This happened Saturday at about 1:30 PM EST.I have to start by saying today was probably the most beautiful day of our summer, low humidity, blue skies, slightest breeze. The day was perfect. Many families and children were out celebrating this day by congregating at parks, tussling in the grass and picnicking.
I noticed an exception to this rule in the form of one nanny who had the charge of twins. The twins were in a side by side double stroller with beige canvas and black accents. The twins were a boy and a girl, I think, but may have been two boys. The twins had brown hair, one had curly hair and one had straight hair. The child with the curly hair had light colored eyes.
The nanny was a hispanic woman, possibly puerto rican. She is identifiable by these characteristics; she had several moles on her face, she was petite but very "thick" as they say and she was missing two teeth. I think two. Her teeth were what you would call "a mess".
The twins were about 2 years old. Maybe not quite, but near. And the nanny found a seat on a bench and parked the children right next to her. The nanny then takes out a People Magazine and reads it cover to cover. The children wiggle and squirm. I can hear one of the children say "Out" and "get out?" in a really sweet, hopeful voice. Nope. The nanny continues reading. And? She has a huge bag of jelly beans and she keeps feeding the kids. Handfuls of jellybeans. She was so fast and free with her big bag of jelly beans that when she blindly handed them to the children, they would drop in the stroller. It didn't matter, there were plenty and the entire time I was at the park with my child, your children sat strapped in being force fed straight sugar!
Thats what you get when you pay a nanny $8 an hour and make them work 60hrs a week plus weekends.
ReplyDeleteAt least she wasn't beating them.
She should have at least chosen a treat that wouldn't make them hyper while in a stroller. I think warm milk and oatmeal cookie would have been a better choice.
BostonNanny, you have no idea how much that nanny is being paid so why pretend like you do? And even if she was being paid very little and working long hours, that doesn't give her the right to take out her frustration on her innocent charges. If someone hates her job so much, she can quit.
ReplyDeleteI hate nannies who do this- Nannies are special people who need to be there for the children and treat them as if they were they own children. They need respect, too.- they are children; but they are people who have feelings.
ReplyDeleteHow can we be sure she wasn't an alien from beyond the moon? Perhaps the jelly beans were power pills meant to allow the young ones to retain a human-like shape and the magazine was really an alien supercomputer disguised with a simple paper jacket? For all OP knows, instead of being some lazy nobody giving nannies a bad name, she could have been using streaming videos of human children playing at a park to argue over a galactic Internet that humans should be allowed to live?
ReplyDeleteIs this how OP treats the savior of humankind!?
Anonymous - what good does your comment serve?
ReplyDeleteOP: You should see if you can post this somewhere on parkslopeparents.com
ReplyDeleteThis is sad and wrong. If it were my nanny, she'd be fired for sure.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, where I live, there are not a LOT of nannies but I see women who I know are the mother not behaving any better or worse.
Not giving this nanny an excuse...this is a great post...but I just wonder how many parents really care.
It doesn'yt matter how much she get's paid she took the job now do the work
ReplyDeletelazy is what these people are
With jelly beans at that age, I would be more concerned about the choking hazard than the sugar.
ReplyDeleteI agree, if you accept a job you should do it to the best of your ability.
Do the parents care? It is hard to believe the parents who hired the "park bench nannies" spoke at length with references who raved about all the activities the nanny did, the things she taught the children, the wonderful things other mom's and teachers said about her, how much the children loved her.
Boston Nanny is probably right. There is a correlation between salary and quality of employee. True, paying a lazy poorly qualified woman a high salary won't turn her into a great nanny, but $8 an hour for a 60 hour week, (probably with housework thrown in) won't attract Mary Poppins either.
I don't know the circumstances of the nannies, but I can imagine scenarios in which she might really really need a break (don't you love when parents don't want their 2-year-old to nap because they want them to sleep at night...doesn't matter to them, 'cause you'll be with the kid till bedtime anyway).
ReplyDeleteBut for me it comes down to the kids. Even if they have crazy parents, it's not their fault, and it would be really awful to be stuck in a stroller at the park. Nanny probably could have at least let them play in the sandbox or something, and even taken her magazine with her.
Another Nanny- Not to mention that the park isn't the place to be taking that break. I watch a 2 year old that doesn't nap during the time I'm with her, and when I find myself needing a break, I let her watch her allotted hour of TV. I don't take her to the park where the situation could easily become dangerous if I'm not at the top of my game.
ReplyDeleteThe truth is out there.....awesome...I needed a laugh, that was like a breath of fresh air! lol!
ReplyDeleteis so dificult to gate agood nanny, they think the childern is like stuff.... :(
ReplyDeleteWhy would you take children to a park and expect them to not want to play? It's like going to the mall to find out you left your cash, credit cards and checkbook at home.
ReplyDeleteWhat she did was wrong. The jelly beans were definitely wrong, but at least they weren't ignored.
Nanny Sarah...This nanny was treating those children like they were her own.
ReplyDeleteI am horrified at the conduct of this nanny. This is poor quality child care to say the least. If she is worried about them running off in different directions at the park, the obvious solution is to take turns letting each one out of the stroller to play. Caring for twins is challenging but not impossible. God bless the OP for making it public knowledge, I really hope the mother of these twins finds out about this so she can strap the nanny in a chair and shovel food in her mouth til it falls out!!
ReplyDelete