Received Thursday, November 8, 2007
I saw your nanny (dark skin, heavy set, black coat and scarf, short dark hair, 40-ish, Island accent) as I was crossing Greenwich Street today grabbing your boy by the ear and twisting him around near a brick column because he was insisting he wanted a play date with his friend. The boy is maybe a 2nd or 3rd grader, short reddish brown hair, wearing a yellow jacket with stripes on the sleeve. Another boy was with them, a bit taller, perhaps a bit older, orange jacket, short dark hair, carrying a medium sized black instrument case. Then their friend came running down the street to join them (I didn't notice anyone with him), shorter, short dark hair, dark green coat. She saw me watching her and stopped to greet the boy, saying it was ok if they wanted to have a play date and they all proceeded walking north along the west side of Greenwich Street.
18 comments:
OMG
it's a wonder the ear is still attached!
what kind of island accent? Long Island?
The boy is old enough to tell his parents about the way the nanny treats him. Maybe they don't believe him. I hope they see this.
A Nanny
Did you really see what you explained? Something does not make sense to me and if it does not make sense it is not true. Think you saw what you wanted to. A 2nd or 3rd grader would let the whole world know what was being done to him at the moment.
11:06 - maybe not, if this Nanny treats him like this all the time she has probably put the fear of God into this poor kid. Too bad his "taller, older" and bigger friend didn't take his "medium sized" instrument case and smack that Nanny over the top of the head with it.
Pretty stupid to do that at that location - everyone sees everyone there. I'd guess the parents are not interested.
I don't doubt that this could have happened, or that the child would have reacted the way he did.
My dad remarried when my kids were small. Seems his wife was taking to "disciplining" my children behind my back by pinching their necks (spock style), squeezing their arms, spanking them, and once even kicking at one of them...oh and whispering horrible things to them about how rotten they were. (Turns out, she doesn't particularly "care" for children and thinks they are all nasty and spoiled creatures by nature,who ought to stand silently and still at all times...and if you just inflict enough pain, they can be taught to do so. Her own daughter had been raised in daycare and all-summer long camps when school was out, so she really has no idea what kids really are like.) The spanking my 4 year old daughter received was at the State Fair, for shuffling her feet in the gravel, which apparently stirred up dust...to give you an idea of this woman's mindset. The kids did not tell me until we had put her on an airplane after an apparently worse than normal visit. I was completely shocked and appalled. Apparently she did some of these things when I was nearby and my back simply turned, and my kids never let out a peep.
(Obviously she knew she was in the wrong because she bothered to hide her abuses from my husband me.) As a "grandparent," my children respected her as an authority figure and so did not scream out or object. This is how the boy might have felt about nanny.
Parents, if your child told you your nanny did this to him/her, what would you do?
If you didn't immediately fire the nanny or call the police; would you also be compliant in child abuse?
I think you would be, and I think a parent who continues to place their child in harm's way is probably more responsible for the child abuse than the nanny is.
Yoga class is never more important than your child's health and well being.
I do not agree that a 2nd-3rd grader will necessarily tell the parents. My friend found months after she left that her nanny had been routinely abusive with her child. The child had never said a word, he was just extremely wound up, and the parents had been quite pleased happy with the nanny. So beware! Even if the child is old enough to speak, that does not mean that they will speak.
11:50. I think 2 or 3 years old is the right time to talk about being "touched" and what feels ok and doesn't feel ok.
This report seems bad... but what if something worse happened? Males and females have been known to sexually abuse children.
Parents need to be very careful, and encourage their children to speak out.
12:01 -
You have brought up a very important topic, and I agree 100%, as long as it is discussed delicately and with age-appropriate words they can understand. Also, don't forget to ask them occasionally about it ... they might not always approach you with it.
Some kids might not report a bad Nannys behavior especially if they think their parents are really fond of the Nanny and don't want to upset them.
A LOT of times kids don't tell. WE can guess at a hundred different reasons why that might be, but they very often don't. Just look at how many abused children there are in this country. It would be a far smaller number if they were telling, as we wish and hope they would. So so many kids out there keeping this awful secret.
And maybe they wouldn't keep that secret if their parents carefully approached them and asked them, "Has anyone touched you in your privates"? Tell them it's o.k., and their not in any trouble. I know from experience.
Sometimes I feel a little resentful of my mother (but I don't blame her), because she never talked to me about sex, good touch vs. bad touch, etc.
What in the world was the nanny doing while you were pulling on her charge's ear? You are lucky you didn't get pepper sprayed and or arrested!
5:22
You misunderstood the OPs post, you should read it over again.
"Mom"-I'm really sorry that happened to your children, but I am glad that you believed your children when they admitted this to you. Unfortunately there are parents out there that live in denial when confronted with such things and choose not to believe their children, which pushes the children further into abuse and denial.
Mom (8:47) ... I hope your kids are doing o.k.
7:42 - I agree, and here's another side to this kind of trauma:
Case in point ... a childhood friend of mine.
Her Mother divorced her Dad and later married this guy when my friend was about 8 y.o. He was evidently sexually abusing her for several months, then by the grace of God, told her Mom (most suffer in silence). Her Mom left this creep and later divorced him. When my friend was around 10, she faced the unthinkable ... her Mom was AGAIN seeing this piece of shit! Her daughter felt so betrayed. How could a Mom do that?? My Mom intervened and told her that she was going to call the police and have her daughter taken away from her if she ever let this man step foot in that house or around the girl again ... and she didn't. My Mom also told my friends Dad that she had started seeing him again, just to make sure.
Sorry - 7:24
Thank you for asking,
All of my kids are just great. This happened several years ago. I like to illustrate my points with stories that have happened, when possible.
I told my dad what she was doing and that she was never to touch them again. He was very upset and apparently conveyed this quite well to her, because she never laid a hand on any of them again. She is still pretty hard to deal with...snotty comments with a smile on her face that we understand to be insults, but she pretends are harmless little jokes or "Observations," so that we can't really say anything. But it has at least become sort of a joke in our own family, where the kids and I, or my husband will look at each other and make a certain face when she does it, so that we all understand that we know what she is doing and support one another. It's our "what an idiot!" face.
My bigger point in mentioning this story was that kids often do not tell. I think the only reason I got told when I did is that my son saw my daughter get spanked. IN fact, that's all he told me...that he didn't like new grandma because she spanked his little sister when I wasn't looking. Nobody offered up that they themselves had been hurt. Only when I started asking a bunch of questions did they each start telling me what had happened to them personally. I think what made the difference in the end is how they watched us support them, stick up for them, and make it STOP immediately. They had to know that sometimes when an authority figure disciplines, and ANY time one hurts them, it is NOT the child's fault.
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