Received Monday, October 15, 2007
Recently in the NY Times I read about your blog and today I saw such a disturbing scene that I knew I had to write to you!I'm a mom of 3: a son who is 20, a son 12 1/2 and a daughter, 10. I've been around the mommy scene for a long time!
We were at the JCC Manhattan on West 76th and Amsterdam around 4:30 today, (10/15). A baby was wailing at the top of her voice and couldn't stop...I turned around to see a nanny talking on her cell phone while the baby, around a year old or so (wearing burgundy patent little shoes) was strapped into her stroller crying her eyes out. (She had a sister who was about 3 and a brother who was about 5, wearing Orthodox Jewish underclothes. The nanny appeared to be Latina, around 5 ft. 2 inches in her 20s wearing a brown sweatshirt.) She then hung up her phone but was talking to another nanny who was seated on a bench nearby. Without even looking at the baby, she shoved a bottle at her which the baby rejected. She was arching her back. This poor child wanted to be picked up and comforted. Not only did this "nanny" ignore the little girl, she kept on talking to the other nanny.
Then, up walked another Latina nanny who looked about the same age and she was 8 months pregnant. She picked up the little girl who stopped crying for a moment.Then these 2 women walked out onto Amsterdam with 5 kids in tow while the little one kept screaming. I followed them outside and saw the first nanny take home the baby in the stroller (still crying) seated next to the little 3 year old with the boy crossing the street beside her.
I was appalled. I hope their mom reads this blog and seriously considers monitoring her nanny....I know that if these were my kids, I'd want to know!
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the baby was not feeling well and wanted to be held for a long time. OP, for how long ( 5, 10, 20, 30 minutes?) did you observe the nanny? Who was she talking to on the phone? Could it have been the children's parents? What was the nanny saying to her pregnant friend who tried to comfort the baby? Could she have been saying "I've tried everything I can, and she wont stop crying".
ReplyDeleteIt is really easy to pass judgement. I babysit two little boys and one of them, the 9 month old, just really cries a great deal. While I never lose my patience with him, it is just impossible to hold him all of the time. Sometimes parents who work full time have a hard time putting their children down AT ALL when the are with them, so it leaves the nanny with a child who just doesn't know how to...just BE.
ReplyDeleteYou may have been around the "mommy scene" for awhile, but things have changed lady. We are living in a culture where mothers hire someone else to raise their children and there are challenges you are simply not aware of involved with a nanny's job.
The nanny was...talking??!! Goodness, I hope you called 9-1-1.
ReplyDeleteStalker.
ReplyDeleteCome on, give me a break. These kids are Orthodox, do you think their parents really care how the nanny is treating them?
ReplyDeleteShe could have been overwhelmed. Trying to keep her eyes on three kids. Some babies cry alot. One time I watched my son with a friends child same age. At the time they were 15 months. That day all they did was cry nonstop. I thought I was going to lose my mind. They both wanted to be held at the same time. They were jealous of each other. If I picked up one she would stop crying right away. The other would scream. No win situation
ReplyDeleteIf I saw that happening, I would offer to sit next to them, and ask if she needed help.
ReplyDeleteWhat exactly are "Orthodox Jewish underclothes?" Do you mean the babies were wearing underpants with the words "I'm an Orthodox Jew" printed on them?
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the guess of Orthodox Jew was based on the circumstances.
ReplyDeleteJCC + Upper West Side of Manhattan = Jewish. Minus any designer label clothing, and you have orthodox Jewish.
Sorry for sounding un-PC, but New Yorkers know what I mean.
Cheap family hires unskilled "nanny", and unskilled nanny places cheap family's children in danger.
ReplyDeleteConfuscius say... that one messed up situation.
I think if a parent had time to monitor their nanny, they would just take care of their own kids-just a thought.
ReplyDelete12:25
ReplyDeleteHow can you say she was an unskilled nanny? Because, the child was crying? Some babies scream bloody murder even if they were only crying a minute or two.
So with skilled nannies the child will never cry, will be picked up right away. Just a thought she had two younger children with her besides the baby. Maybe, they need her attention too.
