December 6, 2010 • 19 mins
Today's professional women sometimes rely on nannies to help them out in the domestic sphere, yet many of them seem to feel guilty about it. Why? In this episode, Molly and Cristen examine the dynamics and dilemmas of employing a nanny.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom Never told you?
From House top Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Molly Molly. One of
(00:20):
my favorite childhood movies was Mary Poppins. Mine too. But
I gotta tell you a little something about me and
old Mary Poppins. Okay, well I did. I loved Mary
Poppins said a shot. I would sing along with her.
I thought she was delightful. I wondered what else she
would pull out of that magical bag of hers. But
you know who I really wanted to hang out with
in Mary Poppins, that lady who fed the birds. Oh no,
(00:42):
she scared me. I wanted to hang out with the
chimney sweet Dick Van Dyke. Oh, I mean I liked
it when he came by. But Jim Jimminy, Jim Jimminy.
He had the best song. I would have hung out
with Mary over him. Yeah. Yeah, you're more than nanny type.
I'm more of the sweeps. I didn't like how dirty
the children got when they went through the chimneys of London,
(01:02):
and I guess maybe I should have hung out with
the uptype mother didn't like father when the children got dirty. Well,
obviously Mary Poppins is not the most realistic representation of
the nanny profession. A lot of times you know they're
not going to fly to your house. At least you
know they'll drive um and maybe you might not end
(01:23):
up in like a cartoon dreamland. But this is really
bringing me down, Kristen. Let that end out to reality.
But I think that that's a good point to make
because I think that people who hire nanny's might wish
that that could be their experience. Yeah, Because wouldn't you
say if you think about the stereotype of nanny's as
presented in Mary Poppins, and the stereotype of nanny's and
(01:46):
having a nanny in today's culture vastly different, vastly different.
I bet their mom's who would gladly return to Mary
Poppins world and be okay with a woman who takes
an umbrella, like you said, to their house, right, Because
now it's the associations with nanny's or kind of negative.
While they are providing this important service to families, we
(02:08):
have these ideas about nanny's, you know, encroaching on husbands
and sealing children's love away from their mothers, and nanny
camps catching them slapping babies. And you know, there was
an article UH in Forbes about how so many celebrity
mothers have to hire nanny's in order to get everything
(02:28):
done understandable their fabulous film careers and their fabulous bodies
and their fabulous home life. But they make sure there
nanny's are never seen in photographs, you know, they always
you know, it's always Angeli and Joe Lee you see
carrying her children, whereas you never see a nanny carrying
her children. Yeah, but you know the nanny's back there,
you do. And so I think that they're kind of
you know, they're they make us guilty, They make mothers guilty.
(02:51):
One that they had to hire a nanny, but to
just that, you know, they may not be fulfilling some
societal stereotype of motherhood that you know, society forces upon them.
Because even Therry Poppins had that dark undercurrent of the
mother not being there because she was, you know, a
radical feminist suffragette. Now, according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics that UH terms nanny ing, as I believe just
(03:13):
domestic what's the term formerly domesticstic record domestic worker, just
a general domestic worker also includes caregivers for the elderly
who might be in home as well are maids. Now.
I think that there are on the record around half
a million nanny's employed in the US, but you can't
really rely on those statistics because there are plenty of
nanny's who are being paid under the table and off
(03:35):
the record, which this sort of secret side of the
nannying industry is one one big problem that we'll get
to a little bit later on. But needless to say,
there are lots of nanny's out there. And I would
even argue that this whole guilt issue with nanny's is
is kind of going against the fact that the rise
(03:56):
in nanny ing is reflective of the rise of women
in the work place, because no longer are nanny's reserved
for just the Angelina Jolie's of the world, just for
the extremely wealthy. Now you have many women are in
many dual income households that need to have a nanny
because both mom and dad are working, and they can
make that choice because they've got a range of childcare options,
(04:19):
and they'd prefer to have someone in their home. It's
easier for them to have someone in their home, uh
than taking a kid to daycare, for example. But you know,
while there's also angst about taking a kid to daycare,
I think there's something that brings on this special ankst
of having a woman in your home or a man,
but more nanny's tend to be women. Having a woman
in your home that's not you, that's tasked with raising
(04:42):
your children. And a lot of the articles that we
read to get Right for this podcast talked about how
fragile that relationship is between mother and nanny. I mean,
technically it's an employer employee relationship, but there are these
high powered women who you know, at the workplace can
give orders left and right and uh enforced authority and
(05:02):
make decisions who become like deer in the headlights when
confronted with a discussion with their nanny's right. Because I'm
sure it can be difficult to delegate the raising of
your child and sometimes on top of that, the care
of your home to someone else. And sometimes it's just
it's just a matter of you know, not communicating clear enough.
