Actress Sora Ma has shared on social media a harrowing experience involving her toddler son and domestic helper, saying she “almost lost” her child.
In a March 30 post, the 42-year-old single mother who's based in Singapore wrote that she trusted the woman deeply and thought she would stay with them for years. The Malaysian born artiste’s husband, who was in his late 40s, died in 2024.
Even though the worker “wasn’t the best with housework”, she was “amazing” with Ma’s one-and-a-half-year-old son. “And I thought that was enough.”
But Ma’s view about the helper changed during a trip to Kuala Lumpur.
She wrote: “I initially planned to leave them at home for two hours while I went for a meeting.”
However, she decided to turn back to take the pair along with her as “something didn’t feel right”.
“The moment I opened the door, (I saw him) crying uncontrollably,” she wrote. “Face red, completely shaken. I had never seen him like that before.”
Ma said her helper was nowhere to be found and had left her only child alone at home.
“He fell from (the) staircase when trying to get down from (the) second floor,” she wrote, with one of her photos showing a bruise on one side of his face.
Ma told Singapore Chinese-language daily Shin Min Daily News in a report published on March 31 that she immediately asked her aunt to drive out and look for the helper.
“I reckoned she couldn’t have got far, as her passport was still with me, and sure enough, she was brought back five minutes later.
“She explained she had gone out ‘for a while’ to meet a friend.”
Ma wrote on social media: “I told her it was never about how long you were gone. It was about how you could leave without telling me, and leave a child behind.”
She added: “Accidents are never something you wait to regret. A child’s safety is never ‘just for a while’.”
Ma told Shin Min that the three of them returned to Singapore the following day.
The maid agency subsequently spoke with the helper, but Ma felt the helper did not realise the gravity of the situation nor offered a sincere apology. Ma decided to dismiss the helper that very evening.
Ma told Shin Min that, fortunately, her son suffered only bruises on his face and limbs after the fall.
She added: “He has always been a very independent baby; he’s been able to fall asleep on his own since he was born.
“Now, he wakes up in the night, crying for me, and feels secure enough to go back to sleep only when he is lying on top of me."
She added: “He also needs someone by his side during his afternoon nap before he’ll close his eyes - this is something that never happened before.” - The Straits Times/Asia News Network
