Tuesday

Diana Ross Playground in NYC

Received Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Your son played within the gates of the Diana Ross playground this afternoon (6/26). I was nearby with two children. We were there for almost an hour. During which time I reapplied sunblock to my toddler and asked your child (who's arms were turning pink) if he needed some sunblock. He responded, "no". My son then handed him the bottle and together they put it on his arms. As I am leaving the park, I pass the benches where a very comfortable, middle aged, black woman asks me in very bad English, what I was doing with her boy. At this point, it had been twenty minutes since we had given him some (much needed) sunblock. So sorry to see that your nanny is not only lazy as all get out but RUDE. I didn't even respond to her. When your little boy gets home, if he has had too much sun, you might want to question your nanny (wearing a white shirt, sandals and a long skirt that had flowers on it). Your little boy was wearing blue shorts and a white Nike shirt with yellow sleeves. PS Your son has brown hair, blue eyes, said he was 3 1/2 and he talked non stop about Diego.

36 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh, I'd like to kick that lazy slug's ass. Doesn't she know what damage can be done in youth by the sun that will affect someone all his life? Stupid is as stupid does...
or doesn't?

Anonymous said...

What did Diana Ross ever do to rate a playground to be named after her? Except inspire Michael Jackson to greater and greater heights in plastic surgery?

Anonymous said...

Although I agree with you that the nany should have asked you before (although name calling is never appropriate) you really should not share sunblock without talking to an adult in charge of the child. You have no idea if the child has skin allergies. If there had been a reaction on his skin, it would have been your fault.

Anonymous said...

namecalling? nanny was lazy. Nanny was rude. And would it really by the Op's fault if the child had a reaction to the sunblock? What if the child was being accosted by someone with sinister intentions- isn't it the job of a nanny making probbably upwards of $14 an hour to sit on her duff to periodically RISE on up off her haunches and see what is going on?

Anonymous said...

I agree. The nanny should have been watching to make sure a stranger wasn't putting sunblock on her charge. Someone was actually putting her hands all over the nanny's kid. And she didn't notice!

Anonymous said...

True- nanny is a lazy waste of someone's money who should have been watching charge, applying sunblock, all of the above. That being said, you should never, ever give someone else's child food or put any kind of creams on them. My charge has severe skin as well as food allergies. Although OP was trying to be helpful and nanny should have been involved, this could have ended very badly for the child.

Anonymous said...

no the point is that it doesn't matter what OP was doing. It matters that nanny was not taking care of the child. Save your safe skin lecture for another time. My child has a nut allergy and is 2. My nanny doesn't sit OUT SIDE of the park on a bench. That is the problem.

Anonymous said...

it's true the nanny should have used sunblock. However, I agree with the poster who said it's not wise to put sunblock on a strange child.
I care for two children besides my own, and one of the boys IS actually allergic to a great many things, including water babies and banana boat and all the popular brands, so he uses a medicated sunblock from his pedi. Of course he would never leave the house on a hot day unless he were well covered in it. The nanny sounds below par, I agree. But I would not put sunblock on a strange child.

Anonymous said...

This is a lazy nanny for sure, but seriously....there is a Diana Ross playground there???? That is just wild! We have parks here named for Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Gerald Ford, but Diana Ross? Wow!

Anonymous said...

The nanny might come from a country where people don't even think to use sunscreen. For example, my brother-in-law is from the Caribbean and even the lighter-skinned kids don't wear sunscreen...seriously....just to add a cultural perspective to all of this...whenever we visit my brother-in-law's country he just laughs how much sun-screen we put on...just an idea...but she shouldn't have let the other mom or anyone for that matter touch the kid AND the mom shouldn't have touched the kid without asking caregiver's permission--end of story--

Selena said...

First of all, the OP said her son and the boy put the sunblock on the boy together. IE, the woman never said she touched the child. My question for OP is why not look for the Nanny or the Mother? If I saw a kid alone in the park, I'd be concerned and I'd ask him/her who they were with. Also, I agree with the fact that the woman was very careless in giving the child sunblock. My son is very allergic to strawberries and thankfully he knows at this age what happens if he has them, but when he was younger his preschool gave him yogurt that had strawberry in it and he nearly stopped breathing. He was barely 4 so he wasnt looking at ingredient labels back then. The OP took a chance and luckily the kid wasnt allergic, but next time she might not be so lucky.