People are quick to judge.
well, only the OP was around, but I got from her post
ReplyDeletethe impression that the child needed to be picked up
and was left on her own. I agree that if everyone who leaves their child crying in a stroller has to be reported, the situation would be out of control but I have the feeling that the OP was genuinely disturbed.
If OP is disturbed by babies who cry a lot, she should consider staying away from colic babies. I have four kids, two of them were colic as babies and could cry out loud for 30 minutes straight just before going to sleep at night. Held or not, my sweet munchkins still cried.
ReplyDeleteI think the OP was more appalled that "Goy" were allowed in the JCC - JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER (How racist), than the quality of their nanny skills.
ReplyDeleteA one-year-old with colic? Please. And when the other nanny picked her up she stopped crying for a while. So something could be done.
ReplyDeleteThere should be a charity called:
ReplyDeletedontknowbabies.judgementalfools.org
All fake experts who think that a crying baby should be held til the cows come home should register their services.
5:00
ReplyDeleteNo she stated that: another nanny came over she picked up the little girl who stopped crying,for a moment. It sounds like even with the baby being picked up, she started to cry again with a minute.
Could have been she was sick, ear infection, etc. Its the season. If the child was sick, the parents should have had someone else watch her. While this nanny took care of the other two children.
opps I meant within
ReplyDelete(for all you spellcheckers out there)
5:00pm,
ReplyDeleteI didn't say that the one year old had colic, I said "I have four kids, two of them were colic as babies". I said it because apparently OP is bothered by babies crying for too long. There are many reasons why babies cry for a very long time, and colc is one of the reasons. I am not saying that this particular baby had colic.
Oy! Babies cry. Sometimes alot. She's not a bad nanny because she let the child cry.
ReplyDeleteI'm a skilled nanny and one of the ten month old twins I care for cries to be held and walked ALL THE TIME! Sometimes I put him down and ignore him for a bit. I put him down somewhere I know he will be safe and can see me and then I do what I call "active ignoring". I simply do something else. I pick up my needlepoint, or I clean the kitchen, or I fold laundry or sometimes I even (gasp!) call a friend for moral support. Imagine that.
The bigger problem as I see it is that more people do NOT put the baby down and let him cry. Since when did it become OK for the babies to dictate what the adults do?
8:47,
ReplyDeleteYour point about adults calling the shots would be valid if we were talking about a toddler or older child. Babies, for heaven's sake, are utterly helpless creatures with no way to communicate distress other than crying. Other than a quick mental sanity beak or to meet really pressing needs, a baby in distress should be held and comforted.
9:45 I agree completely.
ReplyDeleteA baby has no other way to communicate than to cry. I think what they learn about the world during those times is partly dependent on how they are treated when in distress. Does somebody loving come to comfort them? Or does somebody "teach them who is boss" by letting them lay there in distress. I can understand if a baby cires inconsolably for hours on end, that you might need to put him down from time to time. (Or take him to the doctor if you don't know that the baby has colic or some other really good reason for wailing non stop.)
I think it is silly to think anybody is teaching a baby "who is in control here" by ignoring their cries. Sure they stop crying, but not because they are thinking to themselves, "Hey, I'm not the one who calls the shots here. I need to stop acting 'spoiled.'" They stop crying because they eventually learn that nobody is going to come anyway. They come to believe that communication is futile, and so they stop even trying. Good baby.
I picked each of my kids up every time they cried. And I tried to hurry so they would make the connection as soon as possible between crying and my arrival. I wanted them to understand that there was such a thing as communication as early as possible. None of my babies cried for no reason, so maybe this was easier for me. I picked them up, attended to whatever the problem was, and they were once again content. Sometimes they just wanted to be held. But that was ok with me. I thought, "If my baby just wants to be with me, here I am." Whats so wrong or "spoiled" about wanting a little human contact? What would they have really gained by the knowledge that , "Mommy will hold me when she's darn good and ready, and not a moment sooner?"
After my kids were past the baby stage I heard about a study where the conclusion was that babies who are picked up as soon as they cry in the first six months cry far less in the second six months. Thinking back, maybe this is why I didn't have needless crying from my babies?
