Anonymous
Post 09/12/2013 12:53     Subject: A new twist on the "SAHM with a nanny" discussion!
I wish I could have a nanny for $400 a month!! Bliss!
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2013 11:10     Subject: Re:A new twist on the "SAHM with a nanny" discussion!
Anonymous wrote:
Americans don't like maids and nannies because y'all feel that the job is somehow demeaning, and having domestic help is "putting on airs" and "getting uppity." Well, it's not. It's an honorable way to make a living, taking care of and loving infants and children. the same person who judges someone for having the means to afford domestic help has no problem ordering around an overworked minimum wage worker in some fast food joint working 3 jobs trying to support a wife a kid. That worker probably has, dollar for earned dollar, a way more financially insecure and exploited life than a private nanny.


I don't think the job is demeaning. I WOH full time, had a nanny when my son was younger. I do judge parents who use the nanny to spend as little time with their kids as possible. An acquantiance of mine has a full time nanny during the work day (totally normal) and a part time nanny so that she can go out and socialize in the evening and on the weekend. An occasional babysitter is just fine, but every evening and weekend? A person should want to see their kids!


You can judge 'em the same the you judge a deadbeat dad or some poor welfare mom who dumps her kid with the grandma so she can go clubbing and do drugs. It's not a class issue. Women who lack the maternal gene but still go on to bear children exist is all strata of society, why are the rich exempt? Yeah, some people have no innate desire to mother, and pawn off the job on nannies. Some women out and out abandon their kids or give up parental rights, too.
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2013 11:06     Subject: A new twist on the "SAHM with a nanny" discussion!
Anonymous wrote:america sucks, living overseas you could have a lot more help. Why should being a stay at home mom involve scrubbing toilets that's bull shit.


I agree with you. You have very educated, talented, and trained women who have achieved and worked hard all their life to come to the finish line, and it is...to SAHM. And they are on their knees scrubbing toilets after having worked interesting jobs and had interesting lives, traveled and met interesting people, and now they can't leave the house even to go to the corner store, and something doesn't sit right with them.

Some people are born to SAHM, but then some people are born to have 8 computer screens in front of them and monitor the world markets for 20 hours a day. Most people aren't like that.

The big problem is this myth that's rammed down American women's throats that the best and most caring way to raise children is that they be raised solely by the mother, to the exclusion of everyone else: father, unmarried aunts, grandparents, and of course, anyone paid to do so. This is untrue. Children have been raised by the village and mothers have always gotten communal support from each other; only in modern times are mothers saddled with a mountain of electronic gadgets and appliances, and told to hole up in a big house with the kids in isolation.

Betty Friedan had it right but things don't change.
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2013 11:03     Subject: Re:A new twist on the "SAHM with a nanny" discussion!
Americans don't like maids and nannies because y'all feel that the job is somehow demeaning, and having domestic help is "putting on airs" and "getting uppity." Well, it's not. It's an honorable way to make a living, taking care of and loving infants and children. the same person who judges someone for having the means to afford domestic help has no problem ordering around an overworked minimum wage worker in some fast food joint working 3 jobs trying to support a wife a kid. That worker probably has, dollar for earned dollar, a way more financially insecure and exploited life than a private nanny.


I don't think the job is demeaning. I WOH full time, had a nanny when my son was younger. I do judge parents who use the nanny to spend as little time with their kids as possible. An acquantiance of mine has a full time nanny during the work day (totally normal) and a part time nanny so that she can go out and socialize in the evening and on the weekend. An occasional babysitter is just fine, but every evening and weekend? A person should want to see their kids!
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2013 10:51     Subject: A new twist on the "SAHM with a nanny" discussion!
Anonymous wrote:OMG people. OF COURSE it would be great to have a huge class of domestic laborers to exploit. This has gone far beyond the Sah-woh debate.


AMEN! I've lived back and forth between the USA and Singapore for years now. But I've only ever lived in the USA since having children, so I've never known the live in help that many of my friends have had. The idea that the model of an imported population of domestic workers fits into the SAHM/WOHM dialogue (BORING) is just ridiculous. Its not even remotely "apples to apples".
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2013 10:51     Subject: A new twist on the "SAHM with a nanny" discussion!
america sucks, living overseas you could have a lot more help. Why should being a stay at home mom involve scrubbing toilets that's bull shit.
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2013 10:47     Subject: A new twist on the "SAHM with a nanny" discussion!
Anonymous wrote:OMG people. OF COURSE it would be great to have a huge class of domestic laborers to exploit. This has gone far beyond the Sah-woh debate.


Like that's not the reality today? Who the heck do you think picks your seedless grapes and packs your peaches in cling syrup? They are being exploited now. What I don't understand is, why is my nanny who is being paid $35,000+ a year, works not a minute over full-time, very regular hours, some bennies, apparently a living, breathing example of my apparent exploitative capitalistic evil, and yet you can sit back and stuff your face with all the fruits and vegetables at the grocery store that are there at those prices because many, many faceless and nameless people have worked under the hot sun for pennies to bring them to you? Do you not see your hypocrisy?

Exploitation goes on PLENTY in our bountiful wealthy country, and it's not the nannies that first spring to mind.
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2013 10:44     Subject: A new twist on the "SAHM with a nanny" discussion!
For all of those people who are bashing the OP. Can you explain exactly what she is doing wrong?

OP and others have made some good arguments in favor of what they're doing: They provide good, stable jobs to people who need work. They pay at or above the going rate of pay for the work provided, and provide safe, dignified working conditions.

