Today, (Tuesday 5/6) I was at the North Clairemont branch library in San Diego and I saw a nanny who I've seen before, once, 6-7 months ago. Back then her charge was 15-16 months old and she is 20-22 months old now. She has blond curly hair, fair skin, and was wearing a blue sweater, skirt, tights, and brown leather Mary Jane type shoes today. The nanny is short, with fairly long straight brown hair and brown eyes, medium skin, and an accent which indicates she is Latina. She was wearing a long blue cotton skirt today and a blue shirt. First, what happened 6-7 months ago. I was bringing my daughter to story time at this library when a woman walked out of the library with her kids and said "don't go in there, there's a kid running around with pinkeye in there." I was like, um, OK? I went in anyway and sure enough there was a toddler with bright pink, inflamed eyes running around apparently unchaperoned. I searched the library and found the nanny and told her she needed to take the child home, as pinkeye is very contagious. She was very upset at me and told me I didn't know what I was talking about, that the pink eyes were from sunscreen getting in the child's eyes and how dare I make such assumptions, etc. I was cowed and apologized. I felt she should supervise her charge more closely but didn't say that to her.Anyway, fast forward to today. I had my daughter and a friend's son who I was babysitting, at the library. The little girl (now around 20 months) came over near us and sat down. I did not see her nanny for a couple of minutes and then she came and sat the girl down at a table where there were crayons and paper. Then she went elsewhere in the library (don't know where but out of visual range of the girl). OK, whatever. The little girl just sat there. Once the nanny came over and asked if she were bothering me and my kids. I said no. Then the nanny went away again.
So then the little girl knocked over the box of crayons - they were all over the place. I thought, well jeez, where is the nanny? I went looking for her and found her at an Internet station surfing a website with pictures of jewelry. I told her her charge knocked over a box of crayons and she said "oh yeah, she likes to do that! It's a game to her." I must have looked puzzled b/c she sighed and got up. She walked over to the child who was holding a crayon. "See? She LIKES to pick them up. It's a game!"
At no time did she address the child, interact with the child, speak to the child, anything. When it became apparent the child was not going to pick up the crayons of her own accord, the nanny picked them up, put them on a high shelf and left again!
Now the poor kid was just sitting on a chair with NO crayons, no books, no nanny. She started to cry for the nanny, saying something that sounded like "Rita". The nanny, obviously highly annoyed, came back and did she sit down and read the kid a book? No, she took the kid over to where she was surfing the web. The little girl started to wail a couple of minutes later and she took her hand and exasperatedly took her out of the library, again, not talking to her, not interacting with her, just looking really annoyed that her web surfing was interrupted.
Maybe this isn't worth posting but it disturbed me, and if this were my nanny, I'd want to know. This child was too young to be left on her own at the library, and the lack of interaction on the nanny's part was - well, I guess you had to be there, but it wasn't normal. Again, not a sighting in which a child was in immediate danger, but something I as a mother would want to know if it were my child's nanny.
11 comments:
OP, this is certainly worth posting. I can't imagine parents would be happy with that level of care. I hope the mom sees it.
i disagree that the child wasn't in *immediate danger.* She was under two and completely unsupervised in a public place. the reason she was safe was because you were there. what if it has been a pedophile sitting there instead of you?
Please don't assume that she was safe. I just read recently about a 5 or 6 year old who had been reading a book while his mom used the computer. A pedophile lured him from the chair and ended up raping him in the library. Sickens me to think as I have a 5 yr old as well. I seem to remember from the article that one of the librarians thought the guy looked strange or something and found him on a Megan's law type of site and called the police but the boy had already been raped. Apparently libraries are a common place for pedophiles to hang out. Thanks for taking the time to comment. Hopefully the parents will see this posting.
10:27 is right. Sex offenders LOVE libraries. Often they are just released, have no where to go, live in a shelter etc. They are told they have to be out of the shelter for the day (to find a job) but where do they go that is public? That has heat in the winter and AC in the summer? The library!! I have two friends that were approached by very gross men asking very inappropriate things. Also, publicly funded libraries have weird laws on what content they can restrict on their computers. Many s/o go to watch some porn on the internet. The public libraries where I live are places I rarely go alone now. As sad as that is.
11:00,
I know! You would think they would filter out more of the porn!
I have a friend that regularly goes to the Library who he told me about it, and I was completely shocked. I guess I just picture Libraries as more of a "safe haven".
Yeah, I know. Really naive.
Don't you ever wonder why so many teenagers in affluent areas who certainly have computers at home still hang out in packs in the library? Because their parents can block their access to questionable content on their home computers but can't control what they see on the library computers.
Hmmmm, I do now. Thanks.
When I was back in Indiana earlier this year caring for my mother, she had no computer, so I went to the library a few times to check my email and pay my bills, as I do that online. During the weeks I was there, that particular library changed its policy to NOT allow anyone to access certain sites, the ones teenagers are so inclined to use like Facebook. I was told by the staff that too many fights had broken out at the library and in the parking lot as a direct result of all the kids hanging around awaiting their turn to use the computer and that adults were having a hard time getting a turn on the computers. I may have lucked out because I went in the mornings. This also caused the library to hire a security guard, which wasn't in their budget. 11:20, you are right on the mark.
The next time you see a kid with a flaming case of pink-eye ANYWHERE in public, report it to the manager of the establishment (library, bookstore, park caretaker, whatever)! Ignore the nanny or parents if they give you a hard time when you confront them about their contagious kid.
There's very little you can do about the neglectful nanny situation, but if you see a minor child unattended in public for any length of time, report it to the manager of the establishment.
Report, report, report. It may save a child's life.
It's a shame for the nanny and the kids when the nanny has to go to the library to be able to use the internet. True, the nanny should be more responsbible, but let's face it, we all like to have internet access at some point during the day. Why can't the parents let the nanny use the computer at home so she can have her down time and surf the web? It's not a good situation for anyone at the library and it's dangerous for the girl to be left alone. As a nanny, I can barely pick out books for the other kids while the 22-month-old boy I watch runs around causing trouble. Overall though, I don't think this post was especially worthwile. Talking to the librarians will be much more effective.
This post certainly sounds scary to me. Last semester, when I went to school in Milwaukee, the school, which was located downtown, had computer labs that were open to the public. This meant that anyone could enter the school and use the computer lab, without showing a school id. That particular semester, a man I thought was quite odd and dirty looking struck up a conversation with me. He was an older man, with stringy, greasy hair and dirty clothes, and something about him didn't sit right with me. A few weeks later, he followed me out the library and halfway to my class. The next time I saw him, he saw me in the computer lab, called me puddin, stroked me on my arm, and asked me to log him into the school computer. I flinched and my skin crawled at his touch, grabbed my bag and literally ran out of the library, all before I almost hit him. *LOL* I reported him to school security and student senate, and found out something interesting. This man was kicked out of school permanently due to inappropriate conduct with a female student. He was not allowed anywhere on campus, and neither was his friend, who stalked me the previous semester.
If pedos can hand around 2 year junior colleges, as they did in this situation and harass female students, who's to say that the same pedo won't go to a library to harass people? This nanny should be fired, ASAP.
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