Comforts, and Discomforts, Of Domestic Assistance
June 23, 2006
A business trip recently took my wife to Taiwan for a few days. Plotting strategy for solo parenting, I found myself thinking back a few months to the last time she left. I struggled getting all three kids out the door to school each morning, even with things going fairly smoothly and the kids behaving well. I had to let eight-year-old Jacob ride off by himself and accept that Eli and Anna would be late.
Still, I got them up, dressed, fed, cleaned and on their way, with lunches and completed homework in their backpacks and I did it myself, without the help of an ayi (nanny). If you don't think this is a big deal, you are right. You have also never lived as an expat in China. Around here, it could be grounds for someone to question my sanity.
It's not like we forgo domestic assistance. We have two and a half helpers: Ding ayi takes care of two-and-a-half-year old Anna every day from 11:30 a.m. when preschool lets out until she leaves at 6:00 p.m.; Yu Ying ayi cleans the house Monday through Friday; and Mr. Li, a cook, makes dinner two or three times a week. (Ayi translates roughly to auntie and is the word used to describe household help. It is quite disrespectful for a child to address an adult by their first name without a title.)
We inherited Yu Ying and Mr. Li from our predecessors and while we like them very much, having three employees feels like overkill. Downsizing is a very reasonable option, but it's a difficult decision because all three people depend on their income from us. Despite all this help, many would consider us understaffed because we don't have help before 9 a.m. or after 6 p.m. or on weekends. We are lucky that both of us are around a lot; I almost always work at home, while Rebecca is able to do so when necessary and rarely has to travel extensively.
Many of our friends and neighbors are not so lucky. Many people posted here cover all of China, or even Asia. We know many men and a few women, working for everything from the International Monetary Fund to Deloitte, who are gone for weeks at a time, sometimes popping back in for weekends before heading back to the nearby airport.
In such cases, it is understandable that an ayi ends up playing such an important role to a mother with several young children. We have a bit of the opposite problem -- our boys don't really accept the ayis' dominion over them. Many a night, we've had an evening out on the town interrupted by repeated phone calls -- "When are you coming home? Where are you?" The ayi tells them to go to bed and they say, "No, call my dad." They never behaved like that with babysitters at home, but it took them about two minutes to size up the situation and realize what they could get away with. Ayis often treat the children as the boss, despite our repeated and firm admonitions not to do so.
Many of the kids who came here at a younger age (like Anna) don't have this problem and have wonderful relationships with their ayi, from whom they also learn to speak fluent Chinese. Ding speaks English quite well, which makes things much easier for us but also hampers all of our Chinese language development.
A few months after arriving here, we were speaking with an expat who has lived here for years. She asked how our transitions were going and how the kids were doing. We said everything is great and the kids have thrived, but the mornings remain a scrum, even with both of us helping shepherd the kids through their routines.
"Why don't you have an ayi helping you?" she asked.
"They don't start that early."
"Well, change that or hire another ayi just for the morning."
"No, we're not used to that. We don't need another person buzzing around our house at 7 a.m."
"Get over it."
But we don't want to get over it in part because those sometimes-difficult morning hours are also solid family time.
We had some help back in New Jersey, with a nanny watching our youngest for most of the last five years. But this is much more omnipresent and it also creates an entire caste system that I have to oversee. Yu Ying is from a rural province and is illiterate, never having attended a single day of school, while both Ding and Mr. Li are Beijingers with high school educations. There is a certain amount of hierarchical jostling about which I am only dimly aware, and I prefer it that way.
One way we deal with what is for us an uncomfortable position is grossly overpaying, making us either very kind employers or total patsies. We basically paid everyone what they asked for, which turns out to be 50% more than most expats pay and probably 100% more than most Chinese. At around $300 a month they make more than most professors here. We still pay all three workers combined just over half what we paid a single nanny at home.
For some perspective on how cushy the Monday-Friday, less than 9-5 jobs working for us are, consider the nice young girl who works at a nearby grocery store. Noticing that she always seemed to be there, I asked her if she ever got a day off. "Yes," she replied with a smile. "Two days a month."
But it remains hard for us to get used to this employer situation. It often feels like we are living like British tea plantation overseers in India, circa 1900. Many expats seem to really enjoy living this fake rich lifestyle, but it's uncomfortable for me. We try to be respectful and make sure the kids are the same, pushing them to say please and thank you, and pick up after themselves rather than waiting for an ayi to swoop down. When one of us ends up on our own, we batten down the hatches and try to enjoy some special time with our kids. And we always try to remember, and remind our kids, just how lucky we are and how unusual this arrangement actually is.
