With more and more women taking up full-time jobs, looking for a nanny to care for toddlers is becoming common place but has brought a downer with it. The way the maid speaks, acts and behaves is keenly observed and adopted by the child in her care, causing behavioural issues in the child and sometimes even a hurdle in parent-child bonding. Sangeeta Yadav speaks with experts who advise spending quality time with the child or opt for a joint family
For 35-year-old Ranjita Mehra, a senior manager with an MNC in Gurgaon, managing her three-year-old son Rohan has become quite a task. Since his birth, she has a fulltime maid Anita (42) to take care of him. Mehra goes to work at 8 am. She hurriedly eats her breakfast and kisses Rohan goodbye saying, “mama has to go to work”. It is left to Anita to bathe, dress and feed him on time and also put him to bed for his afternoon nap. Wanting to spend quality time with her son, Mehra strives to return home around 6 pm only to see that her son is happy playing with Anita and has not missed her at all.
Mehra is not alone watching her child getting uncomfortably attached to the nanny. There are many parents like her who are feeling insecure due to the influence the ayaah has on their child.
Sheela Khanna (32) who is mostly busy with kitty parties, shopping and travelling, has little time for her four-year-old daughter Pariniti. Sheela was in for a rude shock when her daughter said to her one day: “Kya hai motiIJ lappad dungi ek. Mujhe game khelne de.”
“I was shocked to hear my daughter speaking like this. Earlier, she used to speak in English but I she learnt this lingo from the maid Roopa. I wanted to fire her instantly and take care of my daughter herself but Pariniti is so attached to Roopa that I couldn’t bring myself to do it,” Sheela says.
With more and more women working, they have no option but to hire a full-time maid and leave the child to be raised by a complete stranger. According to an expert, around 60 per cent of the families keep nannies or maids to bring up their children and do other household chores.
“Parents are spoilt for choice. They prefer to work and leave the child in the ayaah’s care. It is high time that the parents, especially men, take some responsibility in bringing up the child. leaving the toddler with a maid for a long time creates a distance between the parents and the child. It takes a lot of time to reunite with the child,” Dr Geetanjali Sharma, Gurgaon-based marriage and relationship counselor with familymarriagecounsellor.com, says.
It is not just the attachment, but the way of talking, dressing and behaviour which also gets affected.
Twentyseven-year-old Ritu Singh was in for a shock when her 18-month-old son while counting from 1 to 15 said gyara for 11. She, of course, knew from where her daughter has picked up the wrong pronunciation— from her full-time nanny-cum-cook.
Counselors say that it’s natural for children to copy everything that they see as they are in the learning process. If the nanny is the only person they see for hours on end, they will do whatever they do, including picking up a broom or a duster and going around cleaning the house. Parents need to understand that the nanny is not a parent. She sees looking after the child as a job.
She knows that if she doesn’t do her job she will get scolded so the she tries all the tricks to feed the child, be it force feeding him, making false promises or even threatening him. A parent, on the other hand, will have more compassion and will reason with the child.
“Apart from being indisciplined, children who are brought up by maids develop insecurity, confusion and have low self-esteem. The ramifications can sometimes become very serious. No matter how much the parents try to reconnect with the child, the void can never be filled,” Sharma states.
Meenal Arora, director of Shemrock Play School in the Capital, has a similar viewpoint. “Children crying for the maid and not for the parents is common these days. There are cases where some children develop separation anxiety when the maid goes on leave. A parent once told me that her son stopped eating when his maid left the job. If the parents decide to do away with the maid they should first speak with the child and make him understand that the maid has to leave for genuine reasons. Of course, it is not easy to make a three-year-old understand why the maid has to leave, one can avoid the tantrums a child may throw once the maid has gone,” Arora explains.
According to Sharma, child neglect has become endemic to society. “Even if parents take time out for the child, they are tired from working all day that they have very limited attention and energy for the child. In such cases, living in a joint family is a good option. Putting a child in the crèche is also an option for many parents. At least the child will spend his time playing with other children and not pick up bad habits from the maid. The fact that he will also learn along the way is an added advantage,” Sharma says.
As per the brain research theory, the age from zero to six is very critical for the brain development in the spheres of socio-emotional, cognitive and language development in a child. “A child is born with 100 per cent brain cell. The environment he lives in, affects the development of the child. If they lack confidence and other basic needs, their brain cell dies. The foundation stage is the most important period of the child as they absorb and learn everything like a sponge. It isn’t only important for education, but also for the well-being, physical and mental health,” Arora tells you.
The solution is not that parents should not keep maids. The problem lies in the fact that parents have forgotten that the maid is not a replacement for the parent. “The maid’s job is not to replace parents but to support them in bringing up the child. Unless there is an emergency, it may not be advisable to place toddlers totally on the maids for long hours. It’s high time that the parents took their responsibility seriously,” Sharma concludes.