(05:25):
They might think that you know if they if they
tell nanny one thing just kind of casually, that the
nanny will understand exactly what they mean, and that's not
always the case. I think we should back up and
point out that nanny's are not a one size fits
all type of employee. According to the International Nanny Association
that you can visit at Nanny's dot org, there are
(05:47):
three main models of nanny care, which is custodial care,
coordinated care, and surrogate care. And within those three umbrellas
you have all different branches of nanny ng such as
sleep trainers, which are nannies that come in just to
train your children to sleep well. And Molly, I think
that I could use a sleep trainer if I had
(06:08):
a little more disposal income. That sounds pretty great being
taught how to sleep perfectly. And then you also have
oh pairs for instance, who are people who come in
from overseas to oversee the children, and it's generally they're
only allowed to take care of kids for up to
a year and then they'll have to apply for a
special it's visa extension. And you have newborn care specialists
(06:32):
for those first few difficult months with their your little
bundle of joy when you're getting used to everything. So
they're all all sources of of nanny's. Well, let's talk
about these models that you throughout, Kristen, because it seems
like a lot of the tension that comes between mothers
and nanny's are when the lines of what's expected of
the nanny are blurred both to the nanny and to
the parents. And so the first one you mentioned custodial care.
(06:55):
That means that the nanny's role is limited to meeting
the children's physical and emotional need during their parents absence.
In this model, the parents manage the children's safe by
providing the nanny the specific guidance, and the nanny does
not have a voice regarding child wearing practices or parenting philosophies.
That's text that's directly from this International Nanny Association. So
it's it's someone who's just in the home doing exactly
(07:18):
what the parents want with the child. Now, in a
coordinated model of nanny care, the nanny is a team
player in raising the child. You know, the nanny is
essentially a partner with the parents. She can decide how
they're going to spend their days, and that's sort of
the middle ground between coordinated and surrogate model, and the
surrogate role is that even applies. The nanny is the
(07:39):
primary caregiver. You know that the parents might be traveling
a lot, and the nanny has to make all of the
the decisions for the child, you know, whether to take
it to the doctor or whether to keep it home
from preschool. And UH, I think it's when people don't
know exactly which model they're using and exactly what the
nanny's role is that a lot of this um tension
comes into place right And obviously, no matter what type
(08:02):
of nanny you're doing, it comes with a lot of
responsibility because like or not, you're responsible for other little
human beings and making sure that they are safe and sound.
So how much are they compensated for all of this
responsibility Because a lot of times they're in the homes
of people who are doing pretty well. They're fairly well off.
(08:23):
According to the International Nanny Association UH live out nanny's
nanny's who don't live with a family are paid on
average an hourly rate of anywhere from seven to twenty
dollars per hour. And then you have full time live
in nanny's who are the more Mary Poppin style. They
stay at the house seven who earn anywhere from three
(08:47):
hundred to a thousand dollars or more per week. But
there are sticky situations in between. There the issue of overtime.
When a family goes on vacation, does the nanny go too?
If so, is she working more hours than she would
have worked if the parents have been home with the children.
