Wednesday, Aug 20, 2008
A good nanny is hard to find -- so is a good employer. Plus: Lonely Planet writer defends guidebooks from author of "The Beach"; should celebrities' writings remain private?
Feb 15, 2000 | United Nations of nannies
BY CECELIE S. BERRY
(02/11/00)
Cecelie S. Berry's story about her search for the perfect nanny came across as little more than elitist whining about how hard it is to find good help these days.
I've got news for Berry: Most people, no matter where they're from, consider looking after someone else's kids to be a demanding, poorly paid, low-status job -- something you do if you can't find anything better. This may be why nearly all of the nannies who worked for the author turned out to have "scars": They were in the nanny business because their emotional wounds rendered them unfit for any other kind of work.
I'm very sorry that Berry is having so much trouble finding the working person's ultimate status symbol.
-- Mary Elsisi
Throughout college, I worked as a nanny in an affluent suburb of Boston. It had everything that Americans cling to as the perfect environment for raising a child: a great public school system, vast public libraries, lush green parks, the cultural richness of a major metropolitan city only a few train stops away and a population that teemed with well-intentioned intelligentsia.
But I soon discovered impossible Mary Poppins-esque expectations of nannies. Parents hardly ever sacrificed three hours a week to play with their kids or even spend time walking with them to the playground. The dads disappeared at work, sometimes emerging around 9 or 10 in the evening while the moms simply poured over bulletins, leaflets and catalogs of after-school activities to pencil into an already over-burdened schedule for their sleepy-eyed children. The fathers were the payers, the mothers the planners, and we somehow were left to the parenting while trying to compensate for the parents' lack of quality time for their kids.
I have very little sympathy for Berry and I suggest she turn around and ask all those nannies what kind of "story" they got from her.
-- Tania Castellanos
Stop having nannies and put your child in a registered day care or, better yet, a family day care with someone who has training and is a mother. I ran a family day care out of my home and the mothers of my charges told me all the same stories. It may mean more work for you and you will probably have to hire a cleaning lady a couple of times of week but it will be worth it.
-- Devorah Stone
Horrifying as these nanny horror stories were, I was most shocked by Berry's summing up: "It's easy to imagine spending a lifetime looking for that needle in a haystack: the one perfect person of all those who apply, the person who is most capable of caring for one's family."
The one person who is most capable of caring for Berry's family is Berry. It is strange and terrifying that such a bright woman would entrust her children to dangerous strangers in the name of keeping up with her neighbors.
-- Chris Woodyard
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