A new twist on the "SAHM with a nanny" discussion!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wish I could have a nanny for $400 a month!! Bliss!

Yeah that's the big difference, no $6 per hour superb child options in developed countries!
In fact, this whole thread is just glorifying the caste system...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are a foreign service family living overseas. We have many friends who have lived at posts like the one OP describes, where ordinary middle class Americans can finally afford to have help.

Think of it this way, if you could get full-time help for $400/month, why wouldn't you? I'm sure OP and her friends pay at least the norm for the area and probably more. Where I live everyone wants to work for US and diplomatic families because they pay better than the locals. Why wouldn't you want to offer someone the ability to earn a living? If she didn't employ her nanny/housekeeper they would just work for someone else, assuming they could find work.

I work part-time so my nanny just comes afternoons. Sometimes I come home early but she still stays for the hours we agreed on and I don't send her home early because I know she wants to get paid. Sometimes I will spend time with one kid while she plays with the other, or she will do some light housekeeping while I do something with both. Sometimes we all go to the park together and I appreciate an extra set of hands as we are crossing busy roads and an extra pair of eyes when they run in opposite directions on the playground.

Lay off, haters.

No worries, I too have fso friends who purposely chose posts when their kids where under 5yo, where they were given a nanny, cook, maid and driver. They turned down posts in Europe in lieu of India, se Asia and Africa. Today their kids are in top US boarding schools, another fso perk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would never pay a stranger to raise my kids. It horrifies me just thinking about it.

You must be "horrified" a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really don't understand why sahms need a nanny.

Signed
Wah/sahm

[Dogmama]

This discussion is so incredibly interesting. I grew up overseas in Africa as a State Dept kid. We had a nanny (sometimes two), a cook, a housekeeper, a gardener, a driver and a number of other staff. We spent lots of quality time with our non-exhausted parents, and we turned out just fine.

I am pregnant now and due in a few months. I will take EVERY BIT of help I can get or afford. I want my Mom, my MIL, my sister, a nanny, a night nurse, catered food by a chef- whatever I can get. It will not make me any less of a good mother if I accept help. It will make me a sane, alive, healthy, alert mother.

Go ahead OP- enjoy your help.

[Anonymous]

OP, funny that you mentioned "what you gossip about". Good on you for having (?) perspective, I hope.

Of all things to set off ANY mom, its gotta be a SAHM with a nanny. My friend has one and her neighbors either hate her, or think they are entitled to her help (??!!) She enjoys the entertainment for what it is.

If moms knew to look at themselves instead of others, they really would feel a lot better about themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

We gave up our nearby families, friends, good schools, and home that we loved to come try to do a meaningful job that would help our country in our small way.

Yeaaaah....you had me until this OP. As far as this particular nanny debate goes, I think people should do whatever is best for their families, end of story. So I don't have a dog in the SAH/WOH/nanny fight. But it's pretty tough to follow you from the concept of your legacy drawer to the patriotic sacrifice implied above.

+1. and the topic has so many layers of nuances regarding colonialisation, that it's pretty much light years away from what OP was trying to connect it to. but enjoy, OP.

[Anonymous]

The irritating thing about OP's glee with her 400 dollar nanny is that she can afford it because the government pays for the housing for her family. Perhaps the government should require families posted abroad to contribute to the cost of their housing rather than funding the luxury of a nanny for a stay at home mom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would never pay a stranger to raise my kids. It horrifies me just thinking about it.

Maybe not. But i'd happily pay a stranger to all the other chores around the house so I could spend quality time with my kid.

ugh. this is what I hear all the time from fellow sahms here in the U.S.

of course we all love our kids beyond belief, but are we really sending them the right message and preparing them for meaningful lives if we pay other people to clean up after us so we can spend more time focusing on our little centers of the universe?

I know I am exaggerating, forgive me PP, but for the sake of making a point...sure, it would be fun to live the life of leisure and never lift a finger, and children are important, BUT I actually think people are happier when they find some meaning out of the collective work that we all do to run a household, and our kids are more likable when they learn to model a certain level of taking care of one's own things and taking responsibility for one's own messes and such.

That said, in a household where there are multiple kids under the age when they can be trusted by themselves (varies depending on the kid, but infants, toddlers, preschoolers can all qualify) it makes NO SENSE for one person to be responsible for caring for them, cooking, and cleaning. It is hard to cook good, nutritious, varied meals when you have babies or children underneath, and trying to clean while caring for kids is like shoveling snow in the middle of a blizzard. It makes total sense to get help if you can afford it.

You can't hack it. We get it.

Hack it? I have no desire of hacking it. If there is a gold medal in the toilet-scrubbing or floor-mopping Olympics, you're welcome to it. I'll sit that one out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The irritating thing about OP's glee with her 400 dollar nanny is that she can afford it because the government pays for the housing for her family. Perhaps the government should require families posted abroad to contribute to the cost of their housing rather than funding the luxury of a nanny for a stay at home mom.

Give me a break. The foreign service families in developing countries deserve to be compensated for taking those posts. And those in first world countries wouldn't be able to afford the housing if it weren't provided. The housing is provided so that it meets certain safety and quality of life standards, without which it would be hard to convince people to make themselves available for worldwide assignments.

You probably also think federal workers don't deserve a 1% pay raise after no salary increases for three years....

[Anonymous]

I lost the point of this post. Is it that servants are a great thing and make the masters' lives easier? Why are we debating this? I think we would all like servants around the house. Even the die-hard "childcare is evil" poster would probably like a housekeeper/chef/occasional babysitter. The fso posters are annoyingly clueless. We get it, cheap domestic help is a great perk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The irritating thing about OP's glee with her 400 dollar nanny is that she can afford it because the government pays for the housing for her family. Perhaps the government should require families posted abroad to contribute to the cost of their housing rather than funding the luxury of a nanny for a stay at home mom.

That's not how it works in expat world, love. Someone sends you overseas, they pay.

[Anonymous]

My band's name is going to be the Brown Subalterns.

[Anonymous]

"Global Woman" - the book