And that's one of the reasons that the Domestic Workers
United Group has been really pushing for nanny's to be
(09:09):
recognized as professionals. You know, we keep them as sort of,
you know, someone we can hire and let go at will,
and these nannies want rights, and so in September of
this year, the State of New York past legislation for
these domestic workers that entitles them to vacation days, uh,
sick days, appropriate notice of termination. Because these relationships have
(09:32):
been so loosey goosey that I think that's part of
the reason why organizations like the International Nanny Association have
sprung up. Among others, these organizations are trying to teach
mothers who, you know, I've never hired a nanny before,
how to deal with this new employee. Right, And just
for a little bit of historical context as to why
they have to in two thousand and ten push for
(09:56):
things like mandated minimum wages, because throughout history, politicians have
strategically excluded domestic workers, including nanny's, from federal and state
labor laws. Um For instance, when President Roosevelt was trying
to push through federal minimum wage in nine seven, in
order to win the support of Southern Democrats in Congress,
(10:17):
he announced that the bill would not apply to domestic
help and that was back in thirty seven, and we
still have not uh we we still haven't corrected that
at all. So we're having to go now on a
state by state basis, beginning with New York. And you know,
I was reading an interview with one of the women
who's been associated with pushing through this legislation, and she
was asked why this has taken so long, and she
(10:39):
made a really interesting point that raising children, cleaning a
home is thought of as women's work, and historically women
wise mothers have done that unpaid, and so the fact
that now we can hire someone to do it for
us causes a lot of you know, I think that
people still don't value it the way that they should,
(10:59):
which is why I think that the salaries between different
nanny's arry And I also think that's why women feel
so guilty about hiring nanny's, because they have been told historically,
this is supposed to be your job. You're the one
who's supposed to wash your child's clothes and make your
child's meals, and how dare you bring in someone else
to do it for you. And so these women who
come in, these nanni's who come in for families and
(11:20):
really help these women out and pursuing their career goals
and and just maintaining a level of sanity, really become,
you know, this guilty secret because we women are trained
to think we should be able to do it all.
And then one thing that you might not think about,
in terms of say, immigrants who are coming in and
taking jobs as nanny's there in these upper middle class homes,
(11:43):
earning as much money as they can caring for other
people's children so they can support their children at home
in another country. And there was one woman who was
interviewed in Salona Believe. She was an executive editor at
Marie Claire and she ended up writing a book about
nanny and she had sort of a memoir type of
type of book, and she also had a nanny, and
(12:05):
she was talking about how among these these New York women,
these wealthy New York women who all had nanny's, there
was even a racial hierarchy that would come out where
in uh, Swedish women were seen as the criminal a
creme nanny's and then it goes down from there and
it's incredibly racist, absolutely, And I think these are more
(12:27):
pertinent issues than things like was your nanny gonna steal
your husband? You know? Well, you know, and I was
reading another article that said that women want to be
able to justify this decision to hire a nanny, and
so they'll they will seize upon someone who might speak
a different language, and they'll justify having a nanny as, oh,
you know, the kid can learn a different language while
he or she is young. And it was you know,
(12:50):
women already feel so guilty about bringing this help in,
and then they feel guilty, like you said, of all
these class and race issues that you know, sometimes they
will just cling to the fact that they're exposing their
child to a different culture. But what happens, you know,
when you do actually for work and you're leaving your
kid there with the nanny. So many essays we came
across of women who felt so jealous of their nanny
(13:12):
because they felt that a the nanny got to spend
all day with their kids and be their kid might
end up liking the nanny more than them the mother. Now,
some parents who are nervous about leaving their children with
nanny's or if they just sense that something is a
little bit off, if their children are really young and
might not be able to communicate exactly how well or
(13:33):
how poorly nanny is doing, they will leave behind the
nanny cam the nanny cam and this is a hotly
obviously debated topic within the nanni community. And I think
that this is when where you know, the stories end
up on the news. I mean, how often have you
seen a story on the news where the nanny was
viciously abusing the child nanny caam. I mean, obviously it's
(13:54):
the bad stories they're going to make the headlines. And
I think that spells trouble for all those names who
are actually doing their job. And one article we found
on them said that people who choose to go the
nanny camera really already know something's wrong with the nanny,
and it would have been better if they could have
just talked with the nanny. But some nanny's like the
most insurance. You know. There was this one nanny and
she was taking care of some brats that sounded like
(14:17):
who they were fighting, and one kid got hurt and
the kid was like, we're going to tell our mom
you did this, but you know, the nanny she had
the nanny camp backrup. But what all those people were saying,
by and large was if you're gonna have one, tell
your nanny. But that just gets this larger issue of
how to communicate with the nanny was someone that you
kind of want to be part of your family, but
(14:38):
who you also have to view as an employee exactly.
