Please Don't Give The Nanny A Reason to Quit

[Anonymous]

Poop would piss me off. Bottles are no big deal but he should do them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:pp you are utterly confused if you think you are not "the help". you are the help. Regardless of all the bs "I am family" they are so nice to me yadda yadda yadda, at the end of the day, you are paid to do a job, therefore you exchange "help" for money, just like a housekeeper which I am assuming you would refer to as "the help". I hate nannies that think they are above other people!!!!!!!!!!

Youre missing some pretty obvious social and historic context behind the phrase "the help" here. Don't get all snarky if you don't know what you're talking about. There is a HUGE difference between being a household employee who does her duties and being the help and getting completely taken advantage of.

It doesn't matter if you are called the help or an employee. Your job is your job and if it is beneath you, get in another line of work. Your job is caring for a child via working in someone's home.

[Anonymous]

OP, you are most definitely right about that.

Your husband is being very disrespectful of your nanny by the way he is treating her + I wouldn't be surprised if she isn't already looking for a new position the second she walks through the door every evening.

I would have a serious discussion w/your husband and let him know how blessed your family is to have such a wonderful provider for your baby. This is something that should NEVER ever be taken for granted. Having a great nanny is really priceless and once you have it, you should be very careful you do not lose it.

Stress to your husband that from now on he needs to be considerate of your nanny as a person, not just the "hired help."

He needs to understand that she deserves individual respect meaning he shouldn't just leave her all the dirty bottles/dishes just because he is too lazy to deal w/it and she is the hired help so it is her job to deal w/it.

If he refuses to listen to you, you can try talking to your nanny and apologize to her for your husband's behavior which may help a little bit, but again, do not be surprised if she does in fact find something better later down the road.

Who can truly blame her??!

[Anonymous]

Eh.

If he makes the conscious choice to ALWAYS leave things for her to clean up, she might get fed up. If he's having a hectic morning now and again, I'm sure she'll happily overlook it.

Basically a good rule is to do as much as you can while you're on duty and expect the nanny to do as much as SHE can while she's on duty. She won't leave you a sink full of bottles at the end of the day, so don't leave one for her at the beginning of the day. She won't let the kid sit in a poopy diaper (even for two minutes) so someone else can change him, so neither should you. And so on - leave your home how you expect her to leave it at the end of the day, while still being adults and remembering that some days are tougher than others and not everything always gets done.

But, yeah, you should speak to your husband? Not sure what other thoughts you're looking for - you need to make sure he's clear that the nanny is on duty WHILE SHE IS ON DUTY and not before or after (I guess with the exception of laundry? though my NF does laundry as much as they can and so do I - that way we never get behind).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:pp you are utterly confused if you think you are not "the help". you are the help. Regardless of all the bs "I am family" they are so nice to me yadda yadda yadda, at the end of the day, you are paid to do a job, therefore you exchange "help" for money, just like a housekeeper which I am assuming you would refer to as "the help". I hate nannies that think they are above other people!!!!!!!!!!

Youre missing some pretty obvious social and historic context behind the phrase "the help" here. Don't get all snarky if you don't know what you're talking about. There is a HUGE difference between being a household employee who does her duties and being the help and getting completely taken advantage of.

It doesn't matter if you are called the help or an employee. Your job is your job and if it is beneath you, get in another line of work. Your job is caring for a child via working in someone's home.

Call me the help if you want, but if you expect me to do chores and cleaning 24/7 in a 55 hour week, you better be prepared to pay me as if I work 24/7. And even at $15/hour with 8 hours not paid for "sleep time" each day, that will cost you $2,220 per week, OT included.

[Anonymous]

pp, you are absurd lol

[Anonymous]

I am a very, very good nanny, OP, but very reserved and adverse to conflict. It's a problem in my personality that I am working on but it is the small things that I can never seem to express that do build up on me and I wouldn't be surprised if they built up on your nanny. Your husband is being very disrespectful and I'm sure that the nanny has noticed.

