Tuesday

Nanny's Tinkering with Son's Toys has Mom Upset

Received Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Perspective and Opinion on ISYN Our nanny has been with us for almost a year. She started out a solid 9 in terms of performance and settled in to a comfortable, reliable 8.5. Some of the things I like most about her are her reliability, and how many smart, educational activities she does with our son. I almost feel like he is in a specialized preschool program. Our nanny is a live-in and she seems happy. She is in her young twenties.

Now, the problem. Our family went away a short while ago and as is the case, when we don't need the nanny, she stays here, in our house. Everything seemed to be fine before, during and after our trip. Last night, on Sunday, I was searching for a jpeg copy of photograph on our home computer. When I could not easily find the photo, I used the search function on the toolbar and searched through all of the photos.

What I found was shocking and I am having trouble coming to terms with and understanding exactly what was going on, especially in the context of the fact that I think we have a pretty good nanny; particularly when compared to other nannies in the area or that I have known.

I came across a series of 62 photographs. The photographs were taken during the time we were away, as verified by the data on the photograph. The photographs contained my nanny and two other young ladies stark nude. My nanny only appeared in 5 or 6 of the photos. The photos were not sexual as in they were groping each other or kissing. But the content was disturbing just the same. The two other young ladies, neither of whom is known to me were utilizing my son's 200 piece tinker toy set. There were a few pictures showing them setting it up, but the series of photos was really focused on connecting each girl to the other by tinkertoy parts, parts that appeared to connect using ; how best to say this, each available orifice. Was it art? I don't know, my nanny never struck me as particular artsy. I don't believe she is a lesbian, not that I would care if she was. I do feel violated. The background of the pictures is our playroom, for reasons I will not mention, a playroom that clearly connects with our family and is readily identifiable. I also cannot come to terms with the use of a child's toy in such an obscene way. Last night, I did use a glove and retrieve the entire bucket of tinker toys from the playroom and through it away.

Last night, I was ready to fire the nanny. I was repulsed. I had written to ask about severance pay, cause for dismissal and what to do about her mother and brother who are arriving for a visit on the 17th of December. This morning, when I needed to go to work, she showed up with a big smile and greeted my child with the same enthusiasm and although I felt somewhat grossed out by the memory of what I had scene, it did not entirely quash my sense of comfort with the nanny as related to her reliability and the care she provides my child. I don't know that I could do better.

Can I get past this? Has anyone ever been in a similar situation?

39 comments:

CuriousDad said...

I am not saying you should or should not fire her. Really it comes down to how well do you trust her to continue to take care of your kids. How much this incident affects your ability to work with her and to trust her alone in your home in the future.

The stunt was probably done out of boredom and for a lark. Neither good reasons to do anything and more then enough cause for stupidity to happen.

It sounds like cause for removal if you really want a "reason". She should not have used the children’s toys and the families living/play area of the home for such activities. If it had been done in her own room, the pictures were on her own computer, and the activity was done with her own toys. That would be different.

If anything by leaving the pictures on the computer it made it accessible to others. Including your children if they are able to use the computer. Also since as you state the play room is easily identifiable as yours, if the pictures went on the internet……

UmassSlytherin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
emily said...

You're completely justified in immediately firing her. However, it kind of sounds like you'd somehow like to avoid doing so. If that is the case, I really think you need to clear the air, as difficult as that will be. Have a meeting, tell her what you found, exactly how you feel about it, etc. Make it clear that if she's to continue in your employ nothing like this can ever happen again.

You'd certainly be making the uncommon choice, but that doesn't mean it's the wrong one. The fact that the pictures were taken at a time when the children couldn't have observed the activities perhaps speaks to a small amount of sense in your nanny. She is young and an argument could be made for this being a one time indiscretion.

Whichever choice you make, I think you should make it clear to the nanny that what she did was unacceptable. It might save her making an even bigger mistake in the future, and you seem to care a bit about her personally. You would be doing her a big service to evoke an appropriate amount of shame from her.

Not True said...

I don't believe this story for a second. If someone actually did this, she'd have used her own camera and her own computer for download them. I really don't think that anyone would ever do this. It's bizarre.

Village said...

Holy Moly-It never occurred to me this wouldn't be true. If it's true, you have to fire her, for stupidity. Why would she download obscene photos into your home computer? If she couldn't think that through, you don't want her responsible for your children

If she is sticking things up her tutu with two other naked girls, she's a lesbian having an orgy. Just because the touching wasn't photographed doesn't mean it didn't happen. And to use your children's toys in such a manner. That is disgusting, and filthy, and disease spreading.

There are many reasons to fire her. She doesn't have good sense.

Agree with Not True said...

I agree with the posters who don't think this one is true. I have read similar stories on here, and I think this one is just one of them...familiar theme...weird sexual fetishes....

Gimme Candy! said...

