Does the nanny have a say?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An employee at a company might be reassigned (temporarily or permanently) within the company. That is not the same as loaning an employee to another company (??) without ASKING THEM if they'd like to go, while also docking their pay that week/month since, hey, these other folks will be paying them.

You cannot loan out a human being. It is not dramatic to be offended by such a suggestion. The nanny is an employee of a family, and as a PERSON cannot just be given to another family to serve them when they don't need her. That is the exact definition of owning a person and it is thankfully illegal.

Ok, PP. Go ahead and be horribly offended and twist it into a human rights issue. I 100% agreed that the OP should not do this and that she's most certainly writing herself into losing this nanny if she does go ahead with it. But I still think the posters were way too hysterical in their reactions.

OP asked if the nanny has a say. Meaning, she'd like to make this decision to give her nanny to another family without even consulting her nanny.

You don't find that offensive? REALLY?

I find it extremely ill-advised, as I've said. But it's not a human rights issue.

Okay but why is it crazy that nannies would find the question offensive? OP literally asked if her nanny has a say in this matter. To even think that she wouldn't have a say is beyond reason to me, and speaks to OPs lack of respect for her nanny. Who would even dream of doing this without considering what your nanny has to say about it?? It is blatantly offensive, and lets not get into qualifying the emotions of others. We are all entitled to our opinions and our emotions even if you don't agree with them. Some of the PPs, myself included, were offended and found the OP and title disgusting.

And even that's fine, seriously. But I don't think it's a "personhood" thing or an emancipation proclamation ownership thing or a slavery thing. And see how nicely you just described your reasoning without any inflammatory language and by describing your opinion thoroughly? That was much more useful than freaking out and using sarcasm, as seems to be the norm on this board. That's all I'm trying to say. It's so much more useful to posters (particuarly ones who are as misguided as this OP seems to be) to describe how you feel and why than to attack and resort to slavery accusations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:An employee at a company might be reassigned (temporarily or permanently) within the company. That is not the same as loaning an employee to another company (??) without ASKING THEM if they'd like to go, while also docking their pay that week/month since, hey, these other folks will be paying them.

You cannot loan out a human being. It is not dramatic to be offended by such a suggestion. The nanny is an employee of a family, and as a PERSON cannot just be given to another family to serve them when they don't need her. That is the exact definition of owning a person and it is thankfully illegal.

Ok, PP. Go ahead and be horribly offended and twist it into a human rights issue. I 100% agreed that the OP should not do this and that she's most certainly writing herself into losing this nanny if she does go ahead with it. But I still think the posters were way too hysterical in their reactions.

OP asked if the nanny has a say. Meaning, she'd like to make this decision to give her nanny to another family without even consulting her nanny.

You don't find that offensive? REALLY?

I find it extremely ill-advised, as I've said. But it's not a human rights issue.

Okay but why is it crazy that nannies would find the question offensive? OP literally asked if her nanny has a say in this matter. To even think that she wouldn't have a say is beyond reason to me, and speaks to OPs lack of respect for her nanny. Who would even dream of doing this without considering what your nanny has to say about it?? It is blatantly offensive, and lets not get into qualifying the emotions of others. We are all entitled to our opinions and our emotions even if you don't agree with them. Some of the PPs, myself included, were offended and found the OP and title disgusting.

And even that's fine, seriously. But I don't think it's a "personhood" thing or an emancipation proclamation ownership thing or a slavery thing. And see how nicely you just described your reasoning without any inflammatory language and by describing your opinion thoroughly? That was much more useful than freaking out and using sarcasm, as seems to be the norm on this board. That's all I'm trying to say. It's so much more useful to posters (particuarly ones who are as misguided as this OP seems to be) to describe how you feel and why than to attack and resort to slavery accusations.

Oh get over yourself.

We all explained ourselves very clearly, then you sauntered in here trying to be the cool nanny who sides with the idiotic MB who thinks she owns her nanny by dismissing our outrage.