Of course you wouldn't just let a newborn cry. If my son cried as a newborn I would pick him up right away. Up until he was around seven or eight months I was doing that. When I went for his checkup at nine months, he started to cry right away. So I went to pick him up. The doctor told me, not to pick him up so fast. He said he has to learn to wait. And that he would just cry about everything little thing if I swooped in everytime he made a cry. He was right, of course I picked him up but I would wait a few minutes to see if he could calm himself down.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I trust my doctor more than anyone else on here.
A short story to share with y'all:
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who claims to be some expert at caring for children. She has kids of her own. After years of listening to her blowing hot air about how a baby should be held for as long as possible to 'avoid' crying, I found out that she was just a hot air balloon.
I was talking to her husband and teenage daughter one day and I told them how they are lucky to have the mom in the family because she never let the kids cry. The husband said " Are you kidding, she just used to plop the kids in the crib and let them cry out for as long as possible, so they eventually stopped crying for her because they knew it was no use." He wasn't joking. This chick was out telling people how to raise their kids, and yet she was doing worse than most of us.
Please do what you preach :)
I think it is hard to really know what was going on. Letting a baby cry is not such a big deal. Sometimes picking them up will not help. Sometimes it might help but you feel just too exhausted to pick them up anyway.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the whole OP story is filled with details that seem to indicate that the nanny was not doing enough. Was she or wasn't she? Anybody's call.
Just some almost totally unrelated story here:
I was at the supermarket once and there were two little boys, maybe 6 and 4, standing close to their mother in the check-out line. The older one was keeping really quiet and helping his mother, while the younger one was yelling at the top of his voice. People were rolling eyes and giving each other looks. Looking more closely I realized that the older boy with the angelic smiling face was in fact pinching his younger brother below the counter as hard as he could. Point of my story? There can be more than meets the eye, one way or the other.
Kelly,
ReplyDeleteYour story brings to mind my sister in law. She had a family emergency and I went down to babysit for her two kids, a three year old and a new baby, 6 or 8 weeks old.
She had already, in the coiures of common conversations, been telling me that her new baby was disturbing her by crying every night at dinnertime, just as she was trying to cook. So she was "punishing" him by putting him in his little infant seat and placing him an a bedroom all alone with the door shut so he would get the idea that crying meant isolation, and hopefully this would teach him not to cry. (Fat chance with a newborn) I found this very odd.
Anyway, as she was giving me care instructions for the baby, she told me that when he wanted to eat I should just set him in his infant carrier over in a corner by a bookcase she indicated and prop the bottle against the bookcase with the nipple in his mouth and he would eat with out any inconvenience to me. I thought to myself, "No way am I going to feed a brand new baby that way," but I didn't say that to her. Not only was it not very nurturing, but I thought it posed a choking hazard as well. When the time came to feed the baby, I held him in my arms and tried to give him the bottle. He squirmed and spit it out and became very upset. He was hungry but wouldn't eat. I tried for a while to coax him to eat, but he just squirmed and cried. Finally I gave up and decided to try what she had said. I sat the baby alone in a corner, propped the bottle in his mouth, and he drank it all down like nothing was wrong. IT was then I realized that she must NEVER have held her baby when he ate. She just propped him in a corner routinely. That was natural to him, whereas cuddling was foreign and upsetting to him.
The really weird thing about that is that she would always make such a big deal about this one baby, as though he was the center of the universe. She thought nothing of making a big show of inconveniencing the whole extended family in order to take excessively meticulous care of this baby when we were all together. In front of everybody she went on and on about how wonderful she was with him...telling us endlessly about what great pains she took to care for him.
But in private she couldn't even be bothered to hold him. I think he sat in that infant carrier for most of the day when nobody was watching.
I alwatys wondered about the discrepancy. Maybe her guilt caused her to want to prove to us that she was really great to him?
I don't know. But it is really pathetic when you think of it.
how awful. that is one of the worst stories i have ever heard. where is the child now? is he okay?
ReplyDeleteOMG, 5:14pm, that is a very sad story. I hope the kid is doing fine. Humans are social animals. Lack of interaction could stagnate his brain development. Was she trying to raise a freal child?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.feralchildren.com/
Yes, the boy turned out nicely in the end, thank God. His mother, however, became more and more selfish (and is at this point actually a truly bizarre woman) over the years. By the grace of God, some kids beat all the odds and turn out well despite the parents.
