Shutdown and furlough

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you don't have enough money to cover 2-4 weeks of severance for your EMPLOYEE(s), you can't afford to have employees. Why is this even an argument? In this case the employee is a nanny, but that's irrelevant.

No, you don't need to be extremely wealthy to have a nanny - my employers are not wealthy, but they have saved aggressively and I have no doubt that had DB not been deemed essential-with-pay, they'd have been able to continue paying me or, at the very least, to pay my severance which is four weeks. Emergencies happen, sure, but you have a responsibility as an employer. Maybe that means you set aside your nanny's severance pay in a savings account and don't touch it unless you need it. Maybe it means you eat out less or don't go on vacation this year. Maybe it doesn't mean anything and you can afford to live as usual. But it is very surprising to me that so many MBs here think they don't have an obligation to pay their employees... who, as an aside, don't receive any of the perks that govt workers do (health insurance, disability, retirement, pensions) so don't even try and pretend we're all in the same boat here.

I agree with you and do feel like a lot of people live beyond their means. I feel like for this particular family, however, the circumstances are different. She had a baby and took maternity leave which took out a lot of their savings. No, it wasn't an "emergency" to go on maternity leave and maybe it would have been wiser for her to take less time off but I doubt they thought BOTH of them would be out of work and unpaid at the same time so shortly after her maternity leave. After the maternity they also had an expensive unplanned repair on their house which IS an emergency.

[Anonymous]

Too many of you can't afford a child, let alone a nanny and I am not a nanny.

[Anonymous]

Wait, didn't OP say that she'd be out $5,000/week with the shutdown, seeing that both she and her husband are Feds?

[Anonymous]

Nannies are no more deserving of a paycheck than the federal employees. If the fed employee isn't receiving a paycheck then the nanny isn't receiving one either. Its simple. Nannies can bitch all they want but you aren't special.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wait, didn't OP say that she'd be out $5,000/week with the shutdown, seeing that both she and her husband are Feds?

She didn't, but unless both she and her husband are SES or you're talking about gross income rather than net, Feds can't make that much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait, didn't OP say that she'd be out $5,000/week with the shutdown, seeing that both she and her husband are Feds?

She didn't, but unless both she and her husband are SES or you're talking about gross income rather than net, Feds can't make that much.

She said 5k between the two of them after two weeks which is one pay period. That's approximately 2500 per person per two weeks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait, didn't OP say that she'd be out $5,000/week with the shutdown, seeing that both she and her husband are Feds?

She didn't, but unless both she and her husband are SES or you're talking about gross income rather than net, Feds can't make that much.

She said 5k between the two of them after two weeks which is one pay period. That's approximately 2500 per person per two weeks.

Yikes! That's not much more than the $1,000. a week nannies. Granted, most nannies don't earn that, but lots of them do in the DC area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait, didn't OP say that she'd be out $5,000/week with the shutdown, seeing that both she and her husband are Feds?

She didn't, but unless both she and her husband are SES or you're talking about gross income rather than net, Feds can't make that much.

She said 5k between the two of them after two weeks which is one pay period. That's approximately 2500 per person per two weeks.

Yikes! That's not much more than the $1,000. a week nannies. Granted, most nannies don't earn that, but lots of them do in the DC area.

That's how nannies can afford nannies!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait, didn't OP say that she'd be out $5,000/week with the shutdown, seeing that both she and her husband are Feds?

She didn't, but unless both she and her husband are SES or you're talking about gross income rather than net, Feds can't make that much.

She said 5k between the two of them after two weeks which is one pay period. That's approximately 2500 per person per two weeks.

Yikes! That's not much more than the $1,000. a week nannies. Granted, most nannies don't earn that, but lots of them do in the DC area.

Exactly, someone handing essentially their whole paycheck over to the nanny can afford a nanny? BS

[Anonymous]

You do realize that if all the families who did not meet your bar as wealthy enough to afford a nanny stopped hiring nannies, then there would a huge drop in the number of jobs available to nannies. This would drive your rates into the toilet. Many wealthy families are not irresponsible about money. They aren't going to pay you way above market for kicks and giggles. The supply of nannies would be so large that there would be no issue letting go of a nanny that you didn't need because you are so replaceable. You would be back in the exact same situation and would just be poorer going into it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You do realize that if all the families who did not meet your bar as wealthy enough to afford a nanny stopped hiring nannies, then there would a huge drop in the number of jobs available to nannies. This would drive your rates into the toilet. Many wealthy families are not irresponsible about money. They aren't going to pay you way above market for kicks and giggles. The supply of nannies would be so large that there would be no issue letting go of a nanny that you didn't need because you are so replaceable. You would be back in the exact same situation and would just be poorer going into it.