家有保姆的苦与乐
太太要去台湾出差几天，我又得做单身父亲了。不由得回想起前几个月她不在家的日子。每天早上，我都要手忙脚乱地送三个孩子出门。虽然事事顺利，孩子们个个听话，我还是狼狈不堪，不得不让刚刚八岁的雅各布(Jacob)自己骑车去上学，明知艾利(Eli)和安娜(Anna)恐怕要迟到也无计可施。
不管怎么说，这次还是一样，早晨我把他们一一叫醒、穿戴整齐、安排好早饭，再带上午饭和作业。全都靠我一个人，没有阿姨帮忙。你要觉得这没什么了不起，也是对的，不过你肯定没在中国生活过──作为一个外国人。这这里，如果这些活你全都自己包揽，肯定会有人觉得你脑子有问题。
我们并不是没请人帮忙做家务。实际上，我们请了两个半帮手。丁阿姨每天上午11:30学前班放学到下午6:00负责照顾两岁半的安娜；郁英（音）阿姨周一到周五负责打扫卫生；还有厨师李先生，每周来做两、三次饭。（在这里，人们通常称保姆叫“阿姨”，小孩子如果直接称呼大人的名字是很不礼貌的。）
在我们搬进现在这套房子之前，郁阿姨和李师傅就为这套房子的前一家房客干活。我们也很喜欢他俩，不过一户人家有三个保姆似乎也太过分了。削减人手势在必行。不过他们都很需要这份工钱，所以我们也很难决定谁去谁留。尽管有这些人手，恐怕很多人还是会觉得不够，因为每天早上9点之前，或者下午6点之后，或者整个周末，我们都没人帮忙。我家还好，我经常在家工作，瑞贝卡(Rebecca)若有必要也能在家，也很少到处出差。
不过很多邻居和朋友可就没这么好运了。很多人虽然工作岗位在北京，但要负责整个中国甚至整个亚洲的业务。我就认识不少人，他们有的在国际货币基金组织(International Monetary Fund)任职，有的在德勤(Deloitte)，经常一出差就是好几周，偶尔回来过个周末，紧接著又要赶著去机场了。
这种情况下，对那些带著几个孩子的职业女性来说，请个阿姨就非常重要了。不过我家有点不同──男孩子不喜欢受阿姨管教。有好几次，我们俩晚上有事出门，却总会接到家里的电话──“你们几点回家？你们在哪儿？”阿姨让他们上床睡觉，他们断然拒绝：“不，给我爸爸打电话。”他们跟阿姨相处的情况与他们在美国时跟临时照顾他们的人相处时很不一样。不过认真想上一会儿，他们也会安静下来。阿姨们总是像老板对待员工一样对待孩子们，我们说过多少次也无济于事。
很多很小就来到中国的孩子（像安娜）一般都没有这种问题，他们和阿姨相处很好，学会了流利的中文。丁阿姨的英文说得很好，这给我们带来不少便利，但也影响了我们在中文上的进步。
在北京安顿之后几个月，我们和在这儿住了好几年的一位外籍朋友聊天。她问起我们适应得怎样，孩子们过得如何，等等。我们说，都不错，孩子们也挺好，就是每天早上都很忙乱，哪怕我俩都在也还是忙得不可开交。
“干吗不请个阿姨帮忙呢？”她问。
“他们来不了这么早。”
“那，给他们换个时间，要么干脆再请一个，专门早上来。”
“这不行，我们可受不了每天早上7点都有人来按门铃。”
“克服一下吧。”
但我们并不想克服这一点。有时候，正是这种清晨的忙乱才是家人共处的宝贵瞬间。
在新泽西的时候，我们也请人帮忙做家务。有个保姆帮我们照看孩子，前后差不多整整五年。但在北京，家里有时同时有不止一个保姆出入，这也产生出一种等级秩序，对此我也只能视而不见。郁阿姨来自偏远的农村，不识字，从没上过学。丁阿姨和李师傅都是北京人，读过高中。他们中间肯定发生过等级冲突，我隐约有些感觉，不过我不想作更多的反应。
为了对付我们感到不舒服的处境，我们采取的一个办法是付高薪，哪怕让自己显得太好心或者太傻。基本上我们是照他们自己的开价付工钱的，结果比大多数外籍员工付的保姆费高出50%还多，恐怕比大多数中国家庭支付的要高出100%。每月300美元左右的薪水让他们比周围有些大学教授挣得还多。但他们三个人的工钱加起来也只不过是我们在美国请一位保姆所花费用的一半。
要想知道他们在我家干活（周一到周五，每天不足8小时）有多轻松，只要看看附近一家杂货店的年轻女孩就能明白。我看她总在店里上班，就去问她有没有假期。“有啊，”她笑著说，“每月有两天。”
但我们还是很难适应这种雇主的角色，常常觉得自己就像二十世纪初在印度监管茶园的英国人。在这里的很多外国人其实很享受这种貌似富人的生活方式，但我们不行。我们尽量礼貌待人，也教孩子们要有礼貌，严格要求他们说“请”和“谢谢”，自己收拾东西而不要等著阿姨来帮忙。我们一旦忙完，就赶紧关好门，享受跟孩子们在一起的难得时光。我们总是尽量提醒自己，也提醒孩子们，我们是多么的幸运，而这种生活方式又是多么的不寻常。
ALAN PAUL