You don't have to be outraged, but it's really not helping the cause of nannies as a whole by saying we're being inflammatory by pointing out that the nanny is a human being and cannot be loaned out like property can. That is, full stop, an outrageous idea and OP deserved everything she got.

[Anonymous]

I didn't side with the MB at all - I've repeatedly and in every post said that no, she should not loan her nanny out. But nannies need to remember that we may have a uniquely personal relationship with our families, but we are also providing a service in exchange for money. The employer gets to set the stage for what is being offered and what services they want. You certainly don't have to accept the job or keep the job of course. But again, it's not an issue of the OP here treating her nanny like property instead of like a person. It's the employer setting a job requirement that the employee is free to not accept.

Let's say an MB had a week off and asked her nanny to work at a friend's house instead for that week. As I've said a million times, the nanny is more than free to be insulted and put off by this request. It's a renegotiation of the terms upon which she was hired. Similarly, in a business setting, you can most definitely direct someone into an entirely new position or location or department or set of duties. And the employee can be upset about it, and they can deal with it or leave.

It doesn't then become a human rights issue of employers treating people like property in direct disobedience with the emancipation proclamation. I would argue that when we fly off the handle and be nasty like this rather than maintaining a professional attitude and explaining our position, that THAT is not helping the cause of nannies as a whole either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn't side with the MB at all - I've repeatedly and in every post said that no, she should not loan her nanny out. But nannies need to remember that we may have a uniquely personal relationship with our families, but we are also providing a service in exchange for money. The employer gets to set the stage for what is being offered and what services they want. You certainly don't have to accept the job or keep the job of course. But again, it's not an issue of the OP here treating her nanny like property instead of like a person. It's the employer setting a job requirement that the employee is free to not accept.

Let's say an MB had a week off and asked her nanny to work at a friend's house instead for that week. As I've said a million times, the nanny is more than free to be insulted and put off by this request. It's a renegotiation of the terms upon which she was hired. Similarly, in a business setting, you can most definitely direct someone into an entirely new position or location or department or set of duties. And the employee can be upset about it, and they can deal with it or leave.

It doesn't then become a human rights issue of employers treating people like property in direct disobedience with the emancipation proclamation. I would argue that when we fly off the handle and be nasty like this rather than maintaining a professional attitude and explaining our position, that THAT is not helping the cause of nannies as a whole either.

I just don't think you're smart enough to argue with, nor do I think you have any idea how business settings operate. You cannot, for example, tell your HR Director that you've reassigned her to a new job as Accounts Coordinator. You would have to fire her, and then re-hire her under the new title. It wouldn't be something she'd have to "deal with or leave," she has a job, she is prepared to do her job, and no boss just gets to decide she belongs in a different position unilaterally like that because, oh hey, we haven't had any HR complaints for a while. That simply isn't how it works.

[Anonymous]

I agree that you seem to lack a bare minimum of insight and knowledge to be worth dignifying on this, but as one of the hysterical PPs, I nonetheless feel compelled to respond to your contributions here:

1. I don't recall anyone using the term "human rights issue" before you and, frankly, that is the only abstract, nebulous terminology being applied. Regardless of how the reference to The Emancipation Proclamation was phrased, OP asked a) if her nanny had a say, and b) what the laws were. That reference, unlike your nonspecific summation, offers a directly-related answer to the questions by clarifying, "yes, she has a say; no, you cannot loan her out; legally The Emancipation Proclamation prohibits the total-control ownership required to do so." That said, if you want to debate the relevance of human rights, you are going to need significantly more background information and education than you appear to have; beginning with the 4th point on this list.

2. You are being awfully nonchalant about OP "deciding" to "set a job requirement" 9-months into a contract that ends in October. Do you even understand the purpose of a contract? It is to protect both parties so that, for example, one cannot change the rules in their own favor three quarters of the way through the contract period. By your logic the nanny could show up one morning and say "Guess what! my services are now $6,000 per hour - deal with it or go without childcare!"

