The Farm

by Joanne Ramos

The mother was out exercising even though she was still bleeding and Henry was barely three weeks old.

Lol sis wtf?

goes in search of a bathroom. In a clean-looking stall, she covers the toilet bowl with tissue paper before sitting and takes Amalia out of the baby carrier. Her daughter is ready to latch, her wet mouth open.

The nurses tried to convince Ate to stay longer, but she snapped that if they had not observed anything problematic after the day she had already wasted, then she was well enough to go home and rest there.

I am doing them a favor; I cannot pay, and now they have a free bed.

Ate explains loudly that it is not the nurse’s kindness that prompts her to help with the wheelchair but a hospital rule.

“Mrs. Carter will need help with the baby. You must replace me. Only temporarily. Will you do this?”

I just rolled my eyes. Mrs. Exercise While She's Still Bleeding will be fine

basement apartment on the border of Woodside and Elmhurst.

Cool to see my neighborhood mentioned. Can picture the place too

Almost all of them are Filipinos and a good portion of them are mothers who have left their own children back home.

“Ate” means big sister in Tagalog, and that is her role at the dorm: the mediator of fights, the provider of loans when someone is in a lurch, the only one who dares approach their landlord when there are complaints—mice in the pantry, another leak. At work, Ate speaks with authority to millionaires who in the presence of their babies turn into children themselves, reduced to clumsy beings who seek Ate’s help to get their newborns to eat, or sleep, or burp, or stop crying.

Because Ate had the Prestons’ baby sleeping through the night at eleven weeks, despite his colic and fussiness, and Sarah’s baby at ten, and then Caroline’s at nine, she became known for her sleep routine. This was the reason families fought each other to hire her, she told Jane.

The risk of miscarriage in the first trimester was too high; how could she schedule her work around wishful thinking with rents to pay and mouths to feed?

Ate also understood that for parents such as these, who had everything and more, being unavailable made her more desirable.

Yep

For this the mothers with the arms like ropes and whipped-cream skin called Ate “the Baby Whisperer.” They did not know that Ate stood all night over the crib in the darkened nursery holding a pacifier to the baby’s lips. When the baby fussed, Ate lifted him to her drooping chest and rocked him until he was drowsy but not yet asleep. Then she would put him down again. Night after night, this way, until the baby was accustomed to eating only during the day and falling asleep by itself at night. After this, sleep training was easy.

Ate did not often mention the slights or indignities she suffered in certain homes, nor the illimitable tiredness that worked itself deep into her bones when she was on a job.

There was also Mr. and Mrs. Li, who did not allow Ate to eat their food, even just a little milk with her morning coffee, and did not repay Ate for the formula she purchased—so many cans, and so expensive—with her own pocket money because the housekeeper never bought enough.

But babies are stronger than people think, and smarter.

Of course the mother will gossip with you to learn the secrets of her friends: which ones leave the baby to shop all day; which give the baby formula instead of the breast; which ones fight with their husbands about money. But such a mother will not truly trust Angel. Never, never. She will not ask Angel to stay in her home for very long or recommend her very much to her friends. Because this mother—even as she laughs at Angel’s jokes and listens to her secrets—she knows that Angel’s eyes are too big, her mouth too loose.

But, Jane, speak to Dina only in English. No Tagalog, even if the parents are in a different room. Otherwise, they are uneasy; they feel like strangers in their home.

It is only that you need to show respect. They will tell you to call them “Cate and Ted,” very American, very equal—but it is always “sir” and “ma’am.” They will tell you to “make yourself at home”—but they do not want you to make yourself at home! Because it is their home, not yours, and they are not your friends. They are your clients. Only that.

She likes to be with her baby; but she thinks she likes to be with her baby more than she likes to be with him.

So she is guilty. Guilty if she leaves the baby for half the day to do her haircut; guilty when she learns her friend did breast-feeding longer.

But then the baby must be full of milk and already burped and happy. Not hungry, or tired, in a crying mood. If he fusses with her, she might get jealous. This can happen—if the baby smiles at you more, if he is comforted by you faster.

must stay nearby, one ear listening—but not just standing. Always busy: washing bottles, folding clothes. Otherwise the mother begins to resent you. For only taking up space while she is the one with the baby.

