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Our non-profit blog was inspired by a Filipina domestic from the Middle East who left her newborn baby – with placenta still attached – at the Bahrain Gulf Air airplane toilet - upon landing in Manila, read her story here http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/this-blog-was-inspired-by-filipina.htm . Her despair and desperation inspired this blog to gather all possible stories in order to help, to inform and to empower all Filipina nannies, caregivers and maids who are working like slaves in many countries -- to liberate themselves from abuses of all forms: physical, rape, verbal, exploitation, overtime working without pay....
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In the playground of Ravenscourt Park, in Hammersmith, west London, three
nannies – Sara from Spain, Kasia from Poland and Daniela from the Czech
Republic – are sitting on a bench, watching their young charges splash in the
communal paddling pool. All are now happy in their work, but when they arrived
in Britain as au pairs, things were very different.
"I was 19 and placed with a family with a two-week baby and a two-year-old," recalls Sara. "After three weeks the parents went skiing for 10 days and left me alone with them. It was a terrifying responsibility."
Daniela, then 18, found herself living on a farm. "The children were teenagers and it turned out they wanted me to do nothing but pick apples."
Kasia, then 22, had a Muslim boss with a strange line in compliments. "He kept saying in front of the family that I was a better cook than his wife and he'd like me to be his second wife. He may have been joking, but it wasn't very funny."
All over Europe, a mass migration is taking place: the annual turnover of au pairs. Over the next month, tens of thousands of school-leavers will arrive in British homes, to – according to BAPAA, the British Au Pair Agencies Association – "be welcome as a member of the family".
The reality, however, can be very different. No conversation between parents is complete without outraged anecdotes about the Romanian who vanished after running up an £800 phone bill, or the Brazilian who plonked her charges in front of the TV all day while she entertained her boyfriend in her bedroom. Yet for every au pair or nanny taking advantage of her employers' good nature, another will be being exploited by a family who seem to think "au pair" is French for "cheap labour".
In fact, au pair means "on par", the philosophy behind the international au pair programme. "The definition is very clear," says Sandra Landau, BAPAA's chairman. "It's a woman, or sometimes man, aged between 17 and 27 on a cultural programme. They should work between 25 and 35 hours a week for pocket money of at least £60 outside London, £75 in London, and be allowed two days off. They should only do light housework and they should not be left in sole charge of children under two."
But while there are around 10,000 "official" au pairs in Britain, BAPAA suspects that as many as 90,000 more are working under the tag. And with no one enforcing the official guidelines, the interpretation of their role can vary as much as British summer weather patterns. "Some people push the boundaries," says John Meyer who runs online agency theaupaircompany.com. "There are families who expect au pairs to polish the silver, clean the skirting boards and vacuum every room."
With the cost of living soaring more and more, people are finding the only viable way to hold onto their jobs and their sanity is by employing an extra pair of hands. A recent survey by Gumtree, the online jobs forum, showed that 48 per cent of Britons pay for domestic help. But with a qualified nanny costing as much as £500 a week and a good cleaner charging between £8 and £10 an hour, people are increasingly viewing au pairs as the only affordable option.
"The demographic of the typical family looking for an au pair is changing," says Meyer. "It used to be double income, affluent ABC1 families from Kensington and Surrey, but now we are getting more and more down-to-earth working families from places like Hull, Leeds, Wales, who've realised that an au pair can be the most cost-effective form of help."
A cursory glance at Gumtree quickly reveals just how far people are prepared to try their luck. One reveals a mother looking for someone to take her two-year-old son to and from nursery for £60 a week. "Unfortunately," she adds. "I have got a one- bedroom flat but if you don't mind sleeping in the lounge that is all up to you."
Another asks for a weekend nanny for a toddler, from Saturday morning to Sunday evening. Pay £50. A father wants a nanny for his twin sons (one with special needs) during a holiday in Spain. "This will not be a holiday for you," it warns, adding that hours will be 8am until late, and the successful candidate will get one day off a week. Pay will be £40 a day, cash.
"I have had to remove adverts from my site from men without children who are actually looking for a live-in housekeeper for £60 a week," says Meyer. "But the thing is some people are willing and able to do that kind of work. The guidelines say au pairs shouldn't do gardening but some may happily offer to paint your yard. The key is communications. If a family wants breakfast in bed every morning they need to state it clearly at the time of interview so they find someone who is happy to do that."
