“Maybe these commenters can’t relate to the image because it involves a park, and parks are outside, and none of these people have been outside in a very long time.”
I haven't read the actual New Yorker article, but honestly this essay is much closer in quality to a NYer piece than the vast majority of feature writing out there. Really nuanced and insightful!
So a while ago there was this netflix show on lives of the ultra-rich in the UK and it had this woman from Namibia who was married to a Lord or Earl and was also a model and had like idk, 5-6 kids? They had a fulltime nanny from the philippines or something who didn't get to go spend time with her own kids. I guess that's the sort of story that's common enough to be in the corner of public perception and be triggered by this kind of depiction.
My own great-aunt was a nanny in the US in the 70s and 80s. She lost her husband and had three kids. She left the kids with relatives in india and went to the US to earn a living. I don't know much of her life then, but the family she nannied for would lock her at home all day when they were out at work. She managed to provide for her family, but at least one of her kids ended up the black sheep that was amazing with the kids but stole and cheated. His wife had to become a nanny in Hong Kong to make ends meet eventually. Mind, this wasn't common in our family even while being a touch hand-to-mouth, so your circumstances had to be pretty bad to take that option.
We were looking at nannies when it was time for us to go back to work. Our first candidate was this white lady. This was covid times, so we were interviewing her in the front yard. There was me, my white husband, and our kid, and this nanny candidate. Someone passing by stopped to chat, and they assumed that the well-dressed nanny-candidate was the mom/wife/homeowner and the haggard, harried, dark-skinned me was the nanny. They said "what a beautiful house you have" and "what a cute baby you have" and the nanny-candidate just said "thank you". I don't know her intent with that, maybe she didn't want to awkwardly explain, but at that point, it pissed me the fuck off. So when the nanny-candidate said she wasn't vaccinated and didn't plan to get the covid vaxx and also had a trip to hawaii planned soon, I was very happy to be like "okay call you never".
Eventually the lady who we did hire became a third grandma to my kid, and for a while, when it was time for me to take my kid and let her go home, kid would wail and not let her go. Our nanny told me later she worried in those moments that I'd fire her because my kid showed a preference. But as someone who was raised by a ton of alloparents because I grew up in a big family, I knew that when I'd refuse to hang with my mom because my aunt was more fun, I wasn't rejecting my mom, I just didn't want the fun auntie and I were having to be interrupted.
I realize a lot of moms feel insecure about this type of thing to start with, which makes the nanny-parent relationship awkward. And they also expect nannies to be Child Raising Experts which i notice a lot of nannies, especially the ones with fancy degrees, are happy to play up. But I think that sets one up for failure and makes the relationship more awkward because as a mom you don't know where your authority can come from especially when you feel you're not spending enough time to know your kid, and you feel awkward about, like Tina Fey did, to tell you nanny to not cut the kids nails too short. It becomes this whole "you're the expert but you're not doing your job properly" thing when it feels healthier to be like "we're all stakeholders in raising this child well". I found it least conflicting to let our nanny treat our kid like one of her grandkids. It involved dietary, safety and disciplinary choices we would totally not have made, but we were broadly aligned on the general idea, it's FINE for a half a day at a time, expands all our horizons, and we can later communicate expectations like we would with an inlaw.
When I was a SAHM though, it was a lot of taking my kid to the park and everyone would assume I'm the nanny. When I'd been working, I saw people think our nanny was our kid's mom/grandma. I realized it didn't actually bother me unless the assumer was being weird about it.
I find it totally weird that the artwork is titled "Mother's Work". Sure, they can justify it saying it's about the nannies also being mothers, but... it's just naughty and aimed exactly at this kind of discourse.
I can’t get over the fact that you had an actual British nanny. Like Mary Poppins, but not magical, or Mrs. Doubtfire, only not really a guy in old-lady drag! Did she live with your family?
In my location and income bracket, a nanny is a college student parents hire for the summer; when school starts again, the kids go to an after-school daycare program Monday-Friday. I grew up going to a private school where most people were pretty well-off, but for whatever reason, having a full-time nanny wasn’t a “thing.”
The imagery of black women taking care of white children has a lot of cultural baggage that started with slavery and kept going through the twentieth century; in the first half of the twentieth century, being a maid, housekeeper, or nanny was one of the only careers easily attainable for working-class black women. And there is indeed the phenomenon of immigrant women who leave their kids in their country of origin, come to America, and send home money they earned from taking care of someone else’s children.
I rofled at “Maybe these commenters cannot relate to park, park is outside and they don’t go outside” lmao
And “for those of you who are not nanny or mom… you’re being weird” is a banger!
Like I’ve been wondering if those history revisionist who say “these mom are spoiled” have actually raised kids themselves and I highly doubt it now lol
What a fun hobby it is to find materials to get mad about online lol
I think this may be one of the big reasons you don't see dads posting ads for nannies--even if they're on the level, there could be the appearance of a potential extramarital affair. Nowadays if he's not careful he might even be doxxed even if he were, actually, just looking for a nanny.
I’ve also seen two families where professional mum needs a nanny because the stay at home husband is useless. Gender reverse of the trophy wife syndrome I suppose.
“Maybe these commenters can’t relate to the image because it involves a park, and parks are outside, and none of these people have been outside in a very long time.”
Your writings bring me much joy, CHH, MUCH JOY
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️😂
I haven't read the actual New Yorker article, but honestly this essay is much closer in quality to a NYer piece than the vast majority of feature writing out there. Really nuanced and insightful!
Wow thank you!
