We don’t say “yaya” at home
The word is banned from our home.
My children don’t know the word because they don’t call Marie Joy Ebcas Bentoy as their “yaya”.
She is “Ate Joy.”
To those of you don’t know Ate Joy, she is the woman who helps Jeff and I sane by helping us take care of the children. Ever since she joined our family in July 2013 – when the twins were only a week old – I issued a household decree that Marie Joy Ebcas Bentoy should only be addressed as “Ate Joy.”
Why?
Because frankly, I cringe at the term “yaya.”
I am not saying it is wrong for children to address their caregivers as “yaya”. I am writing this from a subjective perspective and wish that you hear me out.
More than two decades of working with children as a volunteer teacher and storyteller gave me front row seat in witnessing children calling their caregivers “yaya” and there are too many of them who treat their caregivers as their ultimate slaves.
And then there are parents – the women most especially – who are just plain wicked and unfair.
They don’t eat the same food as their employers and we’re specifically told to just eat the canned goods and the packaged noodles.
Salaries are not given on time. No benefits even though the law has already specificity that they are entitled to them.
Too many sob stories… and unfortunately, I know some people who treat their househelpers too badly I have decided to cut off ties with them.
I am not discounting the fact that there are rotten “yayas” and househelpers.
They are everywhere.
Where we lived in Liloan, it is common news to hear our neighbors losing a househelp because she stole money and jewelry. Or househelpers who eloped with their boyfriends and left their employers without prior notice. Or what about househelpers who hurt the children?
My nephew, Timothy Uriel, had nine of them before he turned a year old.
That many!
The reasons of their departure are varied: one was pressured by family to continously ask for cash advance, one was fired because she prefers putting on make up the entire day rather than taking care of the baby while my sister was working, the other was caught stealing my flip flops and made calls to her lover late at night using my landline phone when they came to visit my apartment.
Our family has been more than blessed with Ate Joy. Ate Joy stayed with us for eight months between 2013 and 2014. When we left in early 2014 for China, Ate Joy took then eight-month-old Nicholas to a corner and cried.
Oh how she cried.
She repeatedly told our boy to be a good example and to always remember that she loves him.
Ate Joy was my Mom’s student in catechism class. In the small town of Libas in the town of Merida, Leyte, Ate Joy’s family was a not-so-distant relative of my father. If I am not mistaken, her father Joel was a good friend of my father.
We’ve lost contact with Joy when we moved around Guangzhou and then the US. It was hard to contact her because she didn’t have a phone and was not active on Facebook. We didn’t see during the several times we visited the Philippines.
Last year, when we decided to come home, I asked her, through another friend, if she was able to join our family again.
Fortunately, she was just about to quit her job in a beach resort. You can just imagine how happy I was.
At home, Ate Joy has everything on a schedule: The children’s shower, their meals, their play time, the screen time (which only happens on Fridays and Saturdays)…
We also strategize on several things. Potty training is our biggest challenge these days.
When work gets overwhelming, Ate Joy sends the twins to day care, waits for them and then brings them back home.
She is also a superb cook. Her chicken adobo is beyond delicious!
Since Ate Joy is a Seventh Day Adventist, we seldom eat pork at home now. She eats what we eat and joins us during meal time. It keeps everything simple.
We have our own version of an ecumenical council at home – Jeff is a Latter-day Saint (Mormon), I’m Catholic and Ate Joy is a Seventh Day Adventist – and we have learned to co-exist peacefully and make sure that we teach the children love of God, compassion, empathy and gratitude.
We don’t say “yaya” at home because Ate Joy is not a slave or a servant. She is also not our caregiver because she has proven to us that she does not just care for our children; she loves and protects them.
We don’t say “yaya” at home because Ate Joy is a family member.
Like any family member in a home, we love her; that’s why we make sure she eats well, she rests well and she is paid well. This is a woman who helps us raise our children. We wash our cars so well and take extra measures to protect our computers from viruses… it is but right that wake care of our “Ate Joys” who look after our children.
Don’t you think there’s something wrong if we are harsh and unreasonable to our Ate Joys when they take care of our children?
We are grateful for Ate Joy.
I pray for her overnight. I clasped my hands in prayer and thank Heavenly Father every single day for blessing us with a person whose heart is so good and loving.
We deeply appreciate her contributions to this imperfect family, who in all our craziness, mistakes and imperfections have been blessed with a woman as wonderful as Ate Joy.