The boundaries have been further blurred by the extension of the EU. Around 80 per cent of au pairs are estimated to come from the former eastern bloc and are often prepared to tolerate pay and conditions that would have Swedes and Germans rushing home to mummy in tears. Then there is the proliferation of online agencies which enable employers to take on au pairs themselves for far smaller fees than those charged by the old-school agencies, which vet candidates and employers.
"Some agencies can be totally unscrupulous and have made things dangerous," says Sandra Landau. "Without proper checks, a family has no idea what kind of girl they're getting and the girl has no idea of what kind of family. A couple of agencies have just been reported for allowing Nigerians to post, pretending to be British families, asking au pairs for money to arrange their flights and visas."
Sworn enemies of au pairs are traditional, qualified nannies, outraged at seeing themselves usurped by 19-year-old Bulgarians who have never changed a nappy. "It used to be that nanny knew best and we were seen as Mary Poppins with lots of respect," says Victoria Manders Barnes, 29, a nanny for three years, who works for the Tinies nanny agency.
"Now there is no respect. People want more for their money and they really do get every last penny's worth out of you. Families now think that we should do everything from being a cleaner to being a dog walker. I don't agree with this. I'm a professional and I've been hired to love and care for your child – not to juggle the job with being a PA. But a good percentage of nannies are young girls straight out of college who don't stand up for themselves and are naive."
As the influx of Turks, Romanians and Slovaks continues, parents who cling to the old-fashioned notion of getting what you pay for are beginning to wonder if they have missed a trick.
Charlotte Murray, a magazine advertising director and mother of two, who pays her nanny between £400 and £500 a week, recalls a dinner party she attended in west London. At 1am, she announced she was leaving because she didn't feel she could keep her nanny up any longer. "A woman turned to me and laughed. 'Darling,' she said, 'I haven't given getting back in time a thought for years. You must get yourself an au pair. So much more malleable.'
"Murmurings across the table confirmed what I had long suspected. I was the last person I knew who had a proper nanny, and paid her a proper wage. I have lost count of the number of times I have cringed, hearing parents boast about how cheap the help is these days, how they thank God for the Polish, and what they get for their money. One couple had two au pairs and used them as cleaners, nannies and cooks. Sure, one lot left. But the agency sent replacements within 24 hours."
Another popular option, for those who can organise the visa, is a nanny from developing countries. Most are paid around £300 a week with room and board, but often they are expected to work round the clock.
Occasionally, the situation turns from exploitation to abuse. Kalayaan, a charity which helps domestic workers from outside the EU, reports that of the workers they deal with, most work 16 hours a day, seven days a week, for an average of £1 an hour. Many are not given beds or regular meals and are physically and sexually abused. A spokesman for the charity says: "We get calls from people who say: 'I'd like to offer one of these poor people a job.' We say: 'Wonderful, what will they earn?' and they reply: 'But I'm giving them a room, I'm not going to pay them.'"
===================
London: Stella McCartney has revealed that she is uncomfortable with the word “nanny” and prefers to address her as “a friend”. The fashion designer, whose children are all under the age of seven, had earlier spoken about feeling overwhelmed as a working mother and also about her guilt for not “being a mother 100 per cent”.
The
40-year-old revealed she had both a house-keeper and a nanny to allow
her to run her multi-million pound fashion empire preferred by the likes
of Kate Moss, Yasmin Le Bon and Kate Winslet.
“I have a housekeeper, and a nanny, though I find that word jarring. I tell her, ‘I just want to call you a friend’,” a leading daily has quoted her as telling a magazine.
“It is really easy to get wrapped up in it and stress out about the kids, stress out about work. You have to constantly review it and say, is this doable?” she said.
And while she may have enjoyed the privileges of being born into music royalty, the mother of four is determined not to let her children take her self-made wealth for granted. Speaking about her own upbringing with music legend Sir Paul McCartney, worth a reported 500 million-pound, she said that she was never spoilt.
“He is an incredibly generous man, emotionally and financially. But we were never spoilt or handed wads of money,” she explained.
“My parents were first generation wealthy, they earned their money, they didn’t inherit it. I never felt entitled, and I do not feel entitled.