3. It is not just "ill-advised". Ill-advised would be repeatedly coming home late without explanation or apology, leaving your nanny without enough formula and/or supplies, or otherwise making your nanny's job difficult and unpleasant. Ill-advised would be the kind of nuisance that would lead empowered nannies with the privilege of obtaining work elsewhere to quietly do so. This request, no matter how she says it, will make her nanny feel obligated to comply with something that is absolutely not legal or ethical. You need to review the laws and research regarding abuse of formal vs. informal power dynamics, narcissistic leadership, and hostile work environments.

4. Your offense at the references to slavery here, much like your flippant dismissal of the link between domestic work and human rights, is coming from a place of ignorance and privilege. That you can so casually suggest that her nanny decline the work elsewhere or leave her job for a new one speaks to a strong and likely well-founded sense of empowerment. I'm going to guess that you don't encounter an overwhelming amount of abuse as a domestic employee - either because you don't tolerate it or because you are not otherwise disenfranchised, discriminated against, or disempowered. This is good news - the fewer of those experiences there are in the world, the better place it will be for all of us.

That said, it is not the case for all, and arguably not even most, nannies. You are entitled to disagree with my rhetorical approach to that problem, but you do not get to rewrite history or empirical facts in the process to bolster that point. The study of domestic work in a global economy is a rich and thriving area of academic research on which millions of dollars in government and private grant money have been spent. That you find some of these comments incendiary or counter-productive is a subjective opinion, but your claim that slavery is wholly unrelated and offensive is not only ridiculous given the aforementioned relevance to OP's question, but also completely ignorant of historic and scientific fact. Similarly, your claims about similar occurrences in business settings are unfounded (as noted by PP), and, again, your suggestion that this nanny "deal with it or leave" ignores overwhelming evidence regarding the social status and position of most nannies.

Please educate yourself on what the plight of domestic workers actually is before you presume to know the total effects and what is needed to address them (spoiler: the answer is NOT a different tone on internet message boards). A quick search on Google Scholar will reveal thousands of empirical articles on the matter, but I'm including two references here. The first is an excerpt from a 3-year collaborative study from Barnard College that responds to your suggestion that slavery is somehow wholly unrelated to the history of the work you do (I am frankly sad for what it says of our education system that this even has to be spelled out for you); and the 2nd is a published report of the first-ever large-scale national survey of domestic workers. Please see pages 11-12 (xi-xii) for a summary of their findings as the study, published less than one year ago, demonstrates without question that low pay is a systemic problem in the industry, domestic workers rarely receive employment benefits, and that they experience acute financial hardship, disrespect, and abuse. Please also read in greater detail the facts and experiences that allow such patterns to persist then consider the role of OP in perpetuating those dynamics before defending this question and criticizing the well-justified and perfectly-clear responses.



Excerpt:

Domestic service is a degraded occupation. Its low
status is informed in part by the gendered and racialized
composition of the workforce. For most of US history,
paid domestic work was performed by African American
and immigrant women.

In the 1930s in New York City, in the midst of the
Great Depression, black domestic workers desperate
for employment gathered on street corners to offer
their services to prospective employers. These
informal centers of employment—dubbed the “Bronx
Slave Markets” by two African American activists
and journalists, Marvel Cooke and Ella Baker—came
to symbolize the particular vulnerability of domestic
workers (Baker and Cooke 1935). Exploiting their
desperation, employers bargained to pay as small a fee
as possible. If they were paid at all—and some weren't—
domestic workers went home after ten or eleven hours
of back-breaking labor with as little as fifteen, twenty, or
twenty-five cents an hour.