And that's why the International Nanny Association and certain parent
coach agencies are set up to really teach parents the
importance of outlining exactly what the nanny's roles and responsibilities are.
(14:59):
Because some nan might just need to pick up the
kids from school, take him home, make him a snack,
do the laundry, and call it a day. Other nanny's
might have to do far more. Maybe the nanny needs
to walk the dog, who knows and sometimes the mothers
may not even know until they have the nanny, like
what they need from the nanny or what even their
parenting philosophy is, and so they may kind of give
(15:21):
the nanny, you know, free rain to get started, and
it's only a little bit afterwards that they're like, Oh,
I really don't like the way she disciplines. I really
don't like the way she folds the laundry. Because that
was a problem that one woman was having with her nanny,
and it's it's got to be this ongoing evaluation of
roles and responsibilities. It's you know, we've talked to one
of our very first podcast Kristen, was about how women
(15:41):
don't like to negotiate, and I think having a nanny,
one way to ease that gilt is to see it
as a constant negotiation. And as long as you and
the nanny both expect that it doesn't have to be
in this situation that's fraught with tension about you know,
you're ordering this woman around and you hope she doesn't
take it out on your kids because she gets offended
at some and you say, as long as both parties
(16:01):
can go into with this hope of open communication, it
sounds like it can be a really enriching experience for
both mother, father and the children. Absolutely, because one thing
that did not come up and all this research who
were doing, was how having a nanny somehow harms your
child development. No, not at all. Nanny's. Nanny's are there
and they can be a godsend for a family and
(16:24):
especially for allowing women to get into the workplace and
pursue their careers and maintain families. Nanny can be a
way to have it all if you, if you allow
it to be. But you know the thing is, I
didn't have a nanny, I don't employ nanny now. So
we want to hear from you guys out there. I
(16:44):
bet we have lots of listeners who are nanny's themselves,
some who employ nanny's, and we want to know what
has made or broken a relationship between you and your
employer slash employee. The address is mom Stuff at how
stuff works dot com. Nanny anecdotes welcome, Yes, and please share.
Also anecdotes on our Facebook page. Well, I have one
(17:11):
here from Justin and it's in response to our podcast
on chivalry. He says, I just wanted to throw in
my two cents about this chivalry topic. I'm from the
South as well, so I'm familiar with the courtesy that
you're talking about. I'm also a gay man, so I
felt like I can look at this objectively. From my
experience women, most women do want in both ways. They
(17:31):
absolutely want to be equal and decision making, work, pay
and everything, but the man had better open the door
and pay for dinner. Personally, I think it all comes
down to supply and demand. Men do things that women
want because the men want something the women have, and
it's not the kind words or a home cooked meal. Personally,
it seems to me that if a woman wants to
be equal, you have to take gender out of all
(17:52):
decisions where it's possible to do. So. Let's not just
be nice to women, Let's be nice to everyone. Whoever
gets to the restaurant door opens it first, and you
either split the check or whoever makes the date pays.
Oh and by the way, I hate being asked to
squish bugs. They're gross. It's more gross when they're squished,
and I don't want to do it anymore than a
woman does. It seems forced equality always seems to push
(18:13):
the pendulum back the other way. I know there's not
usually just black and white, but in this case, I say,
let's just do it. Think you got a great perspective
justin Thanks so much for sharing it. So if you
have any thoughts you'd like to send our way. Our
email addresses mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com.
You can also head over to our Facebook page and
follow us on Twitter at Mom's Stuff Podcasts. And finally,
(18:36):
you can read our blog It's Stuff I'm Never Told
You and It's how stuff Works dot com for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how
stuff works dot com So learn more about the podcast
clog on the podcast icon in the upper right corner
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Down with it today on iTunes. Yeah, brought to you
(19:02):
by the reinvented two thousand and twelve Camry. It's ready,
are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom Never told you?
