Receieved Saturday, July 12, 2008 -Rant
To all the moms from Santa Monica CA who let their nannies take kids to Douglass park:It may sound bad but please try to sneak during your work time into the park to see how your nannies are "working" - you'll see them sitting all together speaking Spanish while your kids run crazy around the pond chasing ducks and risk being a)bitten by geese, b)assaulted by the bunch of homeless, c) pushed by other kids into the ponds, d) all of the above.
I see those nannies every day while walking my dog and I seriously feel like screaming. And when the weather is bad they all crowd Jack in the box feeding the kids greasy left overs while they're having the kids' meals (saw it with my own eyes quite a few times)
37 comments:
I had Jack in the Box today after driving around forever figuring out what sounded good. I MUST be sick bc I never eat that crap.
those are the kind of nannies that make the rest of us look bad.
I hope the parents DO go check up on their kids!!
greasy leftovers? I hope you don't mean there picking stuff out of the garbage.
"crowd jack in the box" what does that mean?
Marissa - Jack in the Box is a fast food restaurant, found mainly on the West Coast.
A friend of a friends wife got sick many years ago in the huge jack in the box food poisoning case, and won like $20,000. because it messed up her kidneys or something.
Here's the Info on it.
I used to take a Tai Qi class that met in Douglas Park. OP is NOT exagerating at all. Kids ran wild through the park while the nannys sat at the picnic tables. Many of the nannies also have a lot of trouble driving SUV's. I saw quite a few near accidents and nannies careening out of the park onto Wilshire Blvd without stopping to look for traffic. We used to wait for our teacher near the bathrooms. Once a nanny sent a child into the men's bathroom by himself after 3 right after 3 homeless guys walked in.
Another girl and I tried to stop her and called out, "Hey, that's not safe!" THe bathroom stalls have no doors. Two of the bigger guys in my class went in and watched over him while he went potty.
Oh man. That's scary. I always ask my charges if they can possibly "hold it" until we get somewhere more private, or if possible, home.
asking a child to " hold it or wait" is not smart. Waiting to pee can lead to bladder infections and other problems for children as well as adults. How about this..go in with them and stand in front of the open stall door..mens or womens your choice! But do not asl a child to hold off on peeing..it is a bad habit that you are teaching them.
12:03
You are absolutely right. Never a good idea to make a child wait for exactly the reasons you stated.
I always make sure the bathroom is empty and stand outside (I'm not afraid to go in and check the men's room either, but I do call out 1st before walking in) - or if there is someone inside, I take him to the women's bathroom and wait outside the stall.
I hate to break the news to you but Jack in the Box will in fact not kill children. Take care of your own kids if you think you can do a bettter job.
1242..could not agree more! Wish more people would take care of their own kids and let the rest of us do the same.
12:42
who said JITB would kill kids? it's just something that happened many years ago, if you're talking about the food poisoning. if it's the fast food in general, then yeah, to each his own.
Those are the kind of nannies are irresponsible :(
This post is not bashing Jack in the Box. It's about the nannies that don't watch their children (and yes, I'm mad about them giving us a bad name, too!), who let them eat fast food also. I'd say the most heinous of the crimes would be the not watching the children near water. Sadly, we know what can happen.
so, what's the magic age where you let the boy use the restroom alone?
There is no magic age. when you have checked to see that abathroom is empty and your child can pee alone, while you gaurd the door...then he is safe. even at 10 or 12 boys aer still prey. Watch them..who cares if they get pissed..Iwould rather have an angry 10 yr old than and abused or dead one!
oh, I didnot mean actually watch them pee, I meant ..always always keep an eye on them in public restrooms!
2:21
You are so right. I know my son is at that age where he wants to be independent, but it is still too dangerous for him. He cannot yet protect himself.
I say their old enough when they are capable of giving the bad guy a good swift kick in the family jewels, and then run really fast.
2:22
:)
225 family jewels..that was just the laugh I needed to end my night. Your answer totally caught me off gaurd and I am laughing my butt off!!
Thank you and enjoy your son..they grow uo so fast. I have 16 yr old and he is away for 2 moths this summer.
I go into his room every night and just stand there for a few minutes looking around and missing him terribly! They are wonderful and they grow up much too fast!
You're welcome! I'm glad I made you laugh, I know you needed it.
Nite.
Um 2:21...if you are a woman, you can't just keep poking your head into the men's bathroom if there are other men in there, even if your son is in there too. You can get arrested, just like a man can for leering inside a women's bathroom. And seriously, kids do not benefit from being kept in a bubble, overly coddled and protected. If your son is too old to come into the women's bathroom with you, then you just have to let him go alone into the men's room and wait outside or nearby. You can't wait for an empty bathroom EVERY time...and what if a man comes in after your son goes in? What are you going to do, block him from going through the door? Good luck with that. I can't believe how many people think the world is just crawling with predators...sure, there are some out there, but how is it sane to go through every part of your day trying to shield yourself from anything bad that could possibly happen to you? You have to just live your life!
