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Employing governesses and maids is a widespread phenomenon nowadays in many homes throughout the Arab world. Some of them have become substitutes for mothers despite the fact that often they do not speak Arabic, and sometimes they are non-Muslims. All these factors have dire consequences for our children’s future.
Today, we see families willingly allowing governesses and maids to invade their homes. I ask parents to forgive me for using the word 'invade'. I do not mean that they have entered their homes to kill and plunder. What I mean is that sometimes they might take the children away from their parents and exercise control over them due to the long periods of time they spend with them. Hence, governesses have actually become mothers for our children.
Before explaining the consequences of forsaking our children and leaving their social upbringing to the supervision and direction of governesses, I would like to point out the fact that some parents go as far as employing maids to take care of their children and raise them. This is usually because the mothers are outside the house and the maids take care of the children in addition to performing difficult tasks that are assigned to them concerning housework. Some maids are not qualified to raise children, thus, they are in need of direction and guidance. Moreover, a maid may be serving as a governess while she might be illiterate.
The governess is a woman who is trained or holds an educational degree in raising children. The parents could rely on her to some extent to provide the child with a good upbringing. Nonetheless, a governess, no matter how qualified she is, will never be like the mother whose child is part of her body. The mother is the one who conceived and suffered during pregnancy and nursing. She is the one who wakes up to pacify her child while breastfeeding and embraces him with compassion. She is the source of nutrition for her baby as well as his source of protection and care until he grows up. Even when her child leaves the house to move to his own after getting married, she remains the source of supplication for him for the rest of his life. The mother might be present with her children physically, but absent in terms of her direction and guidance to her children when she entrusts this responsibility to a governess or a maid.
This is very dangerous because emotions, customs and artificial compassion might bring the child closer to the governess or maid and attach him to her more than he is attached to his mother.
The father may take the side of the maid if he feels that his wife is totally refraining from looking after the children or after him. The wife might also ask the maid or the governess to take care of her husband. This might result in catastrophic consequences for the marital life. The only loser in such a case would be the wife who allowed the maid to invade the most important and private aspect of her life, namely, her husband.
Unfortunately, there are stay-at-home mothers who leave all the responsibility of their homes to maids who act as if they own the house. Although the mother, who is also a wife, has enough time to take care of her husband and children, she prefers to go shopping or to meet her neighbors during the forenoon hours or to speak on the phone with her friends for hours about trivial and petty issues. The husband might return from work exhausted and in need of tranquility, food, and rest so as to continue his work or to make his wife and children happy, only to find no one but the maid to offer him food that he may not even like or enjoy.
Many negative things take place when parents leave their children in the hands of maids and governesses, some of these are:
- The language of the maid or governess, who does not speak Arabic, greatly affects the ability of the child to learn and acquire the Arabic language. Consequently, the child might lag behind his peers in terms of learning the language, pronouncing the letters in the correct way and acquiring the necessary vocabulary, and he might even learn the language of the governess before learning Arabic.
- Usually, the governess weakens the relationship between the mother and her child, because the child often becomes attached to her instead of to his mother. The governess is the one who satisfies the child’s basic needs: food, drink, and cleanliness. She also satisfies his needs when he wants to rest and play. Hence, she becomes a substitute for the mother and this gradually takes the child away from his mother to the extent that he might not even ask about her when she is not at home. More amazingly, the child might be annoyed when he does not find the governess or the maid beside him, if she is occupied with the housework. Sometimes the child might call the governess as if she was his mother.
- The effect of governesses and maids on the marital relationship might cause problems between the spouses. Their presence creates an atmosphere of tension and continuous uneasiness between the spouses. These problems might result in separation, desertion, disagreement or sacrificing the children as well as the possiblity of a stable marital life.
- The presence of maids and governesses weakens or hinders the development of the children’s independence as part of their social upbringing. It might even cause them to be continually dependent on others. This attitude appears when small children refuse to do even the simplest tasks as they depend on having an immediate response to all their demands by the maid.
- A danger that parents must not forget is that some non-Muslim governesses who raise the children might instill the teachings of their religion in the children while the parents are totally unaware of this and so teaching the children about Islam is totally neglected.
- In addition, assuming the responsibilities of a governess by a maid or vice versa is a great burden. When the maid or the governess does all the housework that includes cleaning, cooking, ironing, and washing as well as taking care of the children, she might be frustrated and become careless about the required housework and/or the necessary care that should be given to the children.
Speaking about this problem would take a long time, but it should nevertheless not be understood from this article that there is no need for maids and governesses in houses. Rather, we should know that the negative aspects might exceed the positive ones if we use them to raise children and provide them with a social upbringing.
Some people might wonder about the practical solutions for this problem, so we will take the initiative and say that parents should bear the following points in mind:
- It is necessary to observe the influence of the governess on the creed of young children and pay a great deal of attention to developing the correct creed and instilling it in them by word and deed.
- It is necessary to make sure that the child is in the care of his mother in the first place because he can never dispense with her no matter how attached he might be to the maid or governess.
- It is necessary to develop the spirit of good habits and independence in the children and to reduce their complete dependence on maids or governesses to satisfy their needs, especially when they are between the ages of 6 and 15.
- We suggest that educational and social institutions establish kindergartens and nurseries to take care of the children of working women in the places where they work instead of leaving them with governesses and maids.
- We suggest the importance of modifying the status of women who have young children in need of care. Working mothers might be given a partially-paid leave for a year or so especially during the nursing period, until the end of the child’s first two years. The aim is to give the mother the opportunity to provide her baby with the emotional care that he needs in this stage of his life.
- Finally, we recommend employing reliable Arab Muslim governesses to help in taking care of children and to teach them fluency in Arabic. Such governesses could also assist in teaching children how to perform acts of worship according to the teachings of our true Sharee‘ah. Moreover, such governesses would fear Allah The Almighty in the way they deal with the family members. Thus, they will avoid sins and will not try to sow dissention between the spouses or between the children and their mothers, while performing their duties honestly and sincerely.
In a later article, we will continue to suggest possible solutions for all the social problems that we suffer from in our houses. We ask Allah The Almighty to grant us guidance and success.