From House top Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Molly Molly. One of
(00:20):
my favorite childhood movies was Mary Poppins. Mine too. But
I gotta tell you a little something about me and
old Mary Poppins. Okay, well I did. I loved Mary
Poppins said a shot. I would sing along with her.
I thought she was delightful. I wondered what else she
would pull out of that magical bag of hers. But
you know who I really wanted to hang out with
in Mary Poppins, that lady who fed the birds. Oh no,
(00:42):
she scared me. I wanted to hang out with the
chimney sweet Dick Van Dyke. Oh, I mean I liked
it when he came by. But Jim Jimminy, Jim Jimminy.
He had the best song. I would have hung out
with Mary over him. Yeah. Yeah, you're more than nanny type.
I'm more of the sweeps. I didn't like how dirty
the children got when they went through the chimneys of London,
(01:02):
and I guess maybe I should have hung out with
the uptype mother didn't like father when the children got dirty. Well,
obviously Mary Poppins is not the most realistic representation of
the nanny profession. A lot of times you know they're
not going to fly to your house. At least you
know they'll drive um and maybe you might not end
(01:23):
up in like a cartoon dreamland. But this is really
bringing me down, Kristen. Let that end out to reality.
But I think that that's a good point to make
because I think that people who hire nanny's might wish
that that could be their experience. Yeah, Because wouldn't you
say if you think about the stereotype of nanny's as
presented in Mary Poppins, and the stereotype of nanny's and
(01:46):
having a nanny in today's culture vastly different, vastly different.
I bet their mom's who would gladly return to Mary
Poppins world and be okay with a woman who takes
an umbrella, like you said, to their house, right, Because
now it's the associations with nanny's or kind of negative.
While they are providing this important service to families, we
(02:08):
have these ideas about nanny's, you know, encroaching on husbands
and sealing children's love away from their mothers, and nanny
camps catching them slapping babies. And you know, there was
an article UH in Forbes about how so many celebrity
mothers have to hire nanny's in order to get everything
(02:28):
done understandable their fabulous film careers and their fabulous bodies
and their fabulous home life. But they make sure there
nanny's are never seen in photographs, you know, they always
you know, it's always Angeli and Joe Lee you see
carrying her children, whereas you never see a nanny carrying
her children. Yeah, but you know the nanny's back there,
you do. And so I think that they're kind of
you know, they're they make us guilty, They make mothers guilty.
(02:51):
One that they had to hire a nanny, but to
just that, you know, they may not be fulfilling some
societal stereotype of motherhood that you know, society forces upon them.
Because even Therry Poppins had that dark undercurrent of the
mother not being there because she was, you know, a
radical feminist suffragette. Now, according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics that UH terms nanny ing, as I believe just
(03:13):
domestic what's the term formerly domesticstic record domestic worker, just
a general domestic worker also includes caregivers for the elderly
who might be in home as well are maids. Now.
I think that there are on the record around half
a million nanny's employed in the US, but you can't
really rely on those statistics because there are plenty of
nanny's who are being paid under the table and off
(03:35):
the record, which this sort of secret side of the
nannying industry is one one big problem that we'll get
to a little bit later on. But needless to say,
there are lots of nanny's out there. And I would
even argue that this whole guilt issue with nanny's is
is kind of going against the fact that the rise
(03:56):
in nanny ing is reflective of the rise of women
in the work place, because no longer are nanny's reserved
for just the Angelina Jolie's of the world, just for
the extremely wealthy. Now you have many women are in
many dual income households that need to have a nanny
because both mom and dad are working, and they can
make that choice because they've got a range of childcare options,
(04:19):
and they'd prefer to have someone in their home. It's
easier for them to have someone in their home, uh
than taking a kid to daycare, for example. But you know,
while there's also angst about taking a kid to daycare,
I think there's something that brings on this special ankst
of having a woman in your home or a man,
but more nanny's tend to be women. Having a woman
in your home that's not you, that's tasked with raising
(04:42):
your children. And a lot of the articles that we
read to get Right for this podcast talked about how
fragile that relationship is between mother and nanny. I mean,
technically it's an employer employee relationship, but there are these
high powered women who you know, at the workplace can
give orders left and right and uh enforced authority and
(05:02):
make decisions who become like deer in the headlights when
confronted with a discussion with their nanny's right. Because I'm
sure it can be difficult to delegate the raising of
your child and sometimes on top of that, the care
of your home to someone else. And sometimes it's just
it's just a matter of you know, not communicating clear enough.