“I’m a worker, and I let me kids know that you work for money, and that if you take them out for pizza, it costs money,” she added.
McCartney gave birth to her second daughter Reiley in 2010, and has a five-year-old daughter Bailey, and two sons Miller, seven, and Beckett, four with her husband Alasdhair Willis. She said that she had ruled out having any more children after she “packed them in my thirties.”
SOURCE: http://zeenews.india.com/entertainment/and-more/stella-mccartney-prefers-calling-her-kids-nanny-a-friend_107077.htm
Our non-profit blog was inspired by a Filipina domestic from the Middle East who left her newborn baby – with placenta still attached – at the Bahrain Gulf Air airplane toilet - upon landing in Manila, read her story here http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/this-blog-was-inspired-by-filipina.htm . Her despair and desperation inspired this blog to gather all possible stories in order to help, to inform and to empower all Filipina nannies, caregivers and maids who are working like slaves in many countries -- to liberate themselves from abuses of all forms: physical, rape, verbal, exploitation, overtime working without pay....
The reputation of
Filipina nannies and maids are not good and their hard long hours of work are despised and not appreciated and
they are known to be "cheap and
subservient" as seen in this article from England.
The root cause of poverty in the
Philippines is American Imperialism read more here http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/philippinesustroops-out-now-true.html
Join and support the anti-imperialist
groups in the Philippines and in other countries read here http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/anti-imperialist-groups-cordillera.html
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The silent abuse suffered by nannies and au pairs
A mass migration of au pairs to Britain is in full swing. But, as Julia Llewellyn Smith reports, some are on their way to hardship and even abuse
7:16PM BST 06 Sep 2008
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2695891/The-silent-abuse-suffered-by-nannies-and-au-pairs.html
"I was 19 and placed with a family with a two-week baby and a two-year-old," recalls Sara. "After three weeks the parents went skiing for 10 days and left me alone with them. It was a terrifying responsibility."
Daniela, then 18, found herself living on a farm. "The children were teenagers and it turned out they wanted me to do nothing but pick apples."
Kasia, then 22, had a Muslim boss with a strange line in compliments. "He kept saying in front of the family that I was a better cook than his wife and he'd like me to be his second wife. He may have been joking, but it wasn't very funny."
All over Europe, a mass migration is taking place: the annual turnover of au pairs. Over the next month, tens of thousands of school-leavers will arrive in British homes, to – according to BAPAA, the British Au Pair Agencies Association – "be welcome as a member of the family".
The reality, however, can be very different. No conversation between parents is complete without outraged anecdotes about the Romanian who vanished after running up an £800 phone bill, or the Brazilian who plonked her charges in front of the TV all day while she entertained her boyfriend in her bedroom. Yet for every au pair or nanny taking advantage of her employers' good nature, another will be being exploited by a family who seem to think "au pair" is French for "cheap labour".
In fact, au pair means "on par", the philosophy behind the international au pair programme. "The definition is very clear," says Sandra Landau, BAPAA's chairman. "It's a woman, or sometimes man, aged between 17 and 27 on a cultural programme. They should work between 25 and 35 hours a week for pocket money of at least £60 outside London, £75 in London, and be allowed two days off. They should only do light housework and they should not be left in sole charge of children under two."
But while there are around 10,000 "official" au pairs in Britain, BAPAA suspects that as many as 90,000 more are working under the tag. And with no one enforcing the official guidelines, the interpretation of their role can vary as much as British summer weather patterns. "Some people push the boundaries," says John Meyer who runs online agency theaupaircompany.com. "There are families who expect au pairs to polish the silver, clean the skirting boards and vacuum every room."
With the cost of living soaring more and more, people are finding the only viable way to hold onto their jobs and their sanity is by employing an extra pair of hands. A recent survey by Gumtree, the online jobs forum, showed that 48 per cent of Britons pay for domestic help. But with a qualified nanny costing as much as £500 a week and a good cleaner charging between £8 and £10 an hour, people are increasingly viewing au pairs as the only affordable option.
"The demographic of the typical family looking for an au pair is changing," says Meyer. "It used to be double income, affluent ABC1 families from Kensington and Surrey, but now we are getting more and more down-to-earth working families from places like Hull, Leeds, Wales, who've realised that an au pair can be the most cost-effective form of help."
