, came from one of the barrios, now called barangay, in my hometown.

It was Niknik’s first time in Manila and it was barely my second month in a national government office also in Manila. To entrust my baby to a “yaya,” I had to have complete trust in her, who also had to multitask as a domestic helper. Otherwise, focusing on the job would have been impossible. It’s a working mom’s dilemma. Work-from-home moms were then unheard of.

Four years later, it became necessary to hire two household members, one as yaya for my four young girls and the other for household chores. At the time, it was quite a breeze to ask a relative from the province to find a kasambahay for me.

The kasambahay law was nonexistent at the time. But working full time in a quasijudicial office whose mandate is to resolve employer-employee disputes or labor-management issues, I strictly observed labor laws such as the minimum wage, eight-hour work, days off, paying salaries on time, and treating the babysitter-domestic helper like a real kasama sa bahay.

I didn’t have to lock anything as I never had a kasambahay who stole stuff from the house but, I’ve had two who, I learned later, physically hurt two of my four kids while I was working an hour away from home. It’s never tolerable so I fired them without separation pay, of course.

I had a good kasambahay, Toning, who asked me to allow her young son to stay with us. I agreed. She once asked me if she could bring my youngest child with her on her day off. I agreed. In hindsight, it would have been my greatest nightmare if Toning never returned, with my youngest girl in tow. Lucky me, scammers were not yet in vogue!

I had a short-lived kasambahay who moved to my younger sisters in Quezon City. A few years later, the kasambahay became our cousin’s wife, with my sisters Marlyn and Bernadette as witnesses to their civil wedding.

I had a teenage-looking kasambahay named Nita, who agreed to stick with me when the family moved in August 1980 from San Juan to San Pedro. Just a change of saint’s name though. Fast forward to 2021. I attended the novena for my deceased aunt in Leyte. Who did I see as the prayer leader? Nita! Now a grandma, I gave her what I considered her deserved decades-late loyalty pay. It never occurred to me that I’d see her again 40 years later in our hometown!

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I’ve stopped hiring kasambahay when my four grownup daughters were already in college. Aside from teaching my brood independence and self-reliance, a kasambahay has become unnecessary in my household as all appliances are now push-button. Having a kasambahay has become rare, too. With the advent of technology, they prefer to work abroad and receive pay in dollars—in Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, the United States, or in Europe. They also get to see first-world countries and somehow level up their way of living.

Joan is my most admired yaya. She’s the loyal, 20-year yaya, so far, of my eldest granddaughter, Lucille, a pretty person with disability turning 25 in October. Joan was a single, slim, unsmiling young lady when she joined my daughter’s household. She later married, had a daughter, now a teenager, and through the years, she remained as Lucille’s yaya, treating her as her own daughter. No longer slim, Joan has also transformed into a chatty, laughing lady. Off on weekends to be with her own family, Joan is rare. She’s family.