These types of parents, Jane, you must try to understand: they are used to controlling things. This is what their money gives them. But with a new baby, what happens? The parents pick the day to induce. The father takes the day off work. There is the new car seat, the baby’s clothes folded so nice. And then the labor comes, and then the baby comes and: Pah! No control! The baby cries, and they do not know why. The baby will not latch. Why? How to force it? But you cannot force it! The baby spits up, poo-poos, will not poo-poo, has a rash, gets a fever, will not sleep—no reason, no control!

you must show the parents you are in control.

Maybe this was why Jane felt it was okay to borrow the breast pump.

WHY

Mrs. Carter worried constantly that the “contraption” would leave her chest ruined, but she still preferred it to feeding Henry on the breast because he was so slow, sometimes taking an hour to get his

Jane began to put some of her own milk into Henry’s bottles, because Mrs. Carter’s supply was low, because Jane overflowed with milk, because doing so helped Jane believe that, maybe, the borrowing was good for everyone.

Mrs. Richards is describing the documentary she is making about the Filipina nannies of her two young daughters.

White people, amirite?

“I think it would add relatability to show us with them, how they’re a part of our family. It might be easier to hold the audience’s interest with us in it. Not just nannies.”

Cringe man

Art is a leap of empathy!”

I cant with white people

“So…” Mrs. Richards says thoughtfully. “So your mother came to America and found work as a nanny. And now here you are working as a nanny. You followed her path. Imagine if you had a daughter and she—” “Like recidivism,” says Mrs. Van Wyck. “Generations of black men going to prison because their dads did.”

HOW DARE THEY

She grabs a carved globe from the shelf and, without warning, flings it at her younger sister, smacking her in the face.

She trails behind Tina holding an upturned iPhone in her hand.

The backlighting makes you look too dark,”

“Three Filipinas. Three babies. Three stories.”

Lila, frightened, begins to cry. Henry’s wails grow shriller. Suddenly, a stream of half-chewed blueberries explodes from Lulu’s mouth. “TINA! ESTER!” Mrs. Richards yells, the iPhone limp in her hand. “Those. Blueberries. Will. STAIN.”

Madame Deng is not only considering investing in Holloway, she may choose to have a baby—it would be her first, she is pushing fifty—at Golden Oaks, using a Host handpicked by Mae to carry one of the dozen frozen embryos Madame Deng has stored at the eponymous Deng Center for Reproductive Health Studies at MIT.

If Golden Oaks simply did away with private rooms—a policy Mae has recommended time and again; she firmly believes Hosts should be paired up so that they can keep tabs on each other, and of course more Hosts per bedroom means fatter profit margins—the site could accommodate at least another two dozen Hosts.

what she could use are a few more Filipinas—they are popular with Clients, because their English is good and their personalities are mild and service-oriented.

Mae’s fair, comely mother tried to use Divina’s appearance to scare Mae into wearing sunscreen when she was a child (“You have your father’s skin, Mae, do you want to end up looking like Divina?”), but her fearmongering was ineffectual, at least in those early years, because young Mae didn’t find Divina ugly.

This last one initially surprised Mae—that some Clients are willing to pay a gigantic premium for wombs that have graduated from Princeton or Stanford or UVA, as if their fetuses will absorb, along with glucose and proteins and oxygen and vitamins, the acquired knowledge and sky-scraping SAT scores of an expensively educated Host.

Idiots

“No, probably not toward the end of the incubation period…But

Her words are music to Mae’s ears. Incentivized Hosts are the best Hosts.

Mae’s never understood why people—privileged people especially, like Reagan and Katie—insist that there’s something shameful in desiring money. No immigrant ever apologized for wanting a nicer life.

“You worry that the other Hosts at Golden Oaks are mostly women of color. Am I right? You worry that there’s something potentially…exploitative afoot.”

Mae omits the fact that, except for Eve, no other Host has transitioned to a white-collar job. They tend to be hired for childcare or household services.

Reagan’s earning potential is many multiples that of a typical Host, but that’s simply because she brings very special attributes to the table. It’s basic supply and demand. The regular Hosts are more or less interchangeable. Not that Reagan needs to know this.

Any trouble you have is your own fault. Jane thought of Billy, of Mrs. Carter, and clicked: Strongly Agree.

I do many things better than almost everyone I know. At this, Jane laughed aloud. She did not even finish high school! Strongly Disagree. I don’t mind being told what to do. Agree.