Sexual Harassment?

Received Thursday, March 18, 2009
It seems like you are not posting as many nanny complaints as before, so let me make a point first. I have been a nanny for 3 years. For the first two and a half years, I worked for one family. We had a mutually respectful relationship, they backed me on child discipline, we worked as a team, they were generous and when they moved away I literally mourned the loss. I know that I made a difference in their life and the children's lives and they positively affected my life by the support and encouragement they provided me.

Because I had worked in a small town, many families knew me through school and activities with the children and the family. I never needed to reach back out through the agency because I had two job offers almost immediately. I chose the job with the children I knew the best and have already developed a great bond with them. The children are super and I have no complaints.

Here is the problem. I originally came out here through a nanny agency that specializes in Mormon nannies. I am Mormon and my faith is very important to me. I don't smoke, drink, swear or do a lot of going out. I spend a lot of my spare time working with the Church of volunteering with a pet shelter. My current employers knew all of this and this is one reason they wanted me, even offered me a fairly generous pay raise. The mother involved made specific comments regarding being tired of nannies who spent their days planning their nights, dressed like "whores" and got lost in urban culture. They are of a different faith but the children do go to Sunday school every Sunday and believe in the same principals.

The father in the house is pleasant to me most days, unless he is grumpy in which case he is a little abrasive, still I don't see him much. The mother works from her house three days a week. Five months ago, she worked in her city office all five days, so this in itself has been an adjustment. I don't dislike this woman, but I am fed up with some of her behaviors as directed to me. She seems to go out of her way to make sexual references, makes comments that mock my faith and tells me things like, 'you need to relax, go out and have a drink, have 10". The sexual comments are the worst. She says things like, "you know if you don't use that thing, it's going to shrivel up and die" (referring to my vagina). She says things like "you have a great rack, show it off. Why are you always wearing big sweatshirts". And it doesn't stop there. If there is a service person who arrives at the house or leaves, she will say despicable things like, "how'd he taste, he looks like a salty dog". She is always laughing. I know you will say, tell her that these comments are inappropriate. I have told her that such talk makes me uncomfortable. She has responded by saying "lighten up", or "smoke a joint, let loose". On Thursday of last week, the electrician showed up and brought a helped who was about my age. I was playing with a child and the mother said to the younger guy, "have you ever seen an ass like that? I swear it makes my eyes water". Gesturing to me. I might have been bending over, but I don't dress in an immodest fashion.

None of this has been encouraged by me, I don't find it at all amusing and it makes me especially angry because the things she razes me about are the very same things that caused her to think I would be the best nanny for her children. There are more comments I could use for an example, but it makes me sick just to recant these things. She also makes constant reference to masturbation and techniques and tells me I have to be doing something, everyone needs sex.

I am a live-in nanny. There are no other job that I know about. I hate that because of her behavior I have so much stress. But my question is this, do I have, as a household employee in NY State, any recourse? My second question is, whether I do have recourse or just seek to move on, I would like something else to back my story of why I am leaving. It would not be hard to get her on recorder saying some of the disgusting things that she says. There have also been witnesses to her behavior towards me. I'm miserable. I have two great days a week and the other three are causing me against anxiety.