This nanny’s story just had to be told

A very much shared and discussed item on Facebook last week was the cover story of The Atlantic, about a woman named Eudocia Tomas Pulido by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fil-Am journalist Alex Tizon. The woman, whom he called Lola, was his beloved nanny.

Lola served three generations of Tizon’s family for 56 years in circumstances that Alex equated with slavery. He was around 11 years old when his older brother made him aware of the plight of Lola who washed and cooked and ironed and cleaned, and brought him and his siblings up almost single-handedly while their parents pursued careers. Lola, he observed, ate leftovers and had no permanent place to sleep. And she was not treated well.  His parents gave her tongue-lashings “for sitting too long or falling asleep too early” and smacked her when she talked back. And she was never paid for her labor, not even an allowance.

It is a long essay, a sad and shocking story of dysfunction in his family that must have been painful to write. It is Tizon’s last story, and it reads like something he needed to tell. 

He tried to make amends for the way his parents treated Lola. After his mother died, he took her to live with him and his family, not as a maid, but as a beloved elder, to enjoy the last years of her life in relative peace and harmony.  But even as she relished her retirement, Lola continued to do what she knew best — cooking, cleaning, and caring for the family. Lola died six years ago at 84. Tizon passed away early this year at 57.

Tizon’s story has resonated with Filipino readers, many of whom have grown up in the care of household help.

My family had Fausta Baje whom we called Inay, who served us for 40 years until she died of heart attack at 60. Inay was round and jolly, no more than four feet tall, and illiterate.  When the war broke out and money was scarce, Mom told her to go home to Abra because she could not afford to pay her salary. Inay shot back, “How will you manage with so many little ones?” She worked without pay, helping the family evacuate to safety in Marinduque in 1944, by which time, Mom and Dad had five children.

She finished second grade and never went back to school and never married. Given our financial situation growing up, she wasn’t paid much. But she would bring me to the movies when I was in second grade, to watch anything that starred Gloria Romero.

Inay was my second mother. When my first baby was born, I brought her to Inay first before bringing her home.  She was a warm comforting presence in Mom’s house.  In the afternoons, she sat in a round wicker chair by the front door, chomping on a cigar with the lighted end inside her mouth, her stubby legs hanging, waiting for everyone to get home. 

One evening, Inay phoned me.  Mom was in the US and she was lonely for company. “When will you come visit me?” she asked. I was busy with deadlines and told her I would come, maybe in a week. Before the week was over, she passed away. It took me a long time to forgive myself for not responding immediately to her request, she who never asked for anything for herself.

When I got married, I found a katulong who was smart, dependable, and happy to be part of the family.  Barbara Roxas, whom we called Bobet, came when my second child was born.  She stayed with us until she died of cancer 20 years later in my home.

I am so blessed.  Not many families have an Inay or a Bobet in their lives. Bobet was a reliable housekeeper and excellent cook whose presence at home allowed me to travel, meet deadlines, and march in the streets during martial law. I was abroad when Bobet died, but she made sure I was not inconvenienced by her departure. She set aside a fund for the funeral expenses, including for the electricity she consumed using the only air-conditioned room in the house. 

How did I ever deserve such a thoughtful companion?

What did my fulfillment cost my kasama sa bahay? Bobet finished only the fifth grade, but she was so smart, she could have gone back to school and become a manager or a chef. Instead, she cooked and cleaned and did laundry for my family. She could have married and had her own children. Instead, she was a surrogate mother to my daughters, whom she fed, loved, defended, and disciplined in my absence.

Alex Tizon’s telling of the abuse that Lola endured from his parents made me examine my own relationship with my household help.  Are they employees, indentured servants, or extended family?  Most of them have no choice but to serve.  Whether we exploit them or accept them as family, they should have better, freer choices in life.

I am grateful to the late Alex Tizon for shoving this topic in our faces. Philippine society has long needed to have this conversation.  His shame and pain have opened our eyes to a feudal reality that we have taken so much for granted.  I trust that to him, writing about it was cathartic and healing.