Received Friday, December 7, 2007
I saw your short, fat, white nanny with short, blond-white hair screeching at your still in the stroller child this morning at approximately 10:30 AM. This occurred on the corner of 46th and Fifth and the nanny had a Dunkin donuts sack in one hand and a cigarette in the other, so why was she damn unhappy? And how much yelling do you need to do at one child under 1.6? The child was white and I believe a boy, but bundled up pretty well so I can't give you more of a description. What could the child strapped into a grey & black Mcclaren have possibly done? Do tell.
why the heck would that have to be a nanny? you see someone yelling at a child and automatically think nanny? Odd.
ReplyDeleteExactly what I was going to say. it couldn't be the child called her by name since the child was so young. and, they were both the same race-what stood out as "nanny" for you here?
ReplyDeleteThats what I am wondering, as well. O.P. did she say something to the child, that made you believe she was not the mom. Did she say anything like "I am glad I am not your mom". Or "your mom would be angry", etc, etc.
ReplyDeleteEither case its not right to yell at a baby. What did he do to get yelled at. The nanny or mom or relative was probably mad about something else and took it out on the child.
ANOTHER case of mistreat the child so it must be a nanny. remember all parents are not "parents"
ReplyDeleteOP, you are an awful writer.
ReplyDeleteI am also curious about the nanny verses mother decision on this post. It leaves me wondering if any angry (ehem, abusive) parents have ever stumbled across this site and trothed in horror at the sight of being reported as a bad nanny!
ReplyDeleteRegardless of whether this was a nanny or parent, this is disgusting treatment, some people just don't deserve to be near children!
8:19
ReplyDeleteLOL, Did you mean the op is a writer who is awful, or her writing is awful? Perhaps you should limit yourself to critiquing spelling.
Or go back to stirring her cauldron.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad others wondered, because I didn't want to be the one to ask how we knew this was a nanny and not a mom. But what an a$$hole in any case.
ReplyDeleteHere we go again.
ReplyDeleteThe wild pack of raving nannies are at it again, ready to denounce anyone who posts observations.
ReplyDeleteThese actions don't seem like the actions of a parent. Even if there was a small chance it was a parent... the OP posted this comment to warn people in case this was their child in danger.
Not every nanny situation is a black "carribean accent" woman and a white child. My nanny is white, and I want to know if she was ever in a situation that would place my child in danger.
So you nannies should go back to work and stop trolling on this site.
10:32 AM
ReplyDeleteIf a post states that the adult is a nanny, with no information about how the poster came to that conclusion, then people will want to know. Get over it.
And you know this is the nanny how?
ReplyDeleteI saw a mother yelling and cursing at her toddler yesterday in Cabela's. I know it was the mom because she turned to her Husband and asked "why the F--- did we ever have a kid?"
That's horrible.
ReplyDeleteI met a woman on a hospital sponsored weekly baby walk in my city. She would often walk with my friends and me, and eventually joined our playgroup. She would often talk about how she didn't really like being a mother, how she had never bonded with her daughter and how she often considered giving her daughter up for adoption. And when the baby came out of the stroller there was truly no warmth and very little interaction from the mother to the child. It was heartbreaking. Her baby was beautiful and sweet, with a good personality...so there was nothing frustrating about this child. The mother was just dead cold to her. The baby was nine months old the last time she said this to me. Finally I had had enough and told the mom right out that if she was not going to love this child and she felt the need to keep talking about giving her away...especially right in front of her...she ought to just get to it and start the adoption process immediately before the child got any older, became hard to place and ended up in perpetual foster care...and before she was old enough to understand her mother's terrible words.
The mom faded out of our group pretty quickly, so I don't know what ended up happening.
But some poeple truly should NOT have children.
Mom
ReplyDeleteWow, thats so sad. She needs psychological help. If she would just go help, maybe with proper meds and counseling she could be a great mother. More likely shes not going to get the help herself, but I am surprised her husband or family didn't say anything. Or at least suggest counseling? But I know sometimes it takes an outsider to get thru the heads of people. The inner circle of family are blind at times.
You know, Eric's mom, it never even occurred to me that she may be depressed. I was young and relatively new to motherhood myself at the time, and, to the extent I may have had any postpartum depression (I think maybe I did with the first one, in hindsight), it never manifested in a way that detracted from the love I felt for my kids, so that connection never even clicked in my mind.
ReplyDeleteMaybe now somebody reading this will recognize this kind of behavior as a cry for help and try to intervene on behalf of both the mother and the child. You're right. Maybe some psychiatric intervention would have made a world of difference to this sad family.
I never knew what PPD was until Andrea Yates. My son was 3 mo. old when she becames news. I no longer had to wonder what was wrong with me.
