Is Mom’s Choice Also Right for Baby-Sitter?

It had been the third or fourth time she hadn’t shown up for work and hadn’t called, and I was angry. I was all set to lecture her when the look on her face silenced me.

“Senora Mona,” my sitter Maria began, tears sliding down her smooth, round face.

The day before, while waiting for the bus to come to my house, she and her 6-year-old son had been approached by two teen-age boys. At first they seemed friendly enough; they smiled and chatted with her son.

Then suddenly they turned to her and demanded her purse. When she told them there was nothing in it, they repeated their demand. Then, presumably to let her know they meant business, one of the teen-agers pushed her child. This time she gave up the purse.

Afterward she and her son had walked several miles, telling people they’d been robbed and asking for money for the phone or the bus. But because they were clean and nicely dressed, no one believed them. That the woman was seven months pregnant apparently made no impression. They ended up walking all the way home, which took nearly five hours. My sitter then fell into bed, too shaken and exhausted to venture to the nearest pay phone to call me.

When my sitter told me this story, I was horrified. I was even more upset when I realized her distress over a certain loss. In addition to her green card and bus pass and $50 in cash, they had also taken her birthday present for my year-old son.

“Jesse’s regalo ,” Maria kept repeating.

Now, I like to think I’m good in these situations: warm, nurturing, full of reassuring words. But in this case my response was totally inadequate. I told her the present for my son didn’t matter. What was important, I offered, was that she and Steve were not hurt--the same thing her husband had said--as if that would wipe away the terror. I then hugged her, and she went off to the baby’s room and I to my desk, where I berated myself for having been mad at her.

But I later realized I was angry not at myself or even at the teen-age thugs--but at her. Once again, she was bringing me her problems, involving me in the hard facts of her life, in a way that made me feel powerless. There is nothing I could have done to prevent this from happening to my sitter; there was nothing I could do now.

And it reminded me of how different our lives are, and of how fraught with ambivalence our relationship is. At the end of the day, she goes home to a one-bedroom apartment she shares with six relatives in a neighborhood dense with drug dealers and prostitutes; for me, home is a two-story house surrounded by high trees and hills and neighbors who call each other by name.

She carries my son around like a precious gift, croons to him in Spanish, makes him laugh.

I slip her more money when I can, the clothes we don’t need, stock the refrigerator with food she likes. We are family but not family, friends but not friends. And that is what troubles me, the politics of our relationship. I’m not sure that hiring an immigrant woman to help with my child is the right thing.

I have been thinking about this lately because Maria is leaving, and I’m in the midst of finding someone again. So far, most of the names friends have given me have been Spanish, which isn’t exactly surprising.

In Los Angeles, most of the people who do this kind of work are women from El Salvador or Mexico or Guatemala. You see them everywhere: in the parks, at the playgrounds; invariably they are strolling some small child with fair skin and light hair. That is the reality.

People shrug when I mention my discomfort with it. And in the literal sense I suppose they are right. But as someone drawn to feminism because of the promises it held for women, I wonder if I’m perpetuating a stereotype.

I’ve actually been preoccupied with this for some time. When I reluctantly moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles eight years ago, I was disturbed by the nonchalance so many liberal friends displayed about employing immigrant women.

It’s not that they were mistreating them in any way--although they certainly could have afforded to pay them more. It’s just that, at the time, none of them seemed to have considered the morality of it. Having a Spanish-speaking housekeeper was as much a part of the social fabric as eating in trendy, overpriced restaurants.

For people who had once been passionate about civil rights and the women’s movement, it seemed hypocritical. How were they helping these women change their lives, go on to better jobs, I asked myself. I smugly concluded they weren’t. And I vowed if I ever had children not to emulate them.

Now, I see things differently. I no longer believe I was noble and they were awful, on some inflexible scale of good and bad. I now know I am not single-handedly responsible for the oppression of an entire group of women. At the same time I also understand I can make a difference for one.

Maria is probably better off working as my sitter--I pay her well, respect what she does, require only that she love and encourage a happy, curious little boy--than the alternatives--which, given her education and sex, are dismal. I am helping her feed her child, keeping her family from sliding any deeper. On the other hand, by hiring her as a sitter, have I helped expand her choices, altered the pattern? What do I really believe I should be doing?

As a mother, I have discovered there are many women of my generation who worry about this. They are smart, sensitive and committed to not exploiting the women who work for them. Then there’s another group of people who are using the economics of the child-care situation as an excuse to exploit their help as much as possible.

The other day I read a newspaper story about a woman from El Salvador who was making $120 a week as a live-in for a middle-class family and whose duties included cooking, cleaning and caring for a young child. That is typical. Every so often, a well-meaning friend will suggest that I pay my own sitter far too much. Maybe. But how much is too much for peace of mind? And in truth I could probably pay her more.

You may be wondering, who would I feel comfortable hiring? A retired grandmother? A college student? An at-home mother who could use some extra cash and the self-esteem that comes with it?

Until child care becomes a viable profession, that’s precisely what I want. I want someone who doesn’t desperately depend on the money but loves the work. I want someone who doesn’t need me so much and has options. Someone who, five years from now, won’t be living in a one-bedroom apartment with six relatives.

Someone, perhaps, like Consuelo, the sweet, intelligent woman I interviewed last week. A 40-year-old mother from Guatemala, she was a secretary in her native country and her husband was an accountant. She lives in a small, cheerful apartment in a neighborhood of working class families not far from mine, and there is a serenity and stability about her.

Her children are healthy, doing well in school. Her husband is kind and hard-working--on the surface her life seems in order. The only drawback could be her hours. She wants to earn her living as a secretary again, so she’s taking English classes in the evenings. She’ll have to leave earlier than I need. But maybe we can work something out, something that would make both of us feel good.