References:

http://bcrw.barnard.edu/wp-content/nfs/reports/NFS5-Valuing-Domestic-Work.pdf

http://www.domesticworkers.org/pdfs/HomeEconomicsEnglish.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn't side with the MB at all - I've repeatedly and in every post said that no, she should not loan her nanny out. But nannies need to remember that we may have a uniquely personal relationship with our families, but we are also providing a service in exchange for money. The employer gets to set the stage for what is being offered and what services they want. You certainly don't have to accept the job or keep the job of course. But again, it's not an issue of the OP here treating her nanny like property instead of like a person. It's the employer setting a job requirement that the employee is free to not accept.

Let's say an MB had a week off and asked her nanny to work at a friend's house instead for that week. As I've said a million times, the nanny is more than free to be insulted and put off by this request. It's a renegotiation of the terms upon which she was hired. Similarly, in a business setting, you can most definitely direct someone into an entirely new position or location or department or set of duties. And the employee can be upset about it, and they can deal with it or leave.

It doesn't then become a human rights issue of employers treating people like property in direct disobedience with the emancipation proclamation. I would argue that when we fly off the handle and be nasty like this rather than maintaining a professional attitude and explaining our position, that THAT is not helping the cause of nannies as a whole either.

Wow--a rational nanny!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree that you seem to lack a bare minimum of insight and knowledge to be worth dignifying on this, but as one of the hysterical PPs, I nonetheless feel compelled to respond to your contributions here:

1. I don't recall anyone using the term "human rights issue" before you and, frankly, that is the only abstract, nebulous terminology being applied. Regardless of how the reference to The Emancipation Proclamation was phrased, OP asked a) if her nanny had a say, and b) what the laws were. That reference, unlike your nonspecific summation, offers a directly-related answer to the questions by clarifying, "yes, she has a say; no, you cannot loan her out; legally The Emancipation Proclamation prohibits the total-control ownership required to do so." That said, if you want to debate the relevance of human rights, you are going to need significantly more background information and education than you appear to have; beginning with the 4th point on this list.

2. You are being awfully nonchalant about OP "deciding" to "set a job requirement" 9-months into a contract that ends in October. Do you even understand the purpose of a contract? It is to protect both parties so that, for example, one cannot change the rules in their own favor three quarters of the way through the contract period. By your logic the nanny could show up one morning and say "Guess what! my services are now $6,000 per hour - deal with it or go without childcare!"

3. It is not just "ill-advised". Ill-advised would be repeatedly coming home late without explanation or apology, leaving your nanny without enough formula and/or supplies, or otherwise making your nanny's job difficult and unpleasant. Ill-advised would be the kind of nuisance that would lead empowered nannies with the privilege of obtaining work elsewhere to quietly do so. This request, no matter how she says it, will make her nanny feel obligated to comply with something that is absolutely not legal or ethical. You need to review the laws and research regarding abuse of formal vs. informal power dynamics, narcissistic leadership, and hostile work environments.

4. Your offense at the references to slavery here, much like your flippant dismissal of the link between domestic work and human rights, is coming from a place of ignorance and privilege. That you can so casually suggest that her nanny decline the work elsewhere or leave her job for a new one speaks to a strong and likely well-founded sense of empowerment. I'm going to guess that you don't encounter an overwhelming amount of abuse as a domestic employee - either because you don't tolerate it or because you are not otherwise disenfranchised, discriminated against, or disempowered. This is good news - the fewer of those experiences there are in the world, the better place it will be for all of us.

That said, it is not the case for all, and arguably not even most, nannies. You are entitled to disagree with my rhetorical approach to that problem, but you do not get to rewrite history or empirical facts in the process to bolster that point. The study of domestic work in a global economy is a rich and thriving area of academic research on which millions of dollars in government and private grant money have been spent. That you find some of these comments incendiary or counter-productive is a subjective opinion, but your claim that slavery is wholly unrelated and offensive is not only ridiculous given the aforementioned relevance to OP's question, but also completely ignorant of historic and scientific fact. Similarly, your claims about similar occurrences in business settings are unfounded (as noted by PP), and, again, your suggestion that this nanny "deal with it or leave" ignores overwhelming evidence regarding the social status and position of most nannies.

