My nanny, myself

Is it any wonder that some days I love my nanny more than I love my husband?

By Jennifer Bingham Hull

Sep 13, 1999 | Aspen, Colo., on vacation: The room is brightly decorated with red and yellow balloons. I've got presents and cards ready on the table. It's a Kodak moment when she walks in, eyes wide with surprise, smile stretching from ear to ear. Our 1-and-a-half-year-old, Isabelle, grabs the presents but they aren't for her. They're for our nanny, Ada, who is traveling with us. A good sport, my husband, Bill, joins in singing "Happy Birthday." I completely forgot his birthday this year.

Miami, 10 a.m.: The phone rings. Ada has had a car accident and can't come to work. Bill, a professor, has meetings all day and teaches in the evening. Suddenly I have 11 hours to fill with Isabelle. My adult voice echoes solo off the walls. I build blocks, read "Hop on Pop." Isabelle and I have our magical moments, but not 11 hours of them. Instead, my day unravels like a ball of string. I skip my shower, let the calls pile up on the answering machine. It starts to rain. Ada has some special technique for getting Isabelle to nap, but I don't know what it is and so she won't sleep. By late afternoon, I sit parked at Miami Beach in tears, baby finally dozing in the car seat. Will Ada return tomorrow? The next day? At all?

Home, relatives visiting: "Oh, isn't she smart! Isn't she wonderful!" Our toddler can dance, chase birds and identify "bow wows."

"And -- what did you say, Isabelle?"

"Aqui! Mommy aqui!" she says, thumping my chest.

"Listen! She's saying, 'Here's Mommy' in Spanish!" I tell my husband.

It took me years to learn Spanish. I'm excited that Isabelle is learning the language from Ada. I have bought children's books in Spanish for our nanny to read to her. Still, I'm keenly aware that the more Spanish Isabelle learns, the less she sounds like my daughter. My Midwestern relatives look perplexed.

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I am a mother with a full-time nanny. I do not feel displaced. I feel privileged. Hiring Ada is some of the best mothering I've ever done. I'm proud of having found this Latina Mary Poppins, with her sunny disposition, boundless energy and sense of fun. If Isabelle loves her nanny, that's great. I love her, too. Ada is one of the best things that has happened to me in years.

Yet the mommy-nanny tie is also complicated and full of contradictions. Ada is the rock on which I've rebuilt my writing career and she's quickly become part of our family, but she can leave any day. Ours is the strongest and most intimate of ties, born of mutual love of a small being. However, we are also distant, an employer and employee from different worlds. I entrust Ada with the most important person in my life, but I pay her less per hour than I pay the handyman. We are friends, but I am the boss. I am the mom, yet she sometimes knows more about my daughter than I do. She works for us 9 to 5 weekdays -- she doesn't even live with us -- but she affects my life profoundly.

My husband, for instance, has been displaced not only by our baby, but by our nanny. It's no coincidence that I forgot Bill's birthday this year but remembered Ada's. I often try harder to please my nanny than I do to please my spouse. Even in my worst moods, I compliment Ada's new hairstyle and thank her for cleaning the floor. I'm not always as grateful when Bill takes the car in for service. Figuring that my husband is mine to have and hold forever, I take him for granted. In contrast, foreign nannies' lives are unstable, subject to changing immigration laws, disasters in their home countries and the needs of their extended families. I try harder with Ada than I do with Bill, because I fear losing her more than I do him.

It's also hard for a man to compete with another woman. My husband doesn't speak Spanish, so he can't talk to Ada or join our conversations. But there's more to it than that. Bill isn't good at chitchat -- that great stuff that greases the wheels of daily life. Like many men, he focuses on one thing at a time. If I mention that Isabelle kissed a boy in the park while he's reading the paper, I interrupt his concentration. In contrast, Ada and I discuss everything from Isabelle's escapades to the difference between Latin and American men while she's peeling carrots and I'm brewing coffee. Working out of the house, I chat with Ada on and off all day. I haven't had this much female companionship since college and had forgotten how nice it is. When I buy a new outfit, Bill says, "Nice dress." Ada compliments the color and appreciates the cut. When I talk about motherhood, Bill listens. The mother of three grown children herself, Ada understands.

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