(05:25):
They might think that you know if they if they
tell nanny one thing just kind of casually, that the
nanny will understand exactly what they mean, and that's not
always the case. I think we should back up and
point out that nanny's are not a one size fits
all type of employee. According to the International Nanny Association
that you can visit at Nanny's dot org, there are
(05:47):
three main models of nanny care, which is custodial care,
coordinated care, and surrogate care. And within those three umbrellas
you have all different branches of nanny ng such as
sleep trainers, which are nannies that come in just to
train your children to sleep well. And Molly, I think
that I could use a sleep trainer if I had
(06:08):
a little more disposal income. That sounds pretty great being
taught how to sleep perfectly. And then you also have
oh pairs for instance, who are people who come in
from overseas to oversee the children, and it's generally they're
only allowed to take care of kids for up to
a year and then they'll have to apply for a
special it's visa extension. And you have newborn care specialists
(06:32):
for those first few difficult months with their your little
bundle of joy when you're getting used to everything. So
they're all all sources of of nanny's. Well, let's talk
about these models that you throughout, Kristen, because it seems
like a lot of the tension that comes between mothers
and nanny's are when the lines of what's expected of
the nanny are blurred both to the nanny and to
the parents. And so the first one you mentioned custodial care.
(06:55):
That means that the nanny's role is limited to meeting
the children's physical and emotional need during their parents absence.
In this model, the parents manage the children's safe by
providing the nanny the specific guidance, and the nanny does
not have a voice regarding child wearing practices or parenting philosophies.
That's text that's directly from this International Nanny Association. So
it's it's someone who's just in the home doing exactly
(07:18):
what the parents want with the child. Now, in a
coordinated model of nanny care, the nanny is a team
player in raising the child. You know, the nanny is
essentially a partner with the parents. She can decide how
they're going to spend their days, and that's sort of
the middle ground between coordinated and surrogate model, and the
surrogate role is that even applies. The nanny is the
(07:39):
primary caregiver. You know that the parents might be traveling
a lot, and the nanny has to make all of the
the decisions for the child, you know, whether to take
it to the doctor or whether to keep it home
from preschool. And UH, I think it's when people don't
know exactly which model they're using and exactly what the
nanny's role is that a lot of this um tension
comes into place right And obviously, no matter what type
(08:02):
of nanny you're doing, it comes with a lot of
responsibility because like or not, you're responsible for other little
human beings and making sure that they are safe and sound.
So how much are they compensated for all of this
responsibility Because a lot of times they're in the homes
of people who are doing pretty well. They're fairly well off.
(08:23):
According to the International Nanny Association UH live out nanny's
nanny's who don't live with a family are paid on
average an hourly rate of anywhere from seven to twenty
dollars per hour. And then you have full time live
in nanny's who are the more Mary Poppin style. They
stay at the house seven who earn anywhere from three
(08:47):
hundred to a thousand dollars or more per week. But
there are sticky situations in between. There the issue of overtime.
When a family goes on vacation, does the nanny go too?
If so, is she working more hours than she would
have worked if the parents have been home with the children.