Please educate yourself on what the plight of domestic workers actually is before you presume to know the total effects and what is needed to address them (spoiler: the answer is NOT a different tone on internet message boards). A quick search on Google Scholar will reveal thousands of empirical articles on the matter, but I'm including two references here. The first is an excerpt from a 3-year collaborative study from Barnard College that responds to your suggestion that slavery is somehow wholly unrelated to the history of the work you do (I am frankly sad for what it says of our education system that this even has to be spelled out for you); and the 2nd is a published report of the first-ever large-scale national survey of domestic workers. Please see pages 11-12 (xi-xii) for a summary of their findings as the study, published less than one year ago, demonstrates without question that low pay is a systemic problem in the industry, domestic workers rarely receive employment benefits, and that they experience acute financial hardship, disrespect, and abuse. Please also read in greater detail the facts and experiences that allow such patterns to persist then consider the role of OP in perpetuating those dynamics before defending this question and criticizing the well-justified and perfectly-clear responses.



Excerpt:

Domestic service is a degraded occupation. Its low
status is informed in part by the gendered and racialized
composition of the workforce. For most of US history,
paid domestic work was performed by African American
and immigrant women.

In the 1930s in New York City, in the midst of the
Great Depression, black domestic workers desperate
for employment gathered on street corners to offer
their services to prospective employers. These
informal centers of employment—dubbed the “Bronx
Slave Markets” by two African American activists
and journalists, Marvel Cooke and Ella Baker—came
to symbolize the particular vulnerability of domestic
workers (Baker and Cooke 1935). Exploiting their
desperation, employers bargained to pay as small a fee
as possible. If they were paid at all—and some weren't—
domestic workers went home after ten or eleven hours
of back-breaking labor with as little as fifteen, twenty, or
twenty-five cents an hour.



References:

http://bcrw.barnard.edu/wp-content/nfs/reports/NFS5-Valuing-Domestic-Work.pdf

http://www.domesticworkers.org/pdfs/HomeEconomicsEnglish.pdf

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree that you seem to lack a bare minimum of insight and knowledge to be worth dignifying on this, but as one of the hysterical PPs, I nonetheless feel compelled to respond to your contributions here:

1. I don't recall anyone using the term "human rights issue" before you and, frankly, that is the only abstract, nebulous terminology being applied. Regardless of how the reference to The Emancipation Proclamation was phrased, OP asked a) if her nanny had a say, and b) what the laws were. That reference, unlike your nonspecific summation, offers a directly-related answer to the questions by clarifying, "yes, she has a say; no, you cannot loan her out; legally The Emancipation Proclamation prohibits the total-control ownership required to do so." That said, if you want to debate the relevance of human rights, you are going to need significantly more background information and education than you appear to have; beginning with the 4th point on this list.

2. You are being awfully nonchalant about OP "deciding" to "set a job requirement" 9-months into a contract that ends in October. Do you even understand the purpose of a contract? It is to protect both parties so that, for example, one cannot change the rules in their own favor three quarters of the way through the contract period. By your logic the nanny could show up one morning and say "Guess what! my services are now $6,000 per hour - deal with it or go without childcare!"

3. It is not just "ill-advised". Ill-advised would be repeatedly coming home late without explanation or apology, leaving your nanny without enough formula and/or supplies, or otherwise making your nanny's job difficult and unpleasant. Ill-advised would be the kind of nuisance that would lead empowered nannies with the privilege of obtaining work elsewhere to quietly do so. This request, no matter how she says it, will make her nanny feel obligated to comply with something that is absolutely not legal or ethical. You need to review the laws and research regarding abuse of formal vs. informal power dynamics, narcissistic leadership, and hostile work environments.

