do you consider nannies with bad English/bad grammar?

[Anonymous]

I didn’t care if we could accurately communicate.

[Anonymous]

As a parent of a child with a speech delay, a caregiver speaking fluent and accurate English is VASTLY under-appreciated. Yes, of course it makes a huge difference in your child's language development, at least in the early years. Your instincts are not wrong, at all.

However, price limitations prevent many families from hiring fluent/native English speakers as nannies.

And by the way, it is MUCH better for language development for a child to hear a different language from his or her nanny - but have that language spoken correctly and fluently - than it is to hear English with a heavy accent and with errors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a parent of a child with a speech delay, a caregiver speaking fluent and accurate English is VASTLY under-appreciated. Yes, of course it makes a huge difference in your child's language development, at least in the early years. Your instincts are not wrong, at all.

However, price limitations prevent many families from hiring fluent/native English speakers as nannies.

And by the way, it is MUCH better for language development for a child to hear a different language from his or her nanny - but have that language spoken correctly and fluently - than it is to hear English with a heavy accent and with errors.

I fully agree, but my friend who is fluent in Spanish says that most of the babysitters at the park speak very poor Spanish. So said most of these ladies don’t come from “educated” families.

[Anonymous]

My kids were taken care of by two women from abroad who spoke English with heavy accents and many, many grammatical and word choice errors. (DH had a lot of difficulty understanding them.) What they had was love. So much love. They took care of my babies as if they were their own. I can't even begin to tell you how much lucky I felt knowing these two beautiful souls and having them look after my kids. Years later I'm still friends with them. I wouldn't have traded them for the sweetest talking Harvard Ph.D.

[Anonymous]

Op, here is the thing...a lot of DCUM families hire the cheaper nannies whose first language isn’t English. Are they good childcare providers? Who knows, those families wouldn’t admit if they weren’t (not saying nannies with perfect English are any better). You have a preference, just like families have a preference for an experienced nanny, a college educated nanny, a bilingual nanny, a legal nanny, a nanny who lives nearby, etc. If you want a nanny with perfect English then that is your preference. Will they be cheap? Probably not.

[Anonymous]

Not at all. My nanny was amazing, and she didn’t speak English when she came here. She’s been here 20 years and is still taking English classes. Nurturing is universal.

[Anonymous]

I only worked pt when my kids were little, so I hired sitters, not nannies, but the best person I found had the worst written English. It was minimally comprehensible, but she was that great combination of loving but strict, and I would have easily hired her for full-time if I needed that.

If the nanny’s language skills are that much of a concern, I would look at your schedule and see if you or your spouse could shift things to be available to your child at times they are awake and receptive to conversation with you.

[Anonymous]

Op, you are clearly not offering enough pay to get the results you want. If it is that important to you, up your pay and stop complaining.

[Anonymous]

I care deeply about grammar and vocabulary. I knew starting the hiring process that I wanted an fluent, educated English speaking nanny - and found several who fit the bill.

People who don’t think it matters are doing a huge disservice to their child. If you cannot afford an Native English speaking nanny, insist that she only speak to your child in her native tongue.

[Anonymous]

Nannies who don’t speak English well generally can’t read in English - so no books for the child all day. That alone would be a deal breaker for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We're currently looking for a full-time nanny to replace our (amazing) part-time nanny since I'm going back to work full-time. I don't know if it's rational, but I've been automatically rejecting 95% of profiles I see or applications I get because the person writes badly/has terrible grammar/obviously has poor English skills. I used to teach at a very expensive private school in NYC and noticed that many of my students did not have as high level vocabularies as I would have expected - another teacher told me this was because many of them were essentially raised by nannies originally from another country who didn't speak English very well. I know that many foreign-born nannies are good down to their bones, love their charges, are capable, and do all kinds of fun and enriching activities with them. But ... I've read so many studies on the impact of surrounding children with high-level vocabulary and conversation. My children are in preschool, so it seems maybe more important than if I had an infant. I know I could ask a nanny to speak Spanish to my children, but for a few reasons that doesn't work well for our situation right now. Do you think my instincts (to insist on a nanny with great English) are reasonable, or am I missing out on better candidates? Is English ability important to you?

Ignore the troll. Yes, of course, English grammar and vocabulary matter. Why would you expect less from a nanny than you would a teacher? Would you send your child to a school where the teachers spoke in poor English? Then why would you entrust the most important years of learning for eight to ten hours a day to a nanny who has broken or poor English?

[Anonymous]

I had a nanny who was an immigrant from Thailand She's been here about 13 years now. Her English was terrible and since my kid spent 40+ hours a week with her, my kid's English was terrible. I had a really hard time communicating with her too and she didn't understand a lot of the things I said so I would have to write EVERYTHING down.

Before everyone says this is what you get for $15/hr. She wasn't cheap. She started at $21.00/hr with us plus overtime, benefits, 15 days PTO, etc. By the time she left she was at $24/hr. We just had a 2nd kid and upped our pay rate to $24/hr starting and was able to find an experienced fluent English speaking nanny. It's worth the extra money and has made a world of difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most nanny raised kids have delays, but the silver lining is that they are bilingual.

Evidence for this?

[Anonymous]

Our nanny of five years speaks to our kids exclusively in her native language. Our children did not have speech delays and sound like the children of highly educated parents who are surrounded by other similarly situated children/adults. I think you can let this go.

[Anonymous]

Eh I purposefully found a nanny that spoke no English and communicated with my child in her native language. Child is fluently bilingual and English has not suffered. I insisted that DH speak perfect English to the child though.