[Anonymous]

The poopy diaper is a bit ridiculous but why is asking nanny to wash bottles and baby dishes from the morning so terrible? I thought that was a benefit of having a nanny? In our house, we have 1-2 bottles from the night before that one parent washes in the morning before going to work (we do daycare so no one else is going to wash the bottles). But if I had a nanny, I would think it within her job to wash baby bottles. I'm not talking a weekend's worth of bottles but 1-2 from the night/morning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The poopy diaper is a bit ridiculous but why is asking nanny to wash bottles and baby dishes from the morning so terrible? I thought that was a benefit of having a nanny? In our house, we have 1-2 bottles from the night before that one parent washes in the morning before going to work (we do daycare so no one else is going to wash the bottles). But if I had a nanny, I would think it within her job to wash baby bottles. I'm not talking a weekend's worth of bottles but 1-2 from the night/morning.

+1 to all this. Our nanny unloads the dishwasher in the morning and then reloads it through the day with the dirty dishes and bottles from the day. (Yes, we did discuss this in the interview.) We finish loading it at night and run it. We don't leave piles of dirty dishes from dinner the night before or anything but what is the big deal about rinsing and loading a few bottles and cereal bowls? I know on this board it's shocking to ask a nanny to do a single thing around the house, but IRL our nanny has made it clear she has no problem with this arrangement.

[Anonymous]

I can't believe anyone believes you're an MB, OP.

You're a nanny, OP and a clearly disgruntled one, perhaps for good reason.

Still, your thread is nothing but a troll thread. It is hard to invest any thought to help solve a fake troll problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe anyone believes you're an MB, OP.

You're a nanny, OP and a clearly disgruntled one, perhaps for good reason.

Still, your thread is nothing but a troll thread. It is hard to invest any thought to help solve a fake troll problem.

+1. There is a nanny troll on this board who likes to post "bad employer" threads like this so all the other nannies can chime in about how terrible the bad employer is. I guess she figures she'll get even more favorable responses if the OP is presented as a nanny sympathizer who knows better than the "bad employer." Please! How does the MB/OP know that the DB hands the nanny a poopy baby every day? No nanny would complain about that to the MB, even if it did tick her off.

At any rate, I don't leave dirty cereal bowls--they go in the dishwasher--but bottles from the morning that need to be hand-washed? 95% of the time they are getting left for the nanny. I just don't subscribe to the notion that the nanny is only responsible for baby messes made on her watch, and neither does our nanny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can't believe anyone believes you're an MB, OP.

You're a nanny, OP and a clearly disgruntled one, perhaps for good reason.

Still, your thread is nothing but a troll thread. It is hard to invest any thought to help solve a fake troll problem.

You do not have to believe me, PP.


Thanks to all. Showed the response to DH and he agreed to do better about not leaving dirty bottles or certainly a dirty baby when the nanny arrives.

[Anonymous]

Yay!

[Anonymous]

I don't see how this thread is so far fetched! I worked for one family who were down right nasty, the kids would have on the same
poppy/ urinated diaper they slept in waiting for my arrival to change them. Dirty dishes from dinner stacked up in the sink, greasy counter tops, children's dirty breakfast dishes. She would let the baby throw food all over the floor! Once her husband was out of town, she took the trash out of the kitchen bin and sat it in the living room. I didn't touch it, after 3 days she got the hint and took it out herself.

So many other things happened and finally I couldn't take it anymore. When the oldest boy was at school and I took the baby to the
playground one nanny approached me asking me how it was going. I told her I was going to quit, she then informed me that I had been
the 15th nanny they had hired in a short amount of time. Every nanny came over and backed up her claim. This was the worst family by far!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't see how this thread is so far fetched! I worked for one family who were down right nasty, the kids would have on the same
poppy/ urinated diaper they slept in waiting for my arrival to change them. Dirty dishes from dinner stacked up in the sink, greasy counter tops, children's dirty breakfast dishes. She would let the baby throw food all over the floor! Once her husband was out of town, she took the trash out of the kitchen bin and sat it in the living room. I didn't touch it, after 3 days she got the hint and took it out herself.

So many other things happened and finally I couldn't take it anymore. When the oldest boy was at school and I took the baby to the
playground one nanny approached me asking me how it was going. I told her I was going to quit, she then informed me that I had been
the 15th nanny they had hired in a short amount of time. Every nanny came over and backed up her claim. This was the worst family by far!

It's not the idea that this can happen that makes it far-fetched. It's the fact that an MB posted because she knows her husband leaves a couple of dirty bottles and sometimes leaves the baby in a poopy diaper for a few minutes until the nanny gets there. I'm sorry for your awful experience, no one should have to work with a family like that, but that's not exactly the same as the OP.