I don't know what to do.
My situation is unlike any others and a situation I am hesitant to share.
Some background, I am a professionally employed mother of three. In April, after an exhaustive, all inclusive search, I hired an English nanny to come and care for my three children, all of whom are under the age of 10.The nanny seemed to be a great, not good match. She wasn't perfect, but she far exceeded our expectations. She is the sort of nanny that other parents took time to make mention of.
In the beginning, we had a nanny camera set up in three rooms of the house, all common areas. The kitchen, family room and play room. After the first three months, we ceased using it. It is a system which depends on the changing of vhs tapes for recording. As such, nothing has been recorded for the past three, possibly more months. Even after the first month, we ceased being diligent about setting the camera and were even less vigilant about reviewing the footage.
I went to transfer some old home movie video footage to a VHS tape so that I could take it to the photo store and have it made to a CD. Of course, we don't use VHS tapes anywhere, except in the nanny camera, so I went and retrieved a tape from the nanny camera and found the only tv with a vcr slot and set about transfering the video, when for no reason in particular, I decided to see what was on the tape.The tape was largely uneventful until I got to one part of the tape. What I saw shocked me to my very core. It was nothing I was expecting, and having seen the footage, I do not know how to procede, because you see, the children were not present during this segment of footage.
I caught the nanny in what I can best describe as a disturbingly intimate moment. I had to rewind the tape to make certain I was seeing what I thought was seeing.The nanny, for reasons unknown to me plopped on the sofa in front of the television during what had to have been a time the youngest was napping and the oldest two were at school. In her hand she had a jar of peanut butter. I had to rewind to make certain, but only after what I saw what occured next. The nanny used her fingers to dip into the peanut butter container and had a glop of peanut butter on her fingers which she then spread on her feet and toes. She then kicked her feet up on a coffee table and hollared off camera. Our beloved pet yellow lab came immediately and began licking her feet. The nanny added more peanut butter at various points during this disturbing imagery which while I wanted to switch off, I could not. The nanny was at points writhing about on our (family) sofa.
This all transpired on Sunday. It is now Tuesday and I haven't said a solitary word to anyone about this. My husband returns from his trip on Thursday and I plan to show him the video and consult him. But as a prelude to this, and because men react differently than females, do you understand why I no longer want her in my employ? Ideally, I would terminate the nanny but because of her performance, I have no reason to do such. I don't think I could ever mention to her about the camera or footage because she would have to live with that knowledge the rest of her life, but I do wonder how you go about terminating a good employee. Before I saw this footage, I would have used words like spectacular and great.
She did relocate from England to come and work for us, so I too must consider this.
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