Ok, so I watch two boys and let them go into the men's room by themselves. It was an open doorway (at the beach) so I could hear them the whole time. I just stood by the door and kept asking them if they're alright every 30 seconds (which annoyed the crap outta them, but too bad). Yes, they're young, but they've got each other.
On the other hand, I saw a mom or nanny with three kids, two girls and a boy, about the same age as mine (3-5), and she made the boy come into the girls' room with them. I think it all depends on what group you've got and the personalities of your children.
We were on vacation when my son was 4, and I brought him into the ladies' room with me at a restaurant. An older woman had the nerve to say to me, "He shouldn't be in here. Where is his father?" I told her that he was dead. (Not entirely true, but he was dead to me, if you know what I mean!) That shut her up!
2:28,
What a slappable moment! Some people have the tact of a moose. :(
Not to mention no manners or brains.
I'm curious, though, what did your son say when he heard you say that his Dad is dead? Or did he already think that?
Mm-mm-mm, good question, 2:38.
I suppose it was a good way to shut that lady up, but I can't imagine how it must've upset that child to hear her say that about Dad .... true or not.
i think the idea to wait outside the men's room at the parks and beaches and ask the boy if he's okay every so often is a very good idea.
you're right, we can't bring boys into the ladies room when they get to be too big. and you are also right that we can't stand outside the men's room and not let men in. i think age four should have been okay though for that little boy to go with his mom.
Let's face it. The neighborhood around Douglas park is a nice one, in fact, most of Santa Monica in that area is nice. These people could more than afford to hire caring and attentive nannies, but they'd rather spend 25k sending Jr. to Crossroads, spending their summers up the coast in Malibu in 50k a month beach houses and getting whatever the latest car craze vehicle there is to drive. Paying some barely passable child care provider a wage barely over minimum wage is low in their priorities.
I'm a former west side nanny, I would never take my charges to a fast food restaurant but then I worked for people who actually cared who were with their children when they couldn't be.
You get what you pay for people. Blame the parents, not the people they hire.
OMG! NO! Do they really speak SPANISH!!?? They talk to each other, and just let the kids PLAY? At a PARK?! What are these horrible, lazy, fat, fast-food feeding foreigners thinking of!!!???? Bitten by geese? Give me a &'n break, Jane. I practically live at that park and have never see a goose there, let alone one that was interested in pursuing little kids. What's the matter, didn't they leave enough room at Jack in the Box for you? You couldn't eavesdrop on their conversation 'cause you don't speak Spanish? You have a great and important idea for a website here, but you and Mary keep posting namby-pamby BS like this and you will destroy its usefulness. EVERY mother should check up on her nanny periodically, but there is nothing wrong with letting kids run around on their own. Play--both on their own and working out how to play with other kids--is the most important work of childhood.
since you have nothing nice to say and just want to criticize this site, why don't you go piss and moan somewhere else? you're wasting space.
Uh, macbee, I don't know if you realize this or not, but Jane didn't write that. Maybe you should calm down a little, huh? You're acting like a banshee.
"Jane" grew up 18 miles from the Mexican border. She speaks spanish pretty well.
Unless you are the mother of the children represented in this post, it isn't truly relevant whether or not you think this is a big deal or not.
Thank you for dropping by.
well said, jane.
yeah, macbee, thanks for dropping by.
I live next to douglas park and you must be thinking of a different park with different bathrooms (in regards to the boy going into the bathroom alone and there being no doors on the stalls). There are four toilets at Douglas park, two men/two women. Each toilet has a door that can lock and is private. There is one common entrance to these toilets and it is outside with sinks for washing up. This area is completely visible as are the four doors to the toilets. Sending a child into the bathroom after three homeless men went in is the equivalent of saying that she sent the child into a stall that was already occupied by three homeless men.
having said that, either my wife or I have taken one or both of our kids to this park almost every day for nearly five years and I can attest to the total lack of quality in the "nannies" that occupy their time here. There are exceptions of course, and not everyone here is a nanny. The problem is that people don't want to hear it. We've related our concerns to parents we're actual good friends with regarding their child care and they deny that there is a problem. The parents just don't want to believe that their nanny is ignoring their kids. Even when we tell them point blank that these are our observations, our eye witness accounts, they blow us off, "Oh no, she's great. She's the best. The kids love her." What can you do?
Post a Comment