You can do whatever you want when you're at home but when you are at work you are WORKING. "nanny" is your job, kind of like "barista" or "doctor". Do you think baristas whine and cry because they have to make coffee drinks and their customers don't?? NO!! That's their job. |
I haven't read the "Lean In" book, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't advocate that women who want to be successful in their careers should approach the boss, admit that they are incapable of performing reasonable job duties and ask for accommodations that go against the mission of the organization. |
+1. That argument was ridiculous. Say you work in a business and the business owner takes a 2 hour lunch every day. You don't go to him and say, "since you take a 2 hour lunch every day I would also like to but I want you to keep paying me the same amount. As an employee I should be able to do whatever you do." It doesn't work like that. It's not like OP was asking for something reasonable. There is NO reason a good nanny should need to use TV when she is watching only one child. It doesn't matter what the parents do. |
There is nothing morally wrong about parents holding a professional caregiver to a different standard than they hold themselves. Most pediatricians recommend that if children around age 2 watch any tv at all, it be limited to about a half hour a day. When parents are home they are off-duty. They have to do all the same things that you have to do when you get home from work, plus a whole host of child-related tasks that go beyond custodial care. They have also just completed a full day at the office, and in many cases, they will log on to the computer to complete a couple more hours of work after the kids go to bed. Parents are allowed to take shortcuts to get all this done. When you are in that same family's home, you are at work. You are at work because you marketed yourself as someone having a certain level of expertise in childcare. It is perfectly reasonable for the family to expect a professional caregiver to have enough skill to find healthier and more creative ways to occupy her charges while she cleans up after them during the day. Bottom line--parents and nannies are not equally situated. There is no moral failure in holding differently situated people to different standards. |
+1. |