Why has it taken OP over 3 months to find a nanny is my question. Are you not offering suitable pay to attract qualified candidates?

I think an important component of this issue is that the Nanny seems a little too focused on how much she needs the money right now.

Her desperation to make money is clouding her overall judgement on whether this position is sustainable in the long run or not.

She desperately needs the cash now so she is willing to work for you.
However keep in mind that she likely will be looking for something closer to her w/less hours.
And when she finds it - she likely will leave you high + dry w/out childcare.

Not to mention your children will be impacted.
My best advice for you OP is to continue looking for someone.
It will be worth the wait.

I promise.

The issue with this nanny is not that she has 3 kids and a commute, but that she doesn’t seem to have stable childcare. We used to have a great nanny (before she moved) who had 2 kids and a 30 min commute. But she also lived with her mom, who was the built-in caregiver. So there weren’t any emergencies.

Look, if this nanny had been doing the same hours with the same commute and her former employer said she was never late and had iron-clad childcare, I’d have absolutely no problem with hiring her. However that is not OP’s case. Her potential nanny never made the commute daily and was already balking on the hours. It simply isn’t a good fit for employer, child, or nanny.

Frankly the people saying that this is discrimination against a mother need to go back and reread the OP.

Let’s say you hired someone for a job as a receptionist. Not a demanding job but critical to the business that someone be there physically at the correct time to open the office.

Now let’s say you hired an employee who lived an hour away. They currently only work part time, and have for a while. Hmm. Raises a red flag, yes? There are lots of similar jobs with a shorter commute. Why has this employee been unable to find full-time work in their area? They look good otherwise so you hire them.

After accepting the job but before their first day, they call and explain that the work hours conflict with their dogsitter’s dropoff times and ask you to adjust the opening hours for your business to accommodate that.

Do you a) Assume that this is going to be the only time they ask you to adjust for their personal needs or

B) see this as a red flag and assume that they will continue to struggle to manage a full-time job (especially with that long commute) along with their personal life.

Every boss is going to go with B. And it has nothing to do with discriminating against moms.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn’t hire someone with 3 school aged kids with a long commute. Life happens and you’re going to end up letting her bring her kids frequently or she’s going to need lots of flexibility. If you need set hours and want longevity, hire someone younger or older. She sounds like she’s going to looking for a better position from day one.

The women on this thread are so awful. Can you imagine if our employers felt that way?

Most employers do feel that way, and in most jobs if you hire someone and the pressure of being a working single parent of three is too much and they end up stressed out or flaky and show up late or call in sick constantly, then you have to replace them and that costs…money. Which is just money.

If you hire a nanny who is a bad fit and she comes in stressed and hits your kids or yells at them or mistreats them in any of a million tiny, invisible ways, it can be deeply harmful. I am a nanny for a 5yo boy. When he was 2, his prior nanny use to tell him he was bad and a boogieman would come get him if he didn’t change. He still remembers and cries about it sometimes.

If you hire the wrong nanny and she calls in sick constantly, you may have to replace her and sever the bond your child has formed with an important caregiver. That can be damaging too, especially if it happened multiple times.

The stakes are different in this job and I don’t blame parents for wanting the best possible chance of the right fit and the right person. A mother of three with an hour long commute, no support system and only sporadic childcare is not it.

So now she’s going to abuse the kids because she has a long commute? Oh, yeah, that’s a perfectly logical train of thought. Just admit that you think it’s fine to discriminate against women but for some reason it would be a problem if you or OP were discriminated against for the same reason. After all, OP has children, too, right?

Do you think that people are either never abusive or always abusive? That is a very black and white view and not based in reality. All the research says that abuse happens when someone is not managing their emotions well and is in a position of power. Nannying is an inherently emotionally demanding job. It is incredibly difficult to remain calm, patient and loving when kids are difficult and kids will always be difficult. People who have easy lives are more likely to be able to handle difficult kids. Nannies are also inherently in a position of power.

So no, I would not want to trust someone who is struggling and exhausted to be in a position of power over my young children. There is absolutely a link between being overworked and being abusive.

My first nanny job had an hour commute and I had zero issues with reliability…but I didn’t have kids. How old are the kids? Are they old enough to get themselves off to school alone?

Would you be willing to consider two nannies? One 3-4 days and other 1-2 days? Would allow better quality of life, even if they lived down the street. Something to ponder…then you’d have a potential backup person anyway.