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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I would feel uncomfortable paying a fellow mom from my neighborhood. I suppose because it breaks the polite agreement that we all pretend that everyone in the neighborhood is comfortably upper middle class. It makes me feel guilty about our ability to go out while a neighborhood mom who is potentially my friend or an acquaintance from my kids’ school is giving up an evening with her own family to sit on my couch or play board games with my kids. I also feel self conscious that an adult whose life is similar to mine is judging my home in a way that a neighbor's nanny or a grad student or teacher in her early 20s is not. It feels like an invasion of both my privacy and the adult babysitting because now I know you are hard up for money.

Growing up, the mother of a classmate cleaned my house and I found it uncomfortable. Uncomfortable that I knew that her mom cleaned houses as a side hustle and sometimes a kid my age had to come along and help. Uncomfortable that this classmate could see my room and my personal things even though we were not close. [/quote]

Agree. You admitting you need money breaks the mirage that everyone is happy, healthy and well off. It’s a reminder it could happen to anyone in an upper class neighborhood. Please dont admit to anyone you’re struggling. You’ll be an untouchable. You should just move. [/quote]

These posts are both (1) deranged and (2) sadly true.

It makes you realize how much about "community" is about keeping up appearances and also how hierarchical a lot of people see the world (important to know who is on which level and not to mix levels in an uncomforable way).

I've been working on changing career fields and have considered a couple small business ideas but I have to be realistic about what people in my immediate community would hire a neighbor to do. Babysitting and house cleaning and landscaping are all considered "beneath" them and therefore they are unlikely to hire someone they view as a peer to do it. I agree they also think it would be too intimate to have a neighbor in their homes in this way. But a professional services like organizing or personal shopping and interior decorating are okay even though it also involves being in the home which is interesting. There are several people in the neighborhood who offer these services and people not only think it's fine but their names get passed around a lot via recommendations. I think women see these jobs as less manual labor and thus it feels more appropriate for a peer. Similar thing with photography. I also think women often see themselves as "collaborating" with people in these roles on projects in a way they don't feel about childcare or cleaning or landscaping (in those situations they view the relationship as telling someone what to do and having those orders followed).

Just layers of classism at work here. But it also makes you realize how most people view their nannies and cleaners and landscapers -- as less than.

Realizing this has also helped explain to me why some people have sort of weird and fraught relationships with their nannies. There is disagreement over whether a nanny belongs in the first category (manual labor and only to be done by people who are signficantly less well off plus their job is to take orders) or the second category (a more respected and acceptable vocation for an equal where the nanny will have more freedom to advise and make independent choices).[/quote]

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