Anonymous said...

The OP never touched the kid.
And the nanny should have gotten off her fat ass to see what was going on. In fact, if you know that playground, you should know that the nanny should not be sitting on her fat ass OUTSIDE the gates but inside the playground.

I love how all of you turn on the OP's. OP didn't touch the child. And the fat ass nanny just sat and watched and then had the audacity to say something.

I would have kicked her in the teeth.

Anonymous said...

So the consensus of this board is that the nanny sitting on the bench outside the gate of the playground is just fine and dandy. And burned white skin be damned, some children are just meant to be burnt to a crisp and there is no use attempting to prevent it.

Where are you all from?
Pathetic. Seriously, pathetic.
Thanks for the great post OP.
The point of your story was that a nanny was neglecting her charge.
And I am sure if the child was abducted by a pervert, the people posting on this board would say, "well perverted men shouldn't abduct little kids".

Did OP ever say anything about how great she was? The point of the story is there was a sunburned 31/2 year old playing on the playground. And the nanny did see this adult interacting with her child but didn't respond until a half hour later and then only as the mother passes her by.

Let's put the blame where it is. And focus on the issue at hand. This is not an allergy board or dermatoligical site.

Anonymous said...

It is a playground in Central Park for which D. R. donated the $ to renovate.

Anonymous said...

I totally agree that this nanny was not doing the best job. I do, however, need to make a case for not judging: my kids turn very pink when hot, even when well covered with SPF 35. I'm sick of the "put some sunblock on those kids" looks and comments. OP should've sought out the responsible adult and asked tactfully if the little boy needed sunblock (and supervision, by the way!!). I do hope the parents see this.

Anonymous said...

What's wrong with this picture?

Anonymous said...

11:07- no one attacked the OP. I made a case for not applying sunblock to someone else's child, that doesn't mean I think the nanny was right. We're just trying to make people aware of the potential danger of applying creams to someone else's child without first checking with the caregiver. It could have turned out very poorly for the child, who is the one everyone should be most concerned for.

Anonymous said...

or........
you will seize any opportunity you can to get up on your soapbox and preach.

Anonymous said...

Even though the OP may not have touched the child, she still allowed her son to apply the sunblock. The argument of "she never touched him" is just ignorant. She allowed it to happen. I would not have done that. The most I would have done is asked the nanny or parent politely if she wanted to borrow our sunblock.
You people are crazy. In any daycare you need a permission slip to apply sunblock to any given child. It's not such a strange opinion to believe in not applying it to strange children that you do not know without the parent's permission!

Anonymous said...

you are missing the point. the op could have been offering him peanuts or crack- the child was supposed to be supervised.

we get your stupid point about the perils of sunblock on cauacasian skin. oh vey.

did you look at the picture?
do you realize that nanny should not have been so far away from the child?

Anonymous said...

Is it possible that the black nanny doesn't know that her white charge needs sunblock? I don't know if this is necessarily a nanny abuse story as much as it's a nanny ignorance story.

Anonymous said...

yes. that is possible. but let's call off the sunblock police. the nanny should have been more attentive to a child. it sounds to me that for an hour she sat far away from a 3 1/2 year old. and even when she saw an adult approach her child, she did not budge.

Anonymous said...

I agree in theory, 12:32, but I would have been more disturbed if the nanny had been completely unaware of what had occurred with OP in the first place. My guess is Nanny made a judgment call and realized OP wasn't hurting her charge, but decided to ask OP what she had been doing to the boy before OP left the park.

Having lived in NYC most of my life, I've had my own verbal run-ins with self-righteous women in Manhattan and Park Slope. (I'm not a nanny, by the way; I'm a career woman with a nanny myself living on the Upper Eastside.) Nanny may have taken the path of least resistence and decided to ask after OP was leaving the park.

Not justifying her behavior; she shouldn't have EVER allowed strangers to put a strange subtance on her child, but after having random strangers lecture me on everything from how to walk my dog to what kind of sippy cup my child drinks from, I can understand why Nanny may have watched from a distance and confronted later.