And that's one of the reasons that the Domestic Workers
United Group has been really pushing for nanny's to be
(09:09):
recognized as professionals. You know, we keep them as sort of,
you know, someone we can hire and let go at will,
and these nannies want rights, and so in September of
this year, the State of New York past legislation for
these domestic workers that entitles them to vacation days, uh,
sick days, appropriate notice of termination. Because these relationships have
(09:32):
been so loosey goosey that I think that's part of
the reason why organizations like the International Nanny Association have
sprung up. Among others, these organizations are trying to teach
mothers who, you know, I've never hired a nanny before,
how to deal with this new employee. Right, And just
for a little bit of historical context as to why
they have to in two thousand and ten push for
(09:56):
things like mandated minimum wages, because throughout history, politicians have
strategically excluded domestic workers, including nanny's, from federal and state
labor laws. Um For instance, when President Roosevelt was trying
to push through federal minimum wage in nine seven, in
order to win the support of Southern Democrats in Congress,
(10:17):
he announced that the bill would not apply to domestic
help and that was back in thirty seven, and we
still have not uh we we still haven't corrected that
at all. So we're having to go now on a
state by state basis, beginning with New York. And you know,
I was reading an interview with one of the women
who's been associated with pushing through this legislation, and she
was asked why this has taken so long, and she
(10:39):
made a really interesting point that raising children, cleaning a
home is thought of as women's work, and historically women
wise mothers have done that unpaid, and so the fact
that now we can hire someone to do it for
us causes a lot of you know, I think that
people still don't value it the way that they should,
(10:59):
which is why I think that the salaries between different
nanny's arry And I also think that's why women feel
so guilty about hiring nanny's, because they have been told historically,
this is supposed to be your job. You're the one
who's supposed to wash your child's clothes and make your
child's meals, and how dare you bring in someone else
to do it for you. And so these women who
come in, these nanni's who come in for families and
(11:20):
really help these women out and pursuing their career goals
and and just maintaining a level of sanity, really become,
you know, this guilty secret because we women are trained
to think we should be able to do it all.
And then one thing that you might not think about,
in terms of say, immigrants who are coming in and
taking jobs as nanny's there in these upper middle class homes,
(11:43):
earning as much money as they can caring for other
people's children so they can support their children at home
in another country. And there was one woman who was
interviewed in Salona Believe. She was an executive editor at
Marie Claire and she ended up writing a book about
nanny and she had sort of a memoir type of
type of book, and she also had a nanny, and
(12:05):
she was talking about how among these these New York women,
these wealthy New York women who all had nanny's, there
was even a racial hierarchy that would come out where
in uh, Swedish women were seen as the criminal a
creme nanny's and then it goes down from there and
it's incredibly racist, absolutely, And I think these are more
(12:27):
pertinent issues than things like was your nanny gonna steal
your husband? You know? Well, you know, and I was
reading another article that said that women want to be
able to justify this decision to hire a nanny, and
so they'll they will seize upon someone who might speak
a different language, and they'll justify having a nanny as, oh,
you know, the kid can learn a different language while
he or she is young. And it was you know,
(12:50):
women already feel so guilty about bringing this help in,
and then they feel guilty, like you said, of all
these class and race issues that you know, sometimes they
will just cling to the fact that they're exposing their
child to a different culture. But what happens, you know,
when you do actually for work and you're leaving your
kid there with the nanny. So many essays we came
across of women who felt so jealous of their nanny
(13:12):
because they felt that a the nanny got to spend
all day with their kids and be their kid might
end up liking the nanny more than them the mother. Now,
some parents who are nervous about leaving their children with
nanny's or if they just sense that something is a
little bit off, if their children are really young and
might not be able to communicate exactly how well or
(13:33):
how poorly nanny is doing, they will leave behind the
nanny cam the nanny cam and this is a hotly
obviously debated topic within the nanni community. And I think
that this is when where you know, the stories end
up on the news. I mean, how often have you
seen a story on the news where the nanny was
viciously abusing the child nanny caam. I mean, obviously it's
(13:54):
the bad stories they're going to make the headlines. And
I think that spells trouble for all those names who
are actually doing their job. And one article we found
on them said that people who choose to go the
nanny camera really already know something's wrong with the nanny,
and it would have been better if they could have
just talked with the nanny. But some nanny's like the
most insurance. You know. There was this one nanny and
she was taking care of some brats that sounded like
(14:17):
who they were fighting, and one kid got hurt and
the kid was like, we're going to tell our mom
you did this, but you know, the nanny she had
the nanny camp backrup. But what all those people were saying,
by and large was if you're gonna have one, tell
your nanny. But that just gets this larger issue of
how to communicate with the nanny was someone that you
kind of want to be part of your family, but
(14:38):
who you also have to view as an employee exactly.