I think this is complete BS. But in case it's not fire her. Anyone stupid enough to do such things with your child's toys in your home them leave them in an unprotedted file you can access onb your computer is too stupis to be tryusted caring for a dog never mind a kid...I don't care how mny educational activities she does!


I still think this story is a load of crap though. Some people who use the internet are real crazies...why, we have our own resident psycho posting on ISYN!

eg said...

I have made a similiar mistake. The pics were not of anything gross, but I used my camera and took a bunch of pictures of myself for match.com. I dressed up in some, wore jewelry and held wine glasses in another. I was trying to get a really good shot. Well I used my boss's computer-at night to download my pictures and burn my own cd of the pictures. My laptop did not have a way to download the pictures. Anyway, I forgot to delete the pictures on the computer after I burned the desk. The mother found one especially ridiculous shot of me posing on my knees with a baseball glove, pretending to catch a ball and posted it on the refrigerator. She said she laughed so hard at the pictures when she found them that she nearly fell off her chair.

Things do happen.

What percentage of people do you think are perverted? Maybe nanny was just one?

Portlander said...

Guys, this is clearly just nanny porn. Don't take this seriously.

spell check said...

gimme candy:

You are stupis and unprotedted and can't be tryusted.

lala said...

Oh, please. Trolly nanny porn. Write to Penthouse Letters instead.

LaptopMissDee said...

I wonder did someone write this because:

a. It's a tru story and she is torn between the work the nanny does with the child and doesn't want to let the nanny go, but feels that she should let the nanny go based on evidence that incriminates the nanny with family property in a questionable manner, such as the lesbo orgy, despite there was no evidence of sex between the girls.

b. If someone has too much time on their hands and therefore wrote this out of boredom.

c. If someone wrote a story for a creative writing class.

d. This post is fake.

e. b, c and d.

dadiswrongonthisone said...

I would guess B.

About the author said...

EG- I find your story as hard to believe as the OP's story.
All computers have ways to download pictures. Even if you couldn't figure it out on yours but could figure it out on your boss's computer, it should have been in the front of your thoughts to delete those pictures as soon as they were put up on match.com. If all you were doing was putting up the pictures on match.com there would've been no need to burn a CD anyway. Could've uploaded the pictures and just deleted them off the computer.
To the OP: This is a load of crap, as everyone else has said. If this was for a creative writing class, I would fail you for it.
If you wrote it because you were bored, next time, keep it to yourself or submit it to an adult publication. Get a life.

Lindsey said...

While I think it is possible for this story to be both true, and made up. I wanted to adress "Nottrue," You say you don't think that anyone would ever do this, that is just bizarre. I laughed when I read your comment. Do you read the news papaers? Do you know that the porn buisness is a billion dollar business? This isn't even on my top 100 list of bizarre things I have heard.

If it is true I would fire her, for the mere fact that she was allowing people/herself to use the childs toys inside them. I have no problem with experimenting, but come on, I hope it's common sense that you don't use someone else's stuff or do it in someone else's space.

It was like that post awhile back about the nanny on the nanny cam giving herself an enema in the kitchen LOL, now that was funny!

cali mom said...

I doubt this story because why in earth would someone upload pictures of such an event to her boss's computer? If it had been "witnessed" on a nanny cam it might be more believable but as it is, I'm not buying it

If it's true, it means she can't have more than 3 brain cells firing and I wonder how she manages to breathe in the rain without drowning, so you had best replace her in the interets of your kids' safety. I mean, she might mistake the catbox for the microwave if she's THAT stupid.

cali mom said...

Oh, and on the topic of pervs and the unthinkable things they do...there was an article a few weeks ago about a guy who was arrested for having sex with a horse. (The charge against him was "buggery"!). But here's the kicker: he got caught because the lady whose horse and stable it was had apparently thought she had seen him doing it previously, so she set up a "stable cam" and caught him on camera doing it again.

But I'm still not buying thes nanny-toys-lesbian-party fantasy.

talesfromthe(nanny)hood said...

OP, next time, make sure you find the sex scene thanks to a nanny cam.

Because writing that you found orgy pics taken by your nanny and downloaded to your computer makes YOU look really foolish for employing a nanny that is obviously too stupid to live.

And on the off chance that this story is actually true, all you need to do is tell nanny that you threw the toys away because the last children who played with them before vacation were diagnosed the next week withan extrememly transmittable form of streptococcus bacteria, and that she needs to go and get check out if she touched the toys "in any way" after those kids contaminated them.

youhavenoidea said...

Okay that is actually not strange in the way of this world. Just to give you an example of what people are actually capable of

visit
www.2girls1cup.com

this is not for the faint hearted or those with a weak stomach

nannyinmanhattan said...

Print the pics and confront her. Hear what she has to say about using your son's toys in such an obscene way and also your home computer...(who does that?!?!?!)
Oh well, then decide if you want her gone or not.

lester said...

i would like to see these pictures before deciding if this story is true.

in the off hand that it's true--you'll never get over the breach of trust. find someone else.