Those of you who are bashing her seem to be making emotional arguments based on our liberal, priveleged guilt. Basically, "you're hiring poor, brown people to do work you could do yourselves."

I'd like to hear a more fact-based argument about why what they're doing is wrong.
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2013 10:38     Subject: A new twist on the "SAHM with a nanny" discussion!
OMG people. OF COURSE it would be great to have a huge class of domestic laborers to exploit. This has gone far beyond the Sah-woh debate.
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2013 10:31     Subject: A new twist on the "SAHM with a nanny" discussion!
Anonymous wrote:I think OP has it right...every other day someone is in DCUM crying about being overwhelmed by children and/or household duties. Either that, or how DH doesn't help enough and how much of a strain it puts on your relationship. I am not an SAHM but if I could be in OP's shoes, I would have help for organizing, laundry, errands (grocery stores, dry cleaners)...in turn, I would spend more time with our kids doing art and really building up our veggie garden. It would mean more creativity and better health. Occasionally, the help could watch one child while another gets individual attention (really an issue in our house now that we are working on reading with #1,who gets interrupted by a toddler and an infant). Moreover, I could nurture my marriage better and actually have a date night! I am sorry, but OP got it right with this one.


exactly. sounds great to me. I have a great friend who lives in hong kong with three kids and a live in nanny/housekeeper. She loves the woman and provides her with a good job. She gets to pursue some hobbies, volunteer work, a second master's degree, and spend individual time with her kids not stressed out by cooking/cleaning/schleping/etc she got the nanny because she found it difficult to be alone all day in a foreign country (husband is attorney with long hours) with kids trying to navigagte everything. I am a WOHM with two kids and pregnant with #3 struggling to keep it all together. I know we are both good mothers doing the best our can in our situation. I know she is a great mom and when we lived together prior to each of us getting married I saw firsthand how hard she works. No doubt that continues.
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2013 09:29     Subject: Re:A new twist on the "SAHM with a nanny" discussion!
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I would never pay a stranger to raise my kids. It horrifies me just thinking about it.


Oh please. Stop being so provincial. You do know that nannies, nursemaids, ayas, baboes, governesses, etc. are the DEFAULT in how the rich have raised their precious offspring the world over for centuries, right?

We in the US have a mental block against domestic help. Americans are not comfortable with the concept! Very funny, actually. My husband is the same way. Midwestern middle class background, very awkward initially with our nanny and housekeeper. For some reason, the pool guy and gardener didn't befuddle him so much--maybe because they never came in the house.

I was born in a third world country, and came over as an infant. My family has earned, inherited, and lost, a fortune before immigrating to the US. My mother was raised by a nanny, and then became a housemaid herself when the family's fortune's fell.

So, the concept of domestic help is not alien to me, and I also feel a lot of warmth for the profession.

Americans don't like maids and nannies because y'all feel that the job is somehow demeaning, and having domestic help is "putting on airs" and "getting uppity." Well, it's not. It's an honorable way to make a living, taking care of and loving infants and children. the same person who judges someone for having the means to afford domestic help has no problem ordering around an overworked minimum wage worker in some fast food joint working 3 jobs trying to support a wife a kid. That worker probably has, dollar for earned dollar, a way more financially insecure and exploited life than a private nanny.

I love my nanny. I don't love her more than she loves my kids (which is plenty), but that's the way it should be. I see my kids and want to surround them with as many people who love them as possible. This includes the nanny, grandparents, etc. etc.

As long as this is an anonymous forum, I will just come out and state what I always felt: it's not HEALTHY for a woman whose sole purpose is to stay at home and not do anything else. It would be different if the husband also stayed at home, then you are just people of leisure and you have company. But this weird ideal that is imposed on American women that you should shoulder ALL of the childrearing and housekeeping while your husband works 80 hours a week and travels all the time is imbalanced.



+1,000! I love the fact that my son is excited when we get to daycare, that he hugs the teachers & enjoys being with them. He is growing up knowing that the world is full of loving, caring people. Yes, mommy & daddy love him, but we are not the only people who do.
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2013 09:07     Subject: A new twist on the "SAHM with a nanny" discussion!
"A friend who lived in Hong Kong hired a housekeeper, one that would live with them during week days. In her contract, the company had a "headache" clause, which is for when the wife has a headache, the husband could demand sexfrom the housekeeper. Needless to say, my friend and her Husband struck out that clause. "

I think you got played. I have never heard of such practices. I know many many people in Hong Kong who has housekeepers.
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2013 06:02     Subject: Re:A new twist on the "SAHM with a nanny" discussion!
Anonymous wrote:

Yes, of course. We should all have our children cared for by brown subalterns while we work hobby jobs at "the Embassy" and prepare our "legacy drawers." Global lifestyle arbitrage, baby, it's the new gentrification!!!


Wait, where from the OP's post did you get the idea that her domestic workers are second lieutenants in the British Army? Or are you speaking Academic-ish?
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2013 05:59     Subject: A new twist on the "SAHM with a nanny" discussion!
Anonymous wrote:

True story: My friend's dad once rode on a plane with Jimmy Hoffa. He asked Jimmy about the Teamsters, and Jimmy said, "I sleep fine at night."


He doesn't anymore, though.
Anonymous
Post 09/12/2013 01:26     Subject: A new twist on the "SAHM with a nanny" discussion!
I lived in a country where labor was very cheap while growing up and we definitely had two live in nannies/maids while my sister and I were babies-went down to one live-in once we started school. Yeah, whenever my mom tries to give parenting advice, all I can think is "how would YOU know???"