A cursory glance at Gumtree quickly reveals just how far people are prepared to try their luck. One reveals a mother looking for someone to take her two-year-old son to and from nursery for £60 a week. "Unfortunately," she adds. "I have got a one- bedroom flat but if you don't mind sleeping in the lounge that is all up to you."
Another asks for a weekend nanny for a toddler, from Saturday morning to Sunday evening. Pay £50. A father wants a nanny for his twin sons (one with special needs) during a holiday in Spain. "This will not be a holiday for you," it warns, adding that hours will be 8am until late, and the successful candidate will get one day off a week. Pay will be £40 a day, cash.
"I have had to remove adverts from my site from men without children who are actually looking for a live-in housekeeper for £60 a week," says Meyer. "But the thing is some people are willing and able to do that kind of work. The guidelines say au pairs shouldn't do gardening but some may happily offer to paint your yard. The key is communications. If a family wants breakfast in bed every morning they need to state it clearly at the time of interview so they find someone who is happy to do that."
The boundaries have been further blurred by the extension of the EU. Around 80 per cent of au pairs are estimated to come from the former eastern bloc and are often prepared to tolerate pay and conditions that would have Swedes and Germans rushing home to mummy in tears. Then there is the proliferation of online agencies which enable employers to take on au pairs themselves for far smaller fees than those charged by the old-school agencies, which vet candidates and employers.
"Some agencies can be totally unscrupulous and have made things dangerous," says Sandra Landau. "Without proper checks, a family has no idea what kind of girl they're getting and the girl has no idea of what kind of family. A couple of agencies have just been reported for allowing Nigerians to post, pretending to be British families, asking au pairs for money to arrange their flights and visas."
Sworn enemies of au pairs are traditional, qualified nannies, outraged at seeing themselves usurped by 19-year-old Bulgarians who have never changed a nappy. "It used to be that nanny knew best and we were seen as Mary Poppins with lots of respect," says Victoria Manders Barnes, 29, a nanny for three years, who works for the Tinies nanny agency.
"Now there is no respect. People want more for their money and they really do get every last penny's worth out of you. Families now think that we should do everything from being a cleaner to being a dog walker. I don't agree with this. I'm a professional and I've been hired to love and care for your child – not to juggle the job with being a PA. But a good percentage of nannies are young girls straight out of college who don't stand up for themselves and are naive."
As the influx of Turks, Romanians and Slovaks continues, parents who cling to the old-fashioned notion of getting what you pay for are beginning to wonder if they have missed a trick.
Charlotte Murray, a magazine advertising director and mother of two, who pays her nanny between £400 and £500 a week, recalls a dinner party she attended in west London. At 1am, she announced she was leaving because she didn't feel she could keep her nanny up any longer. "A woman turned to me and laughed. 'Darling,' she said, 'I haven't given getting back in time a thought for years. You must get yourself an au pair. So much more malleable.'
"Murmurings across the table confirmed what I had long suspected. I was the last person I knew who had a proper nanny, and paid her a proper wage. I have lost count of the number of times I have cringed, hearing parents boast about how cheap the help is these days, how they thank God for the Polish, and what they get for their money. One couple had two au pairs and used them as cleaners, nannies and cooks. Sure, one lot left. But the agency sent replacements within 24 hours."
Another popular option, for those who can organise the visa, is a nanny from developing countries. Most are paid around £300 a week with room and board, but often they are expected to work round the clock.
"When I was pregnant with my first child, so many people who would
consider themselves liberals advised me to get a Filipina because they were
'cheap and subservient'," says Clare Wood, 39, an artist from north
London. "At a party the other day, some friends were moaning because their
Filipina was having the audacity to take her annual leave – in other words, go
home and see her children."
Occasionally, the situation turns from exploitation to abuse. Kalayaan, a charity which helps domestic workers from outside the EU, reports that of the workers they deal with, most work 16 hours a day, seven days a week, for an average of £1 an hour. Many are not given beds or regular meals and are physically and sexually abused. A spokesman for the charity says: "We get calls from people who say: 'I'd like to offer one of these poor people a job.' We say: 'Wonderful, what will they earn?' and they reply: 'But I'm giving them a room, I'm not going to pay them.'"
