Just Another Job

This article brought an issue into the spotlight that I hadn't given any thought to. Personally I feel there isn't a need to hire a nanny to raise your own children or help to clean your house. If you can't clean your own house because it is too big or for other reasons then you shouldn't have purchased something you can't handle. I don't feel it is good enough if the only reason these people hire help is so they can spend their time not raising their kids or doing a little cleaning. Your house and children are your responsibility to take care of. I would feel embarrassed to have someone cleaning up my messes, handling my laundry, or being in my household 24/7. It would be an invasion of my privacy. The fact that these women are having to resort to such horrible conditions to take care of their family is heartbreaking.

In one of the blogs someone said that they had two immigrant workers who were actually professionals back home. Why would they move all the way over here, where they are unable to use their degrees'? To go from being a engineer to being a housekeeper just seems so disappointing. I know that if I went to school to be an engineer, I would want to be working as an engineer. Instead they moved to the U.S. where their work cannot transfer? I feel bad that they are unable to use they skills in which they posses from years of schooling.

Just a Job

The house that I stayed at in Poland had a lady who came in and cleaned every week. It made me uncomfortable when I was informed we would have to be out of the house all day, and then arrived back to find all of my things moved and reorganized to where I couldn’t find things. I never got the chance to meet the woman, but I imagine she was treated very well and paid fairly by my host family who happen to be very nice people. The article had some very appalling examples of racism and abuse which I could never imagine happening. Unfortunately, these sorts of things do happen in the U.S. If parents are unable to raise their own children or clean their own house, they should take classes or something before having kids or owning their own house to learn how to make their house a home, rather than subjecting immigrants to such labor. I would never hire someone else to do housework for me. There is a big difference between having an underpaid, illegal immigrant do backbreaking work 24/7 and having your best friend baby-sit for one night.

Just Another Job

I truly think it is sad how some of these domestic workers are not being treated fairly or even abused because their employer does not value them. Or sometimes the immigration troubles an individual might be having may indeed be solved by working in a household, however some employers might take advantage of them through bribing or fear. To me, working in a domestic household would be an especially precarious situation, especially if I didn't check it out first and became comfortable with the family. However, these women do not have the choice. The racist statements in this article took me aback...especially when one of the employers was remarking on the different workers she had hired...like the race of an individual determined their character, or their personality. I think that is so wrong. In some ways these women become so close to the children that they help raise, that the child in turn becomes closer to the au pair or the nanny rather than their own mother. But then, when that nanny or au pair gets fired by the employer, what happens to the relationship between them and the child? This whole thing is riddled with sadness...so I hope that something comes about that resolves the issues that these women are facing.

Just Another Job?

This article nicely summarizes some of my primary reasons for being against illegal immigration. Effectively these people are modern day slaves, subjected to all sorts of abuses by the client/host relationship they are stuck in because they have no documentation and little to no recourse with the authorities when they are here illegally and there are abuses against them. I have personally seen this in the construction field, illegal undocumented workers are treated extremely poorly by the companies which they work for, low pay, no benefits, hazardous working conditions and the ever present fear of deportation. I was working on a medium-rise mixed use building one day inspecting rebar and some concrete, all of the ironworkers that were placing the rebar were illegal undocumented workers from Guatemala and Mexico. They were all great guys and as I was the only inspector that could communicate directly with them I always worked with them. The highest paid worker on the job was getting paid $12/hour with no overtime, 20 minutes for lunch, and no breaks. In contrast, a union ironworker at the journeyman level is paid $32/hour with excellent benefits, mandatory breaks, retirement and a union system to prevent hazardous and unsafe working conditions. The illegal workers that I worked with were all deported one day at the job site towards the end of construction and union labor was brought in to finish the job. There was a lot of speculation in the industry as to whom had reported to illegal workers, but I heard from a reliable source that the owner of the building owed the illegal workers company a lot of money in back wages and reported them himself to avoid having to pay them and also to be able to say that his building was union built.

Just another job

The Commodification of Domestic Labor written by Bridget Anderson addresses an issue that effects a large number of people; immigrant domestic workers. I used to have housekeepers come to my house once a week. They were both from Russia. Both professionals back at home. My first housekeeper was an engineer but couldn't transfer work to the states so, on the side she also taught piano lessons. Eventually she got so busy that she referred her friend to me to work. The new housekeeper was a teacher back home but said she could never teach American children because they are so misbehaved and disrespectful.

These women were close to our family because they came once a week for 6 hours. They did dishes, laundry, cleaned bathrooms, washed the floors, washed windows and dusted. I kept in touch with them until they moved away. I'm not wealthy by any means but they were charging so little it seemed crazy not to have them helping out.

I feel like this is no longer a luxury but a necessity because our life as it is now, with women and men working and women mainly responsible for all the domestic duties in addition to working outside the home, housekeeping can suffer and who wants to live in a dirty house?

What is so sad in this story is how people treat some domestic workers poorly. I was shocked by the large numbers of women being regularly abused. I just can't understand why some people think they are better than other simply because they have more money.

Adaptive value of religious ritual

I generally do not see a value in modern day life to organized religion. Most modern religions, in my opinion, use the ancient strictures that may have once been an adaptive value to survival as a group, for their own enrichment. A particular instance I was reminded of when reading this article is a local church where the pastor and his wife lease new Mercedes every year, really?! Is this necessary? If I were inclined to be religious, and also inclined to attend this church this would disgust me.