You aren't getting it. There are tons of women calling themselves nannies, there are not tons of nannies. There are lots of families that think they can afford a nanny, but few who actually can. The result is a split market, one of middle class families paying low to average wages for your run of the mill sitter, and wealthy families paying experienced educated talented women what many here call obscene wages. If the first scenario works for you and your nanny, great! A real nanny has a good enough command of the common language to communicate clearly with you and your child (that eliminates probably 75% of so called nannies right there). She provides more than supervision for her charges, understanding how a child develops, and is able to choose and plan enriching activities. She also cares for her charges every need, and isn't on this board complaining about how every little thing isn't her job, and how uninvolved the parents are, because truthfully the parents with the money to hire a real nanny are by nature not incredibly involved in the minutiae of caring for their child. A real nanny is experienced and qualified enough to be self directed. She doesn't wait around for instructions, because realistically her bosses are not around and little Larla/Aiden need dinner/have outgrown their winter shoes/need to go to the doctor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You do realize that if all the families who did not meet your bar as wealthy enough to afford a nanny stopped hiring nannies, then there would a huge drop in the number of jobs available to nannies. This would drive your rates into the toilet. Many wealthy families are not irresponsible about money. They aren't going to pay you way above market for kicks and giggles. The supply of nannies would be so large that there would be no issue letting go of a nanny that you didn't need because you are so replaceable. You would be back in the exact same situation and would just be poorer going into it.

What you call a nanny vs. what I call a nanny, have little in common.

If there were fewer nanny jobs, perhaps there'd be more actual nannies?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do realize that if all the families who did not meet your bar as wealthy enough to afford a nanny stopped hiring nannies, then there would a huge drop in the number of jobs available to nannies. This would drive your rates into the toilet. Many wealthy families are not irresponsible about money. They aren't going to pay you way above market for kicks and giggles. The supply of nannies would be so large that there would be no issue letting go of a nanny that you didn't need because you are so replaceable. You would be back in the exact same situation and would just be poorer going into it.

You aren't getting it. There are tons of women calling themselves nannies, there are not tons of nannies. There are lots of families that think they can afford a nanny, but few who actually can. The result is a split market, one of middle class families paying low to average wages for your run of the mill sitter, and wealthy families paying experienced educated talented women what many here call obscene wages. If the first scenario works for you and your nanny, great! A real nanny has a good enough command of the common language to communicate clearly with you and your child (that eliminates probably 75% of so called nannies right there). She provides more than supervision for her charges, understanding how a child develops, and is able to choose and plan enriching activities. She also cares for her charges every need, and isn't on this board complaining about how every little thing isn't her job, and how uninvolved the parents are, because truthfully the parents with the money to hire a real nanny are by nature not incredibly involved in the minutiae of caring for their child. A real nanny is experienced and qualified enough to be self directed. She doesn't wait around for instructions, because realistically her bosses are not around and little Larla/Aiden need dinner/have outgrown their winter shoes/need to go to the doctor.

You are entitled to your opinion just like anyone else, but the peril of your field is that it is entirely free of regulation and credentialing. In the absence of definition of "nanny", what you call a nanny is just as good a guess as anyone's - all you have to go on is your opinion. There are no barriers to entry, no rules, no standards, no guidelines, no exams, no credentials. In the absence of formal structures, you are now trying to make the socioeconomic class of the employers into a de facto separator of nannies from non-nannies. It may be true, or it may not be, no one really knows. My guess is that rich people are just as entrenched in groupthink as anyone else and are likely to hire nannies who look like them, talk like them and have looked after a little Aiden next door last year. I doubt there is any actual examination of credentials going on there.

Finally, your dig at 75% of "sitters" who allegedly cannot communicate clearly with MBs or children says more about you than them,you know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do realize that if all the families who did not meet your bar as wealthy enough to afford a nanny stopped hiring nannies, then there would a huge drop in the number of jobs available to nannies. This would drive your rates into the toilet. Many wealthy families are not irresponsible about money. They aren't going to pay you way above market for kicks and giggles. The supply of nannies would be so large that there would be no issue letting go of a nanny that you didn't need because you are so replaceable. You would be back in the exact same situation and would just be poorer going into it.

