Thursday

West 100th Street Playground in Central Park, NYC

Received Thursday, May 24, 2007
Today, I saw a nanny today sitting on a park bench with a kid in a stroller who was around 12 months or so maybe a bit older. The nanny kept the child facing away from her. She was very disconnected from the child as she spoke not just with the nannies around her but also on her cell phone. When the child started to cry, she started to grabbed the stroller bar and started to move it (not getting up) The baby continued to cry. This lasted about twenty minutes. The nanny was shaking the stroller back and fourth as she continued her conversations. Never once did she face the baby towards or say one soothing word. The baby continued to cry and she continued to talk to her friends and take another cell phone call. After another ten minutes or so, she finally and rather abruptly turned the stroller around and slapped a bib on the child and fed him some jarred food. The nanny did this without saying word one to the child or making any eye contact. The child was a Caucasian boy and the nanny was a Hispanic female, approximately 35 and short, with a heavy build. The nanny was wearing a reddish t-shirt with a print design on it that was faint. And the little boy had little hair, brownish and was wearing camouflage crocs. Nothing she did was at all soothing, soft, tender or loving. And she was taking care of a baby!

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sure she was bitching on the phone about how she should be making even more money for her caretaker skills, which quite frankly sound nonexistent.

Public stoning for her.

Anonymous said...

What you have chronicled here is not nec. abusive behavior but more likely the normal and acceptable low brow style of childcare that for reasons unknown to me seems to be acceptable in New York. Maybe that is why people grow in to murders, psychos and politicans here.

Anonymous said...

I agree with you both. I am a stay at home, mom and I see this all the time at the park. This is absolutely the standard in the city. Clusters of nanies congregate with nannies of same backgound and pay no attention to their charges - ignoring crying and tired pleas. It makes me really wonder about the denial that parents are in. How do they think their children are being treated all day?

Anonymous said...

LOL!...Good one 1:27pm...I am appalled at the things I read on here. That poor baby......no wonder our society is such a mess.

Anonymous said...

251,
Me too! And yet there are so many of them. Maybe I will start taking notes so I can post about them. One by one, perhapsthey will be called to task on their negligent and cruel behavior!

Anonymous said...

I am a SAHM too, and I see too many bench nannies baking themselves in the sun while nobody watches their kids. Yesterday afternoon, my toddler walked over to another toddler who had been playing by himself for an hour, and offered him a piece of sidewalk chalk. Even a toddler knows when a friend is being neglected. I wish I had a "handcuff the negligent nanny" license.

Anonymous said...

These children are the future, and look how we treat them..........shameful.

Simply shameful. Neglect, cultutral, low brow, how ever you wanna call it, it's sad.

Anonymous said...

I see other SAHM's beat me to my comment. I, too, see this kind of behavior all the time. It's normal behavior of the nanny's to treat their charges this way. I really wish that the mother's of these children would take a half day and spy on their nanny's and see how their babies are being treated. It breaks my heart.

Anonymous said...

You assholes are lieing maggots! Get lives losers!

Anonymous said...

"frank",
come back when you can spell.

Anonymous said...

And yet you said nothing to her. This is just as disconcerting as her behavior. Maybe had you walked over and asked her if you could help because the kid was crying she might have gotten the drift.

You're just as bad as her for watching. I love how big city people just watch.