4. Your offense at the references to slavery here, much like your flippant dismissal of the link between domestic work and human rights, is coming from a place of ignorance and privilege. That you can so casually suggest that her nanny decline the work elsewhere or leave her job for a new one speaks to a strong and likely well-founded sense of empowerment. I'm going to guess that you don't encounter an overwhelming amount of abuse as a domestic employee - either because you don't tolerate it or because you are not otherwise disenfranchised, discriminated against, or disempowered. This is good news - the fewer of those experiences there are in the world, the better place it will be for all of us.

That said, it is not the case for all, and arguably not even most, nannies. You are entitled to disagree with my rhetorical approach to that problem, but you do not get to rewrite history or empirical facts in the process to bolster that point. The study of domestic work in a global economy is a rich and thriving area of academic research on which millions of dollars in government and private grant money have been spent. That you find some of these comments incendiary or counter-productive is a subjective opinion, but your claim that slavery is wholly unrelated and offensive is not only ridiculous given the aforementioned relevance to OP's question, but also completely ignorant of historic and scientific fact. Similarly, your claims about similar occurrences in business settings are unfounded (as noted by PP), and, again, your suggestion that this nanny "deal with it or leave" ignores overwhelming evidence regarding the social status and position of most nannies.

Please educate yourself on what the plight of domestic workers actually is before you presume to know the total effects and what is needed to address them (spoiler: the answer is NOT a different tone on internet message boards). A quick search on Google Scholar will reveal thousands of empirical articles on the matter, but I'm including two references here. The first is an excerpt from a 3-year collaborative study from Barnard College that responds to your suggestion that slavery is somehow wholly unrelated to the history of the work you do (I am frankly sad for what it says of our education system that this even has to be spelled out for you); and the 2nd is a published report of the first-ever large-scale national survey of domestic workers. Please see pages 11-12 (xi-xii) for a summary of their findings as the study, published less than one year ago, demonstrates without question that low pay is a systemic problem in the industry, domestic workers rarely receive employment benefits, and that they experience acute financial hardship, disrespect, and abuse. Please also read in greater detail the facts and experiences that allow such patterns to persist then consider the role of OP in perpetuating those dynamics before defending this question and criticizing the well-justified and perfectly-clear responses.



Excerpt:

Domestic service is a degraded occupation. Its low
status is informed in part by the gendered and racialized
composition of the workforce. For most of US history,
paid domestic work was performed by African American
and immigrant women.

In the 1930s in New York City, in the midst of the
Great Depression, black domestic workers desperate
for employment gathered on street corners to offer
their services to prospective employers. These
informal centers of employment—dubbed the “Bronx
Slave Markets” by two African American activists
and journalists, Marvel Cooke and Ella Baker—came
to symbolize the particular vulnerability of domestic
workers (Baker and Cooke 1935). Exploiting their
desperation, employers bargained to pay as small a fee
as possible. If they were paid at all—and some weren't—
domestic workers went home after ten or eleven hours
of back-breaking labor with as little as fifteen, twenty, or
twenty-five cents an hour.



References:

http://bcrw.barnard.edu/wp-content/nfs/reports/NFS5-Valuing-Domestic-Work.pdf

http://www.domesticworkers.org/pdfs/HomeEconomicsEnglish.pdf

Thanks for the links to the two very important research papers. They have tons of useful information, including comprehensive sample contracts for nannies. I suggest that nannies prepare themselves for proper negotiation of basic job benefits. These references will teach them what they should expect at each job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree that you seem to lack a bare minimum of insight and knowledge to be worth dignifying on this, but as one of the hysterical PPs, I nonetheless feel compelled to respond to your contributions here:

1. I don't recall anyone using the term "human rights issue" before you and, frankly, that is the only abstract, nebulous terminology being applied. Regardless of how the reference to The Emancipation Proclamation was phrased, OP asked a) if her nanny had a say, and b) what the laws were. That reference, unlike your nonspecific summation, offers a directly-related answer to the questions by clarifying, "yes, she has a say; no, you cannot loan her out; legally The Emancipation Proclamation prohibits the total-control ownership required to do so." That said, if you want to debate the relevance of human rights, you are going to need significantly more background information and education than you appear to have; beginning with the 4th point on this list.