You aren't getting it. There are tons of women calling themselves nannies, there are not tons of nannies. There are lots of families that think they can afford a nanny, but few who actually can. The result is a split market, one of middle class families paying low to average wages for your run of the mill sitter, and wealthy families paying experienced educated talented women what many here call obscene wages. If the first scenario works for you and your nanny, great! A real nanny has a good enough command of the common language to communicate clearly with you and your child (that eliminates probably 75% of so called nannies right there). She provides more than supervision for her charges, understanding how a child develops, and is able to choose and plan enriching activities. She also cares for her charges every need, and isn't on this board complaining about how every little thing isn't her job, and how uninvolved the parents are, because truthfully the parents with the money to hire a real nanny are by nature not incredibly involved in the minutiae of caring for their child. A real nanny is experienced and qualified enough to be self directed. She doesn't wait around for instructions, because realistically her bosses are not around and little Larla/Aiden need dinner/have outgrown their winter shoes/need to go to the doctor.

You are entitled to your opinion just like anyone else, but the peril of your field is that it is entirely free of regulation and credentialing. In the absence of definition of "nanny", what you call a nanny is just as good a guess as anyone's - all you have to go on is your opinion. There are no barriers to entry, no rules, no standards, no guidelines, no exams, no credentials. In the absence of formal structures, you are now trying to make the socioeconomic class of the employers into a de facto separator of nannies from non-nannies. It may be true, or it may not be, no one really knows. My guess is that rich people are just as entrenched in groupthink as anyone else and are likely to hire nannies who look like them, talk like them and have looked after a little Aiden next door last year. I doubt there is any actual examination of credentials going on there.

Finally, your dig at 75% of "sitters" who allegedly cannot communicate clearly with MBs or children says more about you than them,you know.

Indeed. Just ask the recent plethora of speech therapists why their business is now booming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do realize that if all the families who did not meet your bar as wealthy enough to afford a nanny stopped hiring nannies, then there would a huge drop in the number of jobs available to nannies. This would drive your rates into the toilet. Many wealthy families are not irresponsible about money. They aren't going to pay you way above market for kicks and giggles. The supply of nannies would be so large that there would be no issue letting go of a nanny that you didn't need because you are so replaceable. You would be back in the exact same situation and would just be poorer going into it.

You aren't getting it. There are tons of women calling themselves nannies, there are not tons of nannies. There are lots of families that think they can afford a nanny, but few who actually can. The result is a split market, one of middle class families paying low to average wages for your run of the mill sitter, and wealthy families paying experienced educated talented women what many here call obscene wages. If the first scenario works for you and your nanny, great! A real nanny has a good enough command of the common language to communicate clearly with you and your child (that eliminates probably 75% of so called nannies right there). She provides more than supervision for her charges, understanding how a child develops, and is able to choose and plan enriching activities. She also cares for her charges every need, and isn't on this board complaining about how every little thing isn't her job, and how uninvolved the parents are, because truthfully the parents with the money to hire a real nanny are by nature not incredibly involved in the minutiae of caring for their child. A real nanny is experienced and qualified enough to be self directed. She doesn't wait around for instructions, because realistically her bosses are not around and little Larla/Aiden need dinner/have outgrown their winter shoes/need to go to the doctor.

You are entitled to your opinion just like anyone else, but the peril of your field is that it is entirely free of regulation and credentialing. In the absence of definition of "nanny", what you call a nanny is just as good a guess as anyone's - all you have to go on is your opinion. There are no barriers to entry, no rules, no standards, no guidelines, no exams, no credentials. In the absence of formal structures, you are now trying to make the socioeconomic class of the employers into a de facto separator of nannies from non-nannies. It may be true, or it may not be, no one really knows. My guess is that rich people are just as entrenched in groupthink as anyone else and are likely to hire nannies who look like them, talk like them and have looked after a little Aiden next door last year. I doubt there is any actual examination of credentials going on there.

Finally, your dig at 75% of "sitters" who allegedly cannot communicate clearly with MBs or children says more about you than them,you know.

Very true! So condescending and presumptuous. Also completely untrue in my experience.