Anonymous said...

If the nanny really wanted to know what OP was saying to her charge, she (the nanny) should have gotten off her lazy behind and walked over to her charge. I can't stand bench nannies. Parents, take an hour off from work once in a while a drop in on your nanny.

Anonymous said...

do you know why some nannies have to be bench nannies? It is because for that little while that they come to the park, it is their only break.They have been given so much work to do by these mothers who believe $10-12 an hour is hitting the jackpot. The only thing you don't do for some of them is sleep with the husbands. So the person who wanted to help should have asked the nanny first.My boy is seriously allergic to sunblocks so applying it to his skin is life threatening. She is lucky nothing happened to the child. Don't be so quick to judge people,nannies need a break too.Just try doing what some of them have to do and then talk.

Anonymous said...

Sorry but in NY, the average nanny makes $15 and is usually paid off the books. So cry me a river. I am so sick of hearing you dumbasses bitching and whining about sensitive skin. It is the nanny's responsibility to ply her fat ass off the bench and make her way over to the child she has been entrusted to care for and ask that strange woman what she is doing with her child. She could have been trying to convince the child to leave the playground with her.
I think it is pathetic that this nanny was outside of the playground. I have no problem with nannies on benches. They do need to get off their asses when the need arises and they need to plant their dumbasses proximal to the children they are responsible for or they need to be FIRED.

There is a new bill before COngress that will require all employers to pay their nanny a minimum salary on the books, to provide health insurance (or pay $2 more per hour) and to provide the nannies five weeks of paid vacation a year.

And your bleeding heart is breaking for these lazykins?

Anonymous said...

Well said 1:10AM. After raising my own children, I was a nanny for 20 years. Now I am a grandma and taking care of my grandchildren. Taking care of children is a lot of work, so those who feel that they are being paid to lounge around outside of the playground surely need to be relieved of their duties. If a nanny feels that she needs to slack off just because she has a lot on her plate, she has the right to quit her job, not decieve her employer.

Anonymous said...

the path of least resistance was for the nanny to wait until the OP passed and then question her about the goings on? I say the path of least resistance was for old LEAD ASS to keep her lazy, worthless, slug self sitting on the bench

Anonymous said...

OMG! 1:04am defended a bench nanny!

maggie said...

I don't think this nanny qualifies as a bench nanny. She wasn't even in the playground. Very bad judgment, IMO.

Anonymous said...

Reading some of these posts makes me so glad I am not a New York City nanny, and I tend to agree with 1:04.
To 1:10, I would be shocked if that bill were to pass. And if it does, good.
Why is ass your favorite word? Your vocabulary seems severely limited. I'm sure your nanny is far more intelligent than you are.

Anonymous said...

Maybe the nanny needed to sit outside the playground because she was chewing tobacco.

Anonymous said...

Just saying...never put someone elses sunscreen on a child. They could be allergic. Some sunscreens cause bad reactions.

Anonymous said...

Yes asshat, we know that. If you are using m&ms to teach a child to count, that isn't the place to start talking about how awful chocolate, candy and sugar are for a child. This is about a bad nanny who didnt get off her dumb ass.

The end.

Anonymous said...

most of the people i know don't apply sunblock... so drop that.

moving on. i agree with wwhat was said earlier... as a nanny, you spend the whole damn day taking care of someone else's child and cleaning their house. they do not get to take hour long lunch breaks and all that bull... (And anyway, $14/hour to raise someone else's child is SHIT... i would expect @ least closer to $20) I am sure that she thought it would be easier to confront the lady after because of how people act, but honestly, can't she just be beating up on the lady because she couldn't understand her... it happens all the time, hell, i do it sometimes. it is easy to say that the OP was right, but i am sure she switched the shit up to make herself look like the angel she wants to be. let's not all beat up on the minority, because i am sure she wasn't that far away from her charge, it wouldn't make sense. when you are responsible for a life that doesn't remotely belong to you, you will tend to be a bit more careful. and if she wasn't, screw it... let's be happy that the boy was ok!

Anonymous said...

946-
most of the people you know are going to end up DEAD then. Have you heard of skin cancer? Are you aware of the staggering number of children being diagnosed with and dying from skin cancer?