2. You are being awfully nonchalant about OP "deciding" to "set a job requirement" 9-months into a contract that ends in October. Do you even understand the purpose of a contract? It is to protect both parties so that, for example, one cannot change the rules in their own favor three quarters of the way through the contract period. By your logic the nanny could show up one morning and say "Guess what! my services are now $6,000 per hour - deal with it or go without childcare!"

3. It is not just "ill-advised". Ill-advised would be repeatedly coming home late without explanation or apology, leaving your nanny without enough formula and/or supplies, or otherwise making your nanny's job difficult and unpleasant. Ill-advised would be the kind of nuisance that would lead empowered nannies with the privilege of obtaining work elsewhere to quietly do so. This request, no matter how she says it, will make her nanny feel obligated to comply with something that is absolutely not legal or ethical. You need to review the laws and research regarding abuse of formal vs. informal power dynamics, narcissistic leadership, and hostile work environments.

4. Your offense at the references to slavery here, much like your flippant dismissal of the link between domestic work and human rights, is coming from a place of ignorance and privilege. That you can so casually suggest that her nanny decline the work elsewhere or leave her job for a new one speaks to a strong and likely well-founded sense of empowerment. I'm going to guess that you don't encounter an overwhelming amount of abuse as a domestic employee - either because you don't tolerate it or because you are not otherwise disenfranchised, discriminated against, or disempowered. This is good news - the fewer of those experiences there are in the world, the better place it will be for all of us.

That said, it is not the case for all, and arguably not even most, nannies. You are entitled to disagree with my rhetorical approach to that problem, but you do not get to rewrite history or empirical facts in the process to bolster that point. The study of domestic work in a global economy is a rich and thriving area of academic research on which millions of dollars in government and private grant money have been spent. That you find some of these comments incendiary or counter-productive is a subjective opinion, but your claim that slavery is wholly unrelated and offensive is not only ridiculous given the aforementioned relevance to OP's question, but also completely ignorant of historic and scientific fact. Similarly, your claims about similar occurrences in business settings are unfounded (as noted by PP), and, again, your suggestion that this nanny "deal with it or leave" ignores overwhelming evidence regarding the social status and position of most nannies.

Please educate yourself on what the plight of domestic workers actually is before you presume to know the total effects and what is needed to address them (spoiler: the answer is NOT a different tone on internet message boards). A quick search on Google Scholar will reveal thousands of empirical articles on the matter, but I'm including two references here. The first is an excerpt from a 3-year collaborative study from Barnard College that responds to your suggestion that slavery is somehow wholly unrelated to the history of the work you do (I am frankly sad for what it says of our education system that this even has to be spelled out for you); and the 2nd is a published report of the first-ever large-scale national survey of domestic workers. Please see pages 11-12 (xi-xii) for a summary of their findings as the study, published less than one year ago, demonstrates without question that low pay is a systemic problem in the industry, domestic workers rarely receive employment benefits, and that they experience acute financial hardship, disrespect, and abuse. Please also read in greater detail the facts and experiences that allow such patterns to persist then consider the role of OP in perpetuating those dynamics before defending this question and criticizing the well-justified and perfectly-clear responses.



Excerpt:

Domestic service is a degraded occupation. Its low
status is informed in part by the gendered and racialized
composition of the workforce. For most of US history,
paid domestic work was performed by African American
and immigrant women.