And that's why the International Nanny Association and certain parent
coach agencies are set up to really teach parents the
importance of outlining exactly what the nanny's roles and responsibilities are.
(14:59):
Because some nan might just need to pick up the
kids from school, take him home, make him a snack,
do the laundry, and call it a day. Other nanny's
might have to do far more. Maybe the nanny needs
to walk the dog, who knows and sometimes the mothers
may not even know until they have the nanny, like
what they need from the nanny or what even their
parenting philosophy is, and so they may kind of give
(15:21):
the nanny, you know, free rain to get started, and
it's only a little bit afterwards that they're like, Oh,
I really don't like the way she disciplines. I really
don't like the way she folds the laundry. Because that
was a problem that one woman was having with her nanny,
and it's it's got to be this ongoing evaluation of
roles and responsibilities. It's you know, we've talked to one
of our very first podcast Kristen, was about how women
(15:41):
don't like to negotiate, and I think having a nanny,
one way to ease that gilt is to see it
as a constant negotiation. And as long as you and
the nanny both expect that it doesn't have to be
in this situation that's fraught with tension about you know,
you're ordering this woman around and you hope she doesn't
take it out on your kids because she gets offended
at some and you say, as long as both parties
(16:01):
can go into with this hope of open communication, it
sounds like it can be a really enriching experience for
both mother, father and the children. Absolutely, because one thing
that did not come up and all this research who
were doing, was how having a nanny somehow harms your
child development. No, not at all. Nanny's. Nanny's are there
and they can be a godsend for a family and
(16:24):
especially for allowing women to get into the workplace and
pursue their careers and maintain families. Nanny can be a
way to have it all if you, if you allow
it to be. But you know the thing is, I
didn't have a nanny, I don't employ nanny now. So
we want to hear from you guys out there. I
(16:44):
bet we have lots of listeners who are nanny's themselves,
some who employ nanny's, and we want to know what
has made or broken a relationship between you and your
employer slash employee. The address is mom Stuff at how
stuff works dot com. Nanny anecdotes welcome, Yes, and please share.
Also anecdotes on our Facebook page. Well, I have one
(17:11):
here from Justin and it's in response to our podcast
on chivalry. He says, I just wanted to throw in
my two cents about this chivalry topic. I'm from the
South as well, so I'm familiar with the courtesy that
you're talking about. I'm also a gay man, so I
felt like I can look at this objectively. From my
experience women, most women do want in both ways. They
(17:31):
absolutely want to be equal and decision making, work, pay
and everything, but the man had better open the door
and pay for dinner. Personally, I think it all comes
down to supply and demand. Men do things that women
want because the men want something the women have, and
it's not the kind words or a home cooked meal. Personally,
it seems to me that if a woman wants to
be equal, you have to take gender out of all
(17:52):
decisions where it's possible to do. So. Let's not just
be nice to women, Let's be nice to everyone. Whoever
gets to the restaurant door opens it first, and you
either split the check or whoever makes the date pays.
Oh and by the way, I hate being asked to
squish bugs. They're gross. It's more gross when they're squished,
and I don't want to do it anymore than a
woman does. It seems forced equality always seems to push
(18:13):
the pendulum back the other way. I know there's not
usually just black and white, but in this case, I say,
let's just do it. Think you got a great perspective
justin Thanks so much for sharing it. So if you
have any thoughts you'd like to send our way. Our
email addresses mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com.
You can also head over to our Facebook page and
follow us on Twitter at Mom's Stuff Podcasts. And finally,
(18:36):
you can read our blog It's Stuff I'm Never Told
You and It's how stuff Works dot com for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how
stuff works dot com So learn more about the podcast
clog on the podcast icon in the upper right corner
of our homepage. The How Stuff Works iPhone up has arrived.
Down with it today on iTunes. Yeah, brought to you
(19:02):
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