Friday

Friendlys' Ice Cream in Hillsdale, NJ

Received Friday, June 20, 2008
nanny sighting logo I would like to make a report of something I saw. Today, (6/20), I was at Friendly's restaurant on Hillsdale Ave. in Hillsdale, New Jersey. I sat next to a female who was blonde with half of her hair pinned up, she had on a short sleeve hoodie with heart tattoos on it and matching pants and wore flip flops. She was attractive and looked to be in her early 20's. She was with two girls. One of the girls was blonde with straight hair and no bangs, a red face (recently sunburned) and wearing a blue t-shirt with a high heeled shoe on it with fur. She was about 9. There was a younger sister who had the same color blonde hair, but shorter and with bangs. I can't remember what kind of shirt she had on, but she also had a sunburn, but it was barely noticeable as compared to the older sister. The littler girl was sitting further away from me. The three of them ordered what looked like several appetizers (could be wrong about that) and then they each ordered an ice cream dish. The nanny, who I could tell was the nanny by the tone of their conversation and how they spoke to each other, she seemed very sweet. She had an accent that made me think she was from the Midwest, but I can't say for certain. I had no reason to pay them any mind except they were in my line of site. After the meal, the nanny got up to go use the bathroom. About three minutes later, my daughter needed to use the restroom, so we went to the restroom. It was clear that the nanny was throwing up. She finished as we were leaving. We exchanged polite smiles and she left the restroom. My daughter and I left the restroom two minutes later and returned to our table where I noticed the nanny now had the youngest girl's sundae (?) in front of her and was eating it almost voraciously. I paid no mind, waited for the bill and then to pay the bill. When we left the restaurant, I was surprised to see that the nanny was outside of a vehicle (in plain daylight) between a wall and the car, with her finger down her throat. This was not a misunderstanding, but immediately and very apparent. I noticed the two girls sitting in the car, just waiting, not at all concerned but conversing with each other. The vehicle was silver and had a Buick logo on the grill. I don't know the model of the car but by appearance, it looked like a combination of a mini van and an SUV, and on the new side. I didn't notice the plate number but I think if it had been any other but New Jersey, it would have jumped out at me. I am reporting this because I thought about it on the ride home. I don't know that young woman or anything about her, but I did get that she is a nanny/babysitter. I imagine that she is far from home and lives with a family and I hope they realize that whatever it is she has going on, she may need some help. She was very sweet with the girls and it is very apparent that the girls like her very much. I hope this post does some good and no harm.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

How sad =(

I would love if the parents of the kids saw this and the girl got some help. Not only for herself, but so those little girls don't grow up learning how to have bad body images.

Anonymous said...

...by bad body image, I mean thinking bad about their bodies.

Nothing about their bodies BEING bad. (I am often misunderstood over the internet, sorry if I'm overexplaining this now.)

Anonymous said...

This was a very painful post for me to read.
Some of you may remember that I mentioned my best friend died only 2 months ago because of this.

My beautiful friend thought she was overweight, no matter how much we told her she wasn't.
She would vomit after every meal.

And after several years of abusing her body, she had a heart attack.

We tried to help many times. I even staged an intervention. We thought she was getting better, but obviously, she had us fooled.

Bulimia is one of the hardest illnesses to treat. Over time, it becomes a learned behavior ... almost second nature. Couple that with a girl that would rather die than be fat, and it's a recipe for disaster.

I hope the Family of the girl sees your post and does everything they can to help her. This is extremely serious, and I thank you OP, for seeing it as such.

Anonymous said...

The scariest part is that she is not even attempting to hide it--she was purging not only in public but in front of two impressionable girls who could grow to see this as normal behavior.

Anonymous said...

12:48
You're very right. I didn't mean to only focus on the Nanny, but under the circumstances ....

Thank you for pointing that out.

Anonymous said...

This is very scary - I hope the parents see this and remove the influence from the two girls and hope the nanny getts the help she seems to need. I interviewed a nanny recently for my daughter and she seemsed sweet and loving, a graduate. I asked her to take my daugther swimming and was helping her in the changing rooms at our club when it became obvious the nany had a serious issue about walking arround the female changing rooms in her swiming costume, so much she wanted to put her clothes back on top of the costume, forgot to shower beforehand, was in a panic (this girl is very slim and should not have felt worried about a female
changing room full of mothers and pregnant women)

This was one of many red flags on the day and I did nto hire her.

Marissa M. said...

Wow how sad. it is so disturbing that she's not even hiding it. The damage she could do to these girls...

UmassSlytherin said...

what a sad post! I hope the parents see and could possibly get the girl some help.

mpp I am so sorry to hear that about your friend. she is in my prayers as are you.

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Umass.

One Fabulous Nanny said...

aw that's tough man. it breaks my heart to read that.

I don't know this for sure because I don't know of anyone who's struggled with bulemia, but if she's openly purging in public it seems like a cry of help to me. I could be way off base though.

Anonymous said...

This is a different kind of nanny post. I am worried for the nanny - I hope she will be okay. The parents may or may not read this post, but hopefully the daughters will tell their parents or they will notice her cries for help. I think it will be up to the people close to her in her life to reach out to her.

Anonymous said...

You're sure she wasn't sick, or pregnant?

Anonymous said...

Did you read the post, ass?
Did you?

OP,
are you sure she wasn't form mars and the vehicle you described was a spacecraft?

Anonymous said...

"are you sure she wasn't form mars and the vehicle you described was a spacecraft?"

11:27 AM

I'm not quite sure what you're intending, but it seems just a bit insensitive.

Anonymous said...

11:27 is making fun of 10:40's comment. Thats all.

Anonymous said...

Sad, sad, sad...but still a HORRIBLE influence on two young impressionable (female) minds. Unfortunately, if these girls are subjected to this behavior for long enough, there is an extremely high probability that they will pick up on it. My mother was bulimic (she tried for years unsuccessfully to quit, and hide it from my sisters and myself--we caught on, we learned the behavior-it became "ours" as well) --We are all three bulimic, and have extreme body issues, (though two of us model and none of us are even close to being over weight according to health professionals.) As sweet as this nanny is, she shouldn't be working with young impressionable minds...the media does enough damage to children's (and adult's) self image as is....

I hope she gets help, the road to recovery is long and hard, but few things in life are a greater tragedy than hating one's self.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your post, 8:07. I wish you and your family the best of health, and hope things are going well for you now.