ReplyDeleteI was suffering the "paranoid, afraid to go to sleep because baby might die if SIDs" kind. I got some couseling and after a couple of months, felt alot better.
I had a stillbirth and a miscarriage before my sons birth, so my Dr. explained this might be part of it.
Too bad not enough moms can diagnose themselves - but we should all be aware of it, because sometimes it can have dire consequences.
12:10
ReplyDeleteOMG I did have that thing where I couldn't sleep because I was afraid he might die of SIDS. If that is PPD I had it for sure. (Although three people were kind enough to mention to me within about a week that they knew little babies just like mine who had died of SIDS, so the thought might have been placed that way too.)But I barely slept at all, feeling compelled to check the baby several times during the night. I so envied moms who seemed to be able to just lie their babies down and not think about it again until they cried to eat.
It's really too bad that so many moms out there could be helped, but don't even realize thay are suffering from a treatable problem. Makes me wonder why more OBs don't go to greater measures to educate pregnant women, new moms, and their husbands about all the signs they should be looking for. Well, at least we can keep an eye out now for friends who may have a problem and not even realize it.
Mom
ReplyDeleteActually, I read an article where they are encouraging OBs to talk to their patients about PPD after the birth of a new child. So many women (myself included) didn't know 'what was wrong' with me. I felt 'anxious' and 'obsessive' about my baby. I worried all the time, so much so that I slept very little. I also caught myself checking my sons breathing a dozen or so times a night.
The following link provides a lot of good info on what PPD is all about:
http://www.4woman.gov/faq/postpartum.htm
Hi mom
ReplyDeleteI am learning to become a postpartum doula. So we were learning about different disorders. Signs to look out. Tension, trouble with bonding with the baby. Who would think some of this starts right after you give birth. I never knew that sometimes just the birth process itself can aggrevate PPD . If you had a rough labor, needed alot of intervention. Medications, etc. If you weren't give a chance to hold your baby (start the bonding process) the moment it came out. If they didn't give you a chance to have the baby lay on your chest, or given the chance to breastfeed in the first hour. Pretty sad. If I have another child, I am going to look into a birthing center. That way I can make choices. I felt like I didn't get any choices in my sons birth.
erics mom
ReplyDeleteWhy didn't you get to make your own choices?
Even though I had a high risk pregnancy, I was able to tell my Dr. everything I wanted to do. Specifically who was to be there, and when my son was born I wanted to wait several minutes before the cord was cut/clamped because I had done some research about when a child is born, immediately cutting the cord makes the child lose valuable nutrients, etc.
As my son was born, I held my hands down to help him up. They checked him (vitals, pulse, breathing ... apgar score) while I held him for several min. before taking him to run their regular tests. I also insisted (although the nurses tried to get me to "take a break"), that my baby be in my room AT ALL TIMES. My Dr. seemed impressed I had done so much research and felt that none of my ideas were of any detriment to the baby whatsoever. And I wouldn't have had it any other way.
Well, it sounds like I got really lucky in the bonding department considering all of this then. My first son was born by emergency cesarean. They would not let me hold him for at least a couple/few hours. I kept asking for him and they said they would bring him when they were done with him. They brought him just in time for me to see them give him to my husband and then I was almost instantly "out" from the accidental excess of pain medication they had given me. I barely saw him and didn't get to even touch him. I was semi-conscuous at best for most of the next 24 hours. I have a vague recollection of people asking me to wake up, the doctor slapping my face and picking up my arm and dropping it repeatedly and somebody asking me if I wanted to eat or feed my baby. But thankfully, when I finally did get the baby to hold...almost 24 hours after his birth...I fell instantly head over heels in love with him...a depth of love I had no idea even existed. In fact it was so overwhelming that it kind of scared me. I realized that from that moment on my entire life was entwined with this tiny little person, no matter what. The feeling is indescribable to anybody who has not actually experienced it. After that, I didn't want to let him go...but hospital rules were different then...21 years ago. They took him away at scheduled times and would not give him back until the appoionted time no matter how much I asked. I was always aching to hold him and there seemed to be always some rule that kept him in the nursery. Funny, I had a little fight with a nurse one afternoon. She brought my food and reached to take the baby from my arms. Already starving for enough time to hold him because of their stupid rules,I refused to turn him over and said he could lay right beside me while I ate. She said I was not allowed to do that because I would spill food on him. How absurd! I said that I most certainly had no intention of spilling any food on my brand new baby! She insisted that I could not eat with a baby in my bed. I said that she could just take my food then because I wanted to hold my baby more than I wanted to eat anyway. She gave me a funny look, left the food, and stomped out.