MissMannah said...

This post made me laugh soso hard. I'm with others here who are incredulous that anyone would be stupid enough to upload pics like that to her boss's computer. Even hubby read this post and just raised an eyebrow and said "Sounds interesting!"

It does make me look at tinker toys in a whole new light. EW!

Quinn said...

F A K E P O S T

(duh.)

ChiNanny said...

This story is fake...UNLESS, OP was snooping on the nanny's computer, found the pics and changed the story to make it sound like she wasn't invading the nanny's privacy.

So either OP is a bad liar or a bad employer and a bad liar.

Anni said...

I am willing to believe a LOT of crazy stories, because I know that there will always be one.

But...I don't know, something about this makes my eyebrow rise very, very far.

While I am willing to believe it is true, I think it's probably more likely that this was on the nanny's computer and the mom was snooping...

But, if it is true, then I'm going to go with the "your nanny is too stupid to live" group.

mom said...

I don't know. How could somebody come up with something so bizarre and twisted out of the blue?
If it's true, I would fire my nanny so fast her friends would be spinning...atop their tinker toy handles. Not only is this really icky from a sex standpoint, but it would leave your children to play with feces stained toys. Not cool.

oh no said...

ChiNanny- that sounds like the most plausible explanation- that mom was snooping on nanny's computer- because any person with 2 brain cells to rub together wouldn't leave those pics on their boss's computer.
I also have to add: Did anyone read Lancelot? I seem to recall a diagram similar to what OP describes here. Maybe it was, um, book club, dramatic version?

Portlander said...

@mom, Well, either the nanny and her friends came up with the idea out of the blue, or this poster did. It seems like a masturbatory fantasy to me.

ms. phototron said...

post a picture so we know its true! just block out anything obcsene or faces!

dadiswrongonthisone said...

or feces. :)

Andrea said...

I am not saying this to be mean, however I think you may have gone through HER things. If she is as smart as you say and smart enough to take good care of children and give your kids good care she should be smart enough to use her own camera/computer for things of that nature. I think that if you had found them on your own computer/camera that you would have gone up to her and said something but seeing as you didnt you probably were snooping.

Andrea said...

And I am not saying that what she and her friends did with your sons toys is appropriate. It isn't, in any way. But she obviously would have remembered uploading pictures onto YOUR computer and if she had forgotten she wouldnt have walked in the next day with a smile on her face acting as if nothing happened shed be embarassed and find a way to delete them incase you hadn't already seen them.

I'll agree said...

If you were snooping in her stuff, then I think you should let it go. You're understandably disgusted, but on the other hand, you have no idea- nanny may have disinfected everything.
If it really was on your computer, then, as others have said, fire her not so much for the pictures but for having no common sense. Your child is at risk if she's that stupid.

CuriousDad said...

Even if it was on the Nanny's computer, and I do agree the Boss should not be snooping into the personal effects of the Nanny without prior consent, under normal circumstances. Is there a concern over these pictures going onto the internet? Since the Play room mentioned is apparently easily identifiable? So anyone who knew the family and knew what the playroom looks like. This I think would be of concern to the Boss. So unless the boss confronts the nanny over this, the boss has no control of where those pictures are right now, or might get sent too. And if the boss was snooping into the nannies things an interesting dilemma indeed. I would suggest at the least that the playroom get an immediate make over and hopefully people will forget what it used to look like.

Nv Nanny said...

Whether or not OP had found the pictures by snooping or being in something she shouldn't have been... I don't agree she should let it go.

Would you let your kid play with toys that women had shoved in their... parts, and been okay with the women doing this, just because they had washed/disinfected them?

I sure as hell wouldn't.

I'd fire her immediately. Find another nanny. That's just disgusting and shows a horrible lack of respect for the health of the child she is supposed to take care of.

ChiNanny said...

If this is a live in nanny and the OP snuck into Nanny's room and looked on her private computer, I'm pretty sure that's illegal (someone can correct me if I'm wrong). I think that is the hesitation to fire the nanny, because there could be legal recourse because her actions were against the law.

NannyVal said...

Everyone is making very good points here, could be a fake post, could be a snooping mom, could be an incredibly stupid nanny.....either way I'm just LMAO! And just to add to the malarkey....Has anyone stopped to think that the nanny might have HER OWN set of Tinker Toys? ;)

Skeptical Sally said...

It seems strange that OP is concerned about people recognizing her playroom. Surely friends and neighbors familiar with her playroom would recognize her nanny, yet that doesn't concern her.

chrissyma said...

You should fire her. She may be book smart but she clearly lacks anything akin to common sense. To have total strangers, let alone naked ones in your home and messing with your sons things is incredibly disrespectful, ridiculous and means she is a total moron or creep. Possibly both. And the fact that she stores them on a shared computer? That leads me to believe she is an idiot not worth a second thought.