===================
Stella McCartney prefers calling her kids’ nanny ‘a friend’
London: Stella McCartney has revealed that she is uncomfortable with the word “nanny” and prefers to address her as “a friend”. The fashion designer, whose children are all under the age of seven, had earlier spoken about feeling overwhelmed as a working mother and also about her guilt for not “being a mother 100 per cent”.
“I have a housekeeper, and a nanny, though I find that word jarring. I tell her, ‘I just want to call you a friend’,” a leading daily has quoted her as telling a magazine.
“It is really easy to get wrapped up in it and stress out about the kids, stress out about work. You have to constantly review it and say, is this doable?” she said.
And while she may have enjoyed the privileges of being born into music royalty, the mother of four is determined not to let her children take her self-made wealth for granted. Speaking about her own upbringing with music legend Sir Paul McCartney, worth a reported 500 million-pound, she said that she was never spoilt.
“He is an incredibly generous man, emotionally and financially. But we were never spoilt or handed wads of money,” she explained.
“My parents were first generation wealthy, they earned their money, they didn’t inherit it. I never felt entitled, and I do not feel entitled.
“I’m a worker, and I let me kids know that you work for money, and that if you take them out for pizza, it costs money,” she added.
McCartney gave birth to her second daughter Reiley in 2010, and has a five-year-old daughter Bailey, and two sons Miller, seven, and Beckett, four with her husband Alasdhair Willis. She said that she had ruled out having any more children after she “packed them in my thirties.”
SOURCE: http://zeenews.india.com/entertainment/and-more/stella-mccartney-prefers-calling-her-kids-nanny-a-friend_107077.htm
Nathan @ My Nanny Contract March 6, 2012 at 6:41 PM
I
can understand the desire to use a moniker like 'friend' for the nanny,
but the mother needs to be careful. She's an employer and the boss of
the nanny, while the nanny is an employee. While the relationship can
and should be cordial, it also needs to be a professional one.
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This blog was inspired by a Filipina domestic from the Middle East who abandonned her baby born inside airline toilet upon landing in Manila
http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/this-blog-was-inspired-by-filipina.html
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http://filipina-nannies-caregivers.blogspot.ca/2013/05/woman-you-are-face-of-god-women.html
All Filipina nannies, caregivers, domestic maids
arriving in Canada, USA, and everywhere in the world
-- should have an EMPOWERMENT DAY
-- an orientation day, an introduction day
-- wherein they are told their rights and
-- wherein they are trained to defend themselves from all kinds of abuses and exploitation
-- especially fight against - working 24 hours a day - everyday - within 7 days a week.
-- All Filipina maids should keep a DAILY LOG SHEET on how many hours they work and what kind of extra work they do, TO PROVE they are being EXPLOITED after their 7 hours or 8 hours shift - that they work 24 hours everyday, 7 days a week!
SISTERHOOD OF CAREGIVERS
We suggest that all organizations like AAFQ establish a Sisterhood of Caregivers -- wherein a member adopts a NEWCOMER caregiver for a year -- to be her guide and mentor, moral support and prevention -- from becoming a slave.
I am a witness to the suffering of my people. I am a chronicler of truth and a catalyst of change... (from The Scholastican)
arriving in Canada, USA, and everywhere in the world
-- should have an EMPOWERMENT DAY
-- an orientation day, an introduction day
-- wherein they are told their rights and
-- wherein they are trained to defend themselves from all kinds of abuses and exploitation
-- especially fight against - working 24 hours a day - everyday - within 7 days a week.
-- All Filipina maids should keep a DAILY LOG SHEET on how many hours they work and what kind of extra work they do, TO PROVE they are being EXPLOITED after their 7 hours or 8 hours shift - that they work 24 hours everyday, 7 days a week!
SISTERHOOD OF CAREGIVERS
We suggest that all organizations like AAFQ establish a Sisterhood of Caregivers -- wherein a member adopts a NEWCOMER caregiver for a year -- to be her guide and mentor, moral support and prevention -- from becoming a slave.
I am a witness to the suffering of my people. I am a chronicler of truth and a catalyst of change... (from The Scholastican)
USA SLAVERY of Philippines. U.S.TROOPS OUT NOW! True Independence history of the Philippines