ReplyDeleteMy next two kids were in my room at all times. I think I bonded with all three just the same...although there was nothing like that first moment I held my first son. I think by the time the others arrived I was already aware of what mother's love feels like.
Mom
ReplyDelete7:12 here
Your post made me very sad. I know you say it worked out in the end with the bonding, but you were left with a cruel emptiness and longing for your baby. I'm so glad that times have changed, I'm just sorry your first one didn't get that special moment with you when he was born.
7:12,
ReplyDeleteIt's OK. It may not have been and "ideal" birth situation, but I had already had one miscarriage by that point and this pregnancy had been in jeopardy for a time as well. Even as they were preparing frantically for the c-section I was afraid he might not make it. I was so incredibly happy just to have a beautiful, live, healthy son that little else mattered by comaprison at that point.
We had to take a special birthing class before my next son was born, especially for parents who had experienced a prior c-section but wanted to go natural this time. Most of the other moms were drenched in tears remembering their horrible prior experience (It does actually bite, big time), but still all I could think to myself was "Thank God the baby was born alive and unharmed, and after that I have no complaint to make." I think the prior miscarriage went along way in my having that feeling.
I went on to have four more miscarriages after that (the worst being at almost halfway through the pregnancy, which is still a little tough to think about because an actual baby boy was born and held by all of us), and I have three live, wonderful children. Although I would love nothing more than to have all eight (Yipes!) children with me, there is one thing I am very grateful for about the ones I "didn't get to keep"; I have never for a moment taken my children for granted or forgotten what an incredible blessing and miracle it is to have a child.
I think that realization has added immeasurably to my enjoyment of being a mom. I think that is also why I have such a passion for all children and a wish for every single one to be loved and valued and treated like the precious gift they they are. I think that is also why I have such a hard time understanding how moms who don't have to sometimes choose to turn their children over to somebody else to raise...or why they might find motherhood somehow demeaning, dull or unfulfilling, when it has been the greatest gift and joy of my life.
I know there are others who disagree with me, but we can each only offer our own perspective...and those perspectives are shaped by the experiences of our lives. That's just mine.
Here's a big lesson I learned about gratitude from my miscarriage at almost 18 weeks.
ReplyDeleteObviously at 18 weeks we had passed the first trimester and felt comfortable in looking forward without fear to the birth of a healthy baby. So it came as a complete and terrible shock to find at an ultrasound appointment (the one where we were going to learn the sex of the baby)that the baby's heart had stopped beating...especially since I had brought my four year old son along with me as a "special treat"...and my husband was unable to go to the appointment with us. I tried to hold it together for my son's sake, but his response (quiet tears...he's an incredibly sensitive person) was heartbreaking and his questions all the way home were not only unanswerable, but tore my heart out. He wanted to know why God took his baby away. When I told him heaven was a nice place for a baby to be, he said, very earnestly, "But mommy, OUR house is a very nice place for a baby too!" When we walked into the house, my other son was waiting expectantly by the door to know whether he was getting a brother or sister, and I had to convince him, with great effort, that the doctor had NOT simply made a mistake and looked at the heart between beats.
My doctor wanted to perform basically an "abortion" and tear the baby limb from limb, as they do in first trimester abortions. I refused that and he refused to do it any other way.(Because I had a prior c-section the doctor would have had to stay at the hospital during my entire labor and he was unwilling to expend the time.) I had to find another doctor, immediately...and I had to leave my city to do it because my doctor, as it turns out, was chief of the department at our hospital and nobody would go against him. (Thankfully one of the doctors finally had the decency to come on the phone personally and tell me why one doctor after another was refusing to see me...when I had an emergency situation going on.)
That turned out, I believe, to be a "God thing," because the hospital where I ended up "happened" to have a whole program designed to deal with prenatal infant death and SIDS. They had support groups all in place and they had contracted with a cemetery to actually bury all of the babies (which is not what usually happens to them...and happened to be a great concern of mine.)
OK, so here is the lesson part...finally...
When the baby was born we saw immediately what had happened. His umbilical cord was wrapped twice around his neck..tight... and once so tightly around his armpit that the arm had obviously stopped developing at some point before he actually died. The doctor said flatly, "Your son would have been born without an arm." One of my friends, when she heard, actually said that I was pretty lucky under the circumstances, and offered that he may have been brain damaged as well. She said I had dodged a bullet.I certainly did not feel like I had "dodged any bullets." I just wanted the baby...how ever he was. I found both comments (and a few others that were similar)very insensitive and I was mad.
