Recently, I was told of a story where a maid put her bosses’ one-year old child in the fridge and escaped, with money and other household items.The child was rescued by relatives who were staying with the family but had briefly moved out of the house. They found the child in the fridge, got her out but didn’t report to the boss about that particular incident. They only mentioned the maid’s escape and missing property.The relatives were so afraid to report because they claimed that the mother of the child was a very harsh woman who treated every human being like trash, with the exception of her children.The next of kin claimed that she would put the blame on them if they told her truth about the child’s being hidden in the fridge.Seven years down the road, the child still has health complications but no one has dared to reveal to the mother the mystery of the child’s constant health complications.According to close relatives and neighbours, this woman used to treat her maid like she was a co-wife or some kind of disgusting being who had done something terrible to her.Grace, a nephew to the woman whose child was put in the fridge, describes how the aunt would treat the maid who carried out the inhuman act.“Aunt Claire (not real name) would spit in the maid’s face while hurling all kinds of insults at her. She had bought a sack of posho and beans only for the maid and gateman while the rest of the family ate other special meals,” Grace narrates.The boss even had the audacity to beat up the maid whenever she was in ‘wrong’ of which, according to aunt Claire, she was never doing the wrong thing so you can imagine how many times she would be scolded on top of the harsh insults.So, anyhow, that’s a tit bit of what compelled the maid to revenge through putting the poor innocent child in the fridge.What if the relatives hadn’t come early enough to rescue that child or what if the maid had decided to do even worse than that! All these questions lingered in my mind while I was trying to figure out why on earth the girl did that.Women in this era are so engrossed in their work schedules that they live the obligation of raising their children to their house maids. Almost every household today has a housemaid, to take care of the children and the other house chores. It is no crime to live the children with the maids, in this rather busy generation where both mother and father are trying to make ends meet but how do we ensure that the house helps are raising them the right way!!!We are all familiar with families that have lived with their maids for ages to the extent that children take them as relatives, we also know of families that can’t keep a maid for a week.Mrs. Natalie Nsengiyumva, a mother of six, says maids play a vital role in the upbringing of children.Her last born, who is 22, is at University.Mrs.Nsengiyumva says she has had her maid since her daughter was in nursery school.“My children grew up calling the maid, aunt.I have loved and treated her like my very own sister and I believe that’s why she hasn’t disappointed me for all these years. She took care of my children for years, even when I and their father would travel for months; we were comfortable, knowing that our children were in safe hands,” Nsengiyumva says.How you treat your housemaid is exactly how she is going to treat your children, she advises.If you mistreat her and deny her food, be sure the exact same thing will be done to your children in your absence.Life is unpredictable; you might treat others like they are garbage and someone might do that to your children in the future.She calls upon women to always treat others the way they would love to be treated in turn.Parents should bear it at the back of their mind that the lives of their children are in the hands of their maids so they ought to do all that’s possible to make certain that they (children) are being treated right.I have heard a trillion stories of maids who poison, bewitch their bosses’ children, and eat the children’s food and other horrible things.Usually, such cases occur when the boss mistreats the housemaid by treating them like they are a disgrace to the human race.For the women who still think maids don’t deserve to be treated like normal humanbeings, for the sake of your children and your own, treat your house helps right and they will treat your children right.