In the 1930s in New York City, in the midst of the
Great Depression, black domestic workers desperate
for employment gathered on street corners to offer
their services to prospective employers. These
informal centers of employment—dubbed the “Bronx
Slave Markets” by two African American activists
and journalists, Marvel Cooke and Ella Baker—came
to symbolize the particular vulnerability of domestic
workers (Baker and Cooke 1935). Exploiting their
desperation, employers bargained to pay as small a fee
as possible. If they were paid at all—and some weren't—
domestic workers went home after ten or eleven hours
of back-breaking labor with as little as fifteen, twenty, or
twenty-five cents an hour.



References:

http://bcrw.barnard.edu/wp-content/nfs/reports/NFS5-Valuing-Domestic-Work.pdf

http://www.domesticworkers.org/pdfs/HomeEconomicsEnglish.pdf

Thanks for the links to the two very important research papers. They have tons of useful information, including comprehensive sample contracts for nannies. I suggest that nannies prepare themselves for proper negotiation of basic job benefits. These references will teach them what they should expect at each job.

+1 Thank you for so thoroughly schooling OP and her defender PP. The non chalant attitude shown towards these issues, and the victim blaming and shaming. The nannies who were offended were not "dramatic" or "insane". They reacted as anyone would at the suggestion that it would ever be okay for an employer to make unilateral decisions about their life beyond the scope of the job they agreed to do, as though they were merely property to be passed around and used as they see fit.

[Anonymous]

It wasn't your nanny's idea to take a week off, so pay her! Can you imagine if your boss, in any other industry, said oh we're closing the office for a week, so find some other way to make your money. Your nanny signed up to work with YOU, not your friend. She's not a general laborer that can be loaned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It wasn't your nanny's idea to take a week off, so pay her! Can you imagine if your boss, in any other industry, said oh we're closing the office for a week, so find some other way to make your money. Your nanny signed up to work with YOU, not your friend. She's not a general laborer that can be loaned.

Well, in this economy, plenty have done this.

[Anonymous]

It wasn't your nanny's idea to take a week off, so pay her! Can you imagine if your boss, in any other industry, said oh we're closing the office for a week, so find some other way to make your money. Your nanny signed up to work with YOU, not your friend. She's not a general laborer that can be loaned.



Well, in this economy, plenty have done this.

This is true. It has happened in my office and in my industry. It is also happening with feds who are being furloughed.

That said, knowing how much it sucks, I'd never do that to my nanny.

[Anonymous]

Furloughs are unpaid leaves due to an employer's special needs or extenuating circumstances. OP's extra vacation time does not qualify as such.

And "in this economy plenty have done this" is neither an answer to the question nor a counter-argument to those made, but since you mention it here some reasonable responses:

If plenty jump off a bridge are you going to do it too?

How confident are you that those who have are actually doing so without a legal contract that allows for it? Professional employment contracts are both qualitatively distinct and bound by different laws than nanny contracts.

Even if you are (remarkably) able to overlook the ethical violations involved, you're both making straw man arguments here. No one is saying this NEVER happens - the PP's points are only that it cannot happen under these circumstances.

[Anonymous]

I see a another
paula Deen here what a Bbbbbbbbbbbbbb ch one day there would be no more and you spoil over privelage brat will have to deal with their out of control kids just send her over to next massa house she is somebody child or do you think she just happen how would like it if some one loan out one of your kid iam so mad i cannot see straight that is a all tine low

[Anonymous]

I just don't think you're smart enough to argue with, nor do I think you have any idea how business settings operate. You cannot, for example, tell your HR Director that you've reassigned her to a new job as Accounts Coordinator. You would have to fire her, and then re-hire her under the new title. It wouldn't be something she'd have to "deal with or leave," she has a job, she is prepared to do her job, and no boss just gets to decide she belongs in a different position unilaterally like that because, oh hey, we haven't had any HR complaints for a while. That simply isn't how it works.

Actually, you are completely wrong about reassignments in business settings and have no idea what you are talking about. You have no idea how it works and you are doing nannies a grave disservice with your abject stupidity.

Yes, I said it. You are stupid.