ReplyDeleteThere was a time I was worried that maybe the baby was autistic, because he pushed away when anybody tried to hold and cuddle him. Sadly, it eventually became apparent that he was just completely unaccustomed to touch. But, as I said, he is perfectly normal, and a sweet person. He's just started college.
5:14
ReplyDeleteWow, thats so sad!! Poor baby, thats so sad. Did you mention any of this to your brother??? How did the baby react to you holding him during the day when you babysat??
What happened to the Chatroom?
ReplyDeleteEric's mom,
ReplyDeleteIt is my husband's sister. Yes, I told him. I was heartbroken and he was disgusted. I think maybe he mentioned it to her...I don't remember for sure. This sister is the darling of the family and NOBODY questions her, or all hell breaks loose. And she lies...A LOT...so what can you do with that? Nothing.
The baby pushed away when I tried to hold him. (This is what made me think maybe he was autistic...sometimes they don't like to be held.) That baby was content in the seat and squirmy and uncomfortable whenever I tried to hold him. Between the feeding weirdness, the stories she had been telling me about closing him into a room by himself and leaving him there alone when he cried, knowing how selfish she is, and the fact that he did NOT have autism or any other psychological issues, it became very clear what had happened there. Plus her extreme weirdness in "overcaring" for him in front of everybody always puzzled me. I knew she was treating him one way in public and another in private...which confusded the heck out of me. But I was young and naive then, and didn't realize it was a "show." I think now that it must have been guilt...like it was so important to her for us all to think she was a great mother, because she knew inside that she was neglectful. And she is ALL ABOUT APPEARANCES. Does that make sense? I mean, she so ran the world around him that everybody, even the grandparents, resented the child for a time. EVERYTHING was all about that one child, and she would make us all schedule everything around is eating, his nap, how much he might or might not enjoy a certain activity...and she had an older child who was just sort of "there." And yet, when she was alone, she had no time to give him, even to hold him or feed him apparently.
Sick puppy, she is. I am just so thankful the boy turned out well. (Although, now that I think about it, most of the "really well" comes from the reports she gives us about how great he is. We haven't actually seen him in years, but he was sweet and seemed perfectly normal the last time I saw him anyway.)
to poster 8:47 A crying baby is not always a baby in distress. Yes, they have only one way of communicating and that is crying. Why would you want to quiet him every time he tries to communicate? It's OK for baby to cry and communicate that he doesn't like something, that he would rather be picked up, or even that he's just plain feeling out of sorts. Not all cries need to be stifled.
ReplyDeleteTo those of you claiming you pick your child up every time he cries. Oh my goodness what a bunch of brats you must be raising! How is he supposed to learn that he can comfort himself to some degree if you never give him the opportunity? What if he cries to be held all day long? Do you just stop everything to accomodate him? Do you tell your other children/spouse "too bad there's no dinner tonight,baby wanted to be held"? It must be a sad existense to live life at the whim and mercy of an infant.
8:58pm, I think you and 8:47pm might be trying to say the same thing. Maybe I just need some sleep.
ReplyDeleteAmanda, welcome! I think the big gang up is just an initiation thing. You are gifted in more ways than one, and it's nice that you are not letting anyone beat you down. Cali mom went through something similar, and she held her ground like a true mom.
Goodnight :)
Come on, these people have kids like rabbits. Are you telling me the moms are able to cater to them at any split second?
ReplyDeleteDo you think being an at home mom translates to "catering to them every second?"
ReplyDeleteWe stay at home moms want our children to grow up to be decent human beings. We try to be balanced...not cater to them as though they were all in line for the throne...otherwise they might turn out like Paris Hilton.
On the other hand, we like to be there in case they need us, and so that they realize that we find them important enough to spend our time raising them...otherwise they might turn out like Charles Manson.
6:24- Exactly! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI would assume that the OP used the term "Orthodox Jewish underwear" in a purely descriptive fashion, to refer to a boy wearing an undergarment with white fringes hanging from it.
ReplyDelete