How much do you help your nanny on non-work related matters?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our nanny is wonderful, professional and kind but not from the United States (LPR status). She has a hard time with a lot of things due to her lack of computer skills. We helped her enroll in health insurance, file a tax return, buy a car. All of which we are delighted to do but curious if others go out of their way to help? Nothing was that big of a deal but I don't want to create a situation where we are doing WAY too much. She is alone and want to help but getting a little scared about how she will do without us!!!

OP, we did this with our first nanny (also not US born, though a citizen.) It started as helping w/ health insurance. It escalated over time to taking her to urgent care when she was ill, helping her move, lending her money, helping her find a new apartment, etc... It felt like the right, easy, kind, generous thing to do in the beginning. By then end (she was with us for 3+ years) it absolutely felt like we were being taken advantage of, it felt like a burden, I resented what felt like a growing attitude of entitlement, and it became a serious problem.

It's a slippery slope.

It can be very hard to maintain boundaries, and to remember that this should be a professional working relationship, when talking about a nanny who is in your home, loving and caring for your kids (and even you) daily. But establishing some boundaries soon, and talking with your spouse about just how far you are willing to go (before you are asked) is a good idea. For instance, we maintained a hard line on advancing salary, but we found other ways to help her financially (we'd ask her to babysit and the overtime she earned then helped pay for the unanticipated car repair for instance.) Toward the end when there was a time that she needed money we gave her 6 months of the raise we were planning for that year, in one lump sum. (Which technically is advancing salary but we knew that we would be ending her employment around that 6 month mark anyway and were willing to "lose" that money if she quit before then.) My husband and I frequently had conversations about whether the money she needed, while an inappropriate request of us, was less important than the stability of maintaining her employment. So we had an ongoing conversation about those kinds of things and a sense of when/where we felt the scales tipping.

But it's tough. Often these things come down to money. So if you are in the position to have a little pool of money that you know isn't a hardship for you to lose, that you can keep in your "back pocket" as emergency funds to help out your nanny that is one way to plan for a certain amount of this without resenting it so much.

But you also need to know that it is likely that the more of this care and support you provide, the more your nanny will come to rely on you over time and that is very difficult to limit, and very difficult to manage. And when the time comes that you need to let her go, whatever the reason, it will be significantly harder.

There are a couple of threads on this kind of stuff here so you might find some similar discussions if you search around a bit.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

PP - thank you very much for your thoughtful response. This is helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To smug Canadian nanny- do you not realize that you were fortunate enough to speak English, know how to use a computer, and have access to one? OP's nanny doesn't seem to have either of those going for her, and she trusts them. I agree that some boundaries might be in order, but sometimes human beings are human. It doesn't make her a bad person or employee.

[b]

Dear uninformed American- My first language is French, but thanks for knowing about the world. In Canada we recognize English and French as our national languages and until I moved to the US, I only had English 1hr a day at school. When I came to the US I took language classes and and now I'm fluent and apparently smug. But you're still dumb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To smug Canadian nanny- do you not realize that you were fortunate enough to speak English, know how to use a computer, and have access to one? OP's nanny doesn't seem to have either of those going for her, and she trusts them. I agree that some boundaries might be in order, but sometimes human beings are human. It doesn't make her a bad person or employee.

[b]

Dear uninformed American- My first language is French, but thanks for knowing about the world. In Canada we recognize English and French as our national languages and until I moved to the US, I only had English 1hr a day at school. When I came to the US I took language classes and and now I'm fluent and apparently smug. But you're still dumb.

Your 1 hr/day could be more than OPs nanny had. You had access to a computer and knew how to use it too, didn't you?

OP you've been very kind. I would imagine it's overwhelming for your nanny to try to figure all of this out. How long has she been here?

Now, hopefully if you direct her to an agency that can help her, she'll be okay. Let her know that the agency is there to help her through the process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would not help her personally but there is no harm in passing along resources she could use to help her self. Tax preparation places, the address for the dmv, whatever.

Why wouldn't you help the person who cares for your child?

Because she's an employee? I'd never ask my manager to help me with my taxes.

[Anonymous]

We help our nanny with computer stuff -like helping her buy train tickets, health insurance, etc. It's just the nice thing to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We help our nanny with computer stuff -like helping her buy train tickets, health insurance, etc. It's just the nice thing to do.

How condescending and paternalistic of you.

[Anonymous]

Considering that your nanny's job goes waaaay above just tending to your child's personal needs, I would say it is wonderful that you are helping your nanny since one can never put a true price tag on all she does for your family.