So a while ago there was this netflix show on lives of the ultra-rich in the UK and it had this woman from Namibia who was married to a Lord or Earl and was also a model and had like idk, 5-6 kids? They had a fulltime nanny from the philippines or something who didn't get to go spend time with her own kids. I guess that's the sort of story that's common enough to be in the corner of public perception and be triggered by this kind of depiction.
My own great-aunt was a nanny in the US in the 70s and 80s. She lost her husband and had three kids. She left the kids with relatives in india and went to the US to earn a living. I don't know much of her life then, but the family she nannied for would lock her at home all day when they were out at work. She managed to provide for her family, but at least one of her kids ended up the black sheep that was amazing with the kids but stole and cheated. His wife had to become a nanny in Hong Kong to make ends meet eventually. Mind, this wasn't common in our family even while being a touch hand-to-mouth, so your circumstances had to be pretty bad to take that option.
We were looking at nannies when it was time for us to go back to work. Our first candidate was this white lady. This was covid times, so we were interviewing her in the front yard. There was me, my white husband, and our kid, and this nanny candidate. Someone passing by stopped to chat, and they assumed that the well-dressed nanny-candidate was the mom/wife/homeowner and the haggard, harried, dark-skinned me was the nanny. They said "what a beautiful house you have" and "what a cute baby you have" and the nanny-candidate just said "thank you". I don't know her intent with that, maybe she didn't want to awkwardly explain, but at that point, it pissed me the fuck off. So when the nanny-candidate said she wasn't vaccinated and didn't plan to get the covid vaxx and also had a trip to hawaii planned soon, I was very happy to be like "okay call you never".
Eventually the lady who we did hire became a third grandma to my kid, and for a while, when it was time for me to take my kid and let her go home, kid would wail and not let her go. Our nanny told me later she worried in those moments that I'd fire her because my kid showed a preference. But as someone who was raised by a ton of alloparents because I grew up in a big family, I knew that when I'd refuse to hang with my mom because my aunt was more fun, I wasn't rejecting my mom, I just didn't want the fun auntie and I were having to be interrupted.
I realize a lot of moms feel insecure about this type of thing to start with, which makes the nanny-parent relationship awkward. And they also expect nannies to be Child Raising Experts which i notice a lot of nannies, especially the ones with fancy degrees, are happy to play up. But I think that sets one up for failure and makes the relationship more awkward because as a mom you don't know where your authority can come from especially when you feel you're not spending enough time to know your kid, and you feel awkward about, like Tina Fey did, to tell you nanny to not cut the kids nails too short. It becomes this whole "you're the expert but you're not doing your job properly" thing when it feels healthier to be like "we're all stakeholders in raising this child well". I found it least conflicting to let our nanny treat our kid like one of her grandkids. It involved dietary, safety and disciplinary choices we would totally not have made, but we were broadly aligned on the general idea, it's FINE for a half a day at a time, expands all our horizons, and we can later communicate expectations like we would with an inlaw.
When I was a SAHM though, it was a lot of taking my kid to the park and everyone would assume I'm the nanny. When I'd been working, I saw people think our nanny was our kid's mom/grandma. I realized it didn't actually bother me unless the assumer was being weird about it.
I find it totally weird that the artwork is titled "Mother's Work". Sure, they can justify it saying it's about the nannies also being mothers, but... it's just naughty and aimed exactly at this kind of discourse.
What I took away from this is that we need to bring back the phrase “mind your own business” 😂
I can’t get over the fact that you had an actual British nanny. Like Mary Poppins, but not magical, or Mrs. Doubtfire, only not really a guy in old-lady drag! Did she live with your family?
In my location and income bracket, a nanny is a college student parents hire for the summer; when school starts again, the kids go to an after-school daycare program Monday-Friday. I grew up going to a private school where most people were pretty well-off, but for whatever reason, having a full-time nanny wasn’t a “thing.”
The imagery of black women taking care of white children has a lot of cultural baggage that started with slavery and kept going through the twentieth century; in the first half of the twentieth century, being a maid, housekeeper, or nanny was one of the only careers easily attainable for working-class black women. And there is indeed the phenomenon of immigrant women who leave their kids in their country of origin, come to America, and send home money they earned from taking care of someone else’s children.
Twenty years ago, Caitlin Flanagan wrote an interesting piece called “How Serfdom Saved the Women’s Movement.” https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/03/how-serfdom-saved-the-women-s-movement/302892/ It talks about a lot of the same things your piece here does.
I rofled at “Maybe these commenters cannot relate to park, park is outside and they don’t go outside” lmao
And “for those of you who are not nanny or mom… you’re being weird” is a banger!
Like I’ve been wondering if those history revisionist who say “these mom are spoiled” have actually raised kids themselves and I highly doubt it now lol
What a fun hobby it is to find materials to get mad about online lol
Anecdotally, sometimes husband cheats on mom with nanny. Like, when the mom is uptight, sometimes the dad connects with nanny.
I think this may be one of the big reasons you don't see dads posting ads for nannies--even if they're on the level, there could be the appearance of a potential extramarital affair. Nowadays if he's not careful he might even be doxxed even if he were, actually, just looking for a nanny.
I’ve also seen two families where professional mum needs a nanny because the stay at home husband is useless. Gender reverse of the trophy wife syndrome I suppose.
Wow great to not be on twitter. Imagine being able to afford a nanny omg. I can’t even relate to moms in that position
I miss you on Twitter, though!
You were like the only one I liked ha. Good for you for still dealing with it