Make the right choice with your baby-sitter

In 2014 a video clip of a 22-year-old Jolly Tumuhairwe, a babysitter, went viral filming her on a closed circuit TV camera brutalising an 18 months baby.

It was a horrible sight as Tumuhairwe repeatedly slapped the baby before stepping on top of her. In the same fold, Jackie, a working mother, came back to an empty wardrobe one day with her maid having disappeared with her clothes and shoes.

But worst of she all, Jackie says, the maid had locked up her two-year-old daughter in the house alone.

Jackie, like many people, had trusted her maid with some of her life assets but one wonders whether she had ever done a background search to tick some boxes before she hired the maid?

Life is a fragile asset; therefore don’t open doors for others to complicate it. Before you hire a maid try to follow up on some essentials to save yourself from the regrets. Below are some of the essentials.

Know the maid’s home

Leah Mugasa, a mother of two, learnt the hard way but she has since sworn never to hire a maid that she does not know much about.

“Once she does anything bad or steal my things I know where I can get her,” she says, adding that doing a background search also saves her from bringing people closer to her who may be criminals.

Health status

It is risky, according to Sarah Kawidi, a mother of two, to entrust your life with some whose health status you do not know anything about.

To her it is important that she knows the HIV status of the maid and other related illnesses that might need extra attention.

Education background

Beyond ensuring that your maid is healthy, it is also important, according to Ritah Nalubega, a mother of four, that a maid has to have some simple education to help interpret some things, especially medical prescriptions.

“I go to work early in the morning and come back in the evening very tired. So I need a maid who can read and write so that she can assist the children when I am not home,” she says.

Experience

It is a routine in life that we will always want to work with someone who knows what they are doing. Therefore, Annet Nakazibwe, a mother, teacher and counsellor, considers it important that her maid should have some experience.

However, she adds, the maid that she will hire must not be lazy.

Cleanliness

For Ephraim Kahwa, a father of two, a maid must be clean starting with herself and everything she does. “A babysitter governs your home and children on your behalf, if they are not clean then they will give that trait to your children,” he says.

But amid all this, Margret Tumusiime, a counsellor notes that a maid should be co-opted into the family so that children do not see them as strangers.

“Get a maid you can trust, one who can give your child good morals and show them the right way to behave,” she says