Panhandle Park in Ashbury, San Francisco

Received Thursday, October 26, 2006
Recently I have been hearing about some of the behaviors by a few nannies that I, as a parent, would want to know about. One babysitter, her name is Paulina, leads you to believe she is only watching your child, when in reality she takes on two to three jobs at once. She is getting paid by each family as if she is focused on their child exclusively. If you wanted your child in a group of three to four kids, you could be paying a cheaper rate at a daycare. She is not honest about this. I have also heard that she and some of her friends drive the kids around with no car seat. These children are young, under the age of 5. Another group of nannies sit in the panhandle park almost every day from 11am-2pm. One nanny is from Nicaragua. She takes care of a four year old Caucasian boy and a baby around 9 months. The four year old is now in school. All of the other nannies talk about this group of nannies and how awful they are to the children. Apparently the woman from Nicaragua screams at the children and often swears at them in Spanish. One of the children has fallen twice off a bench while she was not paying attention. When the child went to her for comfort, she SCREAMED at him in Spanish,"GET AWAY FROM ME YOU LITTLE SH*T"; One day the mother came to the playground and while she was standing there, the nanny said to her friends, "See, I can say whatever I want because she can't speak any Spanish!" This woman also gave the baby a chicken bone to suck on after she was finished eating the chicken, gross. Recently a woman who has grandkids at the park confronted this nanny. She hasn't been at the park recently. We are hoping she returns. We know of an undercover policeman that wants to observe what is happening. As I said, several other nannies talk about this and are concerned because their treatment of the children is so awful, but are afraid to say anything to these women who seem very tough and swear often.