There was no question in my mind. I would have wanted my son alive any way I could have had him. I wouldn't have cared for a second about a missing arm. I would take him with brain damage and be grateful to have him at all. But then I realized I felt this way about his "potential disabilities" because I had seen the alternative...which was to not have him at all. Had I never known there was a problem, I would probably have been very upset to suddenly and unexpectedly have him be born missing a major limb, or brain damaged. I would have felt very sorry for him and for myself too. I may well have considered him "handicapped." I would have probably wondered why God allowed that to happen to him. Before I saw the alternative, I would not have realized, had he been unexpectedly born "handicapped," that what God had actually "allowed to happen to him" was for him to overcome some grave obstacles and come into the world alive...not as a "broken" child, but as a miracle instead. I realized that sometimes when we feel we have been "cheated" by life, we just might be overlooking the miracle we have actually received instead. EVERY child is such a gift...no matter what...if we allow them to be.
Mom
ReplyDeleteYour story is very parallel to mine. On December 16th, 1994 I had a 'quiet birth' (I refused to use the term stillbirth; the other was suggested by my hospital grievance counselor). And today would have been his 13th birthday. I was full-term and he died because of a blood clot in the umbilical cord. Something that one baby aspirin a day could have prevented. It killed me to know that. The comments from other people: "It was meant to be". Or my personal favorite: "You'll have another". That comment really pissed me off the most because I didn't want another one, I wanted THAT one. So, after struggling for 7 more years (and 3 miscarriages), I finally had a healthy baby boy ... and I took one baby aspirin every day! He is truly a miracle and I thank God every day for him.
As I went through my grieving process though, I learned that sometimes people make what seem to be the most idiotic comments because they honestly don't know what to say. Losing an infant is very difficult for most people to comprehend. So, I try to leave it at that.
Mom and Mary, these stories are so sad! I almost cry reading things like this, and i'm so sorry for your losses. It reminds me of how amazingly lucky I am to have had my little guy turn out so healthy and whole and smart (and me to have survived unscathed after my complications!). I feel like he was truly a miracle baby, born at barely 26 weeks.
ReplyDeleteMom, yout hospital stories reminded me of the time he was in the NICU after he was born, and how glad I am that times have changed so much for the better. They would tell me his feeding times and I would try to be there in time to feed him by breast AND bottle, since I also had complications at first that prevented me from breastfeeding him. And about the bonding...it took awhile to get used to the idea, just from watching him in his incubator, that he was my baby and I was his mommy but VERY quickly he showed himself to be a whole little person (all 3 lbs of himself!), and he definitely conveyed that he recognized me and his daddy and was happy to see us and knew the signs of when he was about to be fed by one of us, and I'm happy to say we never had any barriers or problems with the bonding, despite the emergency c-section and the medical necessities surrounding that.
Cali mom,
ReplyDeleteYes, the stories are very sad. But I think that they do help other people sometimes to hear them when they have experienced a bad situation themselves. And I really did get something positive in the end from those children...lessons and perspective that I am very thankful to have, and which help me remember that each of their very brief little lives did have some purpose and meaning.
I'll bet Mary poppin pills will confirm that her experience has made her appreciation of motherhood all the greater...a gift from her first child to her and to his little brother. And I'll bet you can confirm that your close call with your son gives you the same. (Now I can recognize the feeling behind your pleasure in watching your son watch the dryer go around in the laundrymat. It rang a bell with me. Every moment feels like a miracle, huh?) Not that other moms don't fully appreciate and adore their children to the ends of the earth also...I know they do...but there is a certain something a little different after a loss or a terrible scare. But the thing we especially have to guard against is a tendency toward overprotection of our kids. That's sort of a struggle that is enhanced after a loss. I know I've had to really fight that myself. I was told it is a normal and expected response, but we have to fight it because it's not so good for the kiddos.
Mary poppin pills, I don't know if your younger son knows about his brother, but here is something fun we always did to celebrate the brother mine lost. I never wanted balloons lingering in the house when mine were little because of the possiility of one popping and being inhaled...but I liked my kids to enjoy the fun of having balloons. So we got plenty of balloons over the years, but every time we would arrive home with our latex (I let mylar freely into the house)balloons we would have a great time letting them go and watching them float up to heaven for baby brother to have. Nobody ever realized they were "losing" their balloons, and they felt so happy thinking of him getting such a fun surprise...from them. Sometimes they yelled things up to him as the balloons "arrived."
OH, and the worst comment I ever received, "Ewwww...did he smell?"
(11 years later that one still pisses me off. That's not even a "faux pas." That's just insensitive to the core.) All I say to people in such a situation now is to tell them how very sorry I am and that I know it hurts. One lady who had previously lost a child said that to me and it just felt right, and really did help.