If she refuses to be checked and properly treated in the event of lice, then yes, I would fire her.


I'm very disturbed that she turned down your offer to have someone check her immediately. I would want to find out for sure if I was the nanny. I would tell her you will make arrangements to have her checked during her regular work hours. Then you can evaluate from that point.


If she had surgery and is completely my to work impaired, I would require a doctors note that she is cleared to return to work. There is no way you should be providing extra coverage for truly elective surgery.

This is a toughie.

I would request that she comply to at the very LEAST, have her "hair" inspected in your home at your expense.

This is a very reasonable request on your part & I honestly do not see any reason not to comply.

If she refuses, then I would inform her that you will consider letting her go since it is such a simple request.

If she truly values her job, then she has nothing at all to lose for a few minutes of letting an expert check her hair.

Anonymous wrote:You have a nanny who has hair extensions and just had extensive elective cosmetic surgery. I would not want someone so superficial and focused on looks nannying my kids.

shut up, you tiresome bore.

If she is AA I wouldn't worry about it too much. In the USA, the lice are the kind that like to grab onto straight hair. The type of lice in Africa is a species that likes to grab onto curly hair.

A few months back, there was a very lengthy discussion about lice on the main DCUM forum. It was either in general parenting or elementary school kids. That is where I learned about the different types of lice in different countries.

You have a nanny who has hair extensions and just had extensive elective cosmetic surgery. I would not want someone so superficial and focused on looks nannying my kids.

I totally disagree that she wouldn't feel it at the one week (!) mark. You might not feel it day 1 or 2 when you only had a couple of live lice and some nits, but a week in, it wouldn't be a mystery.

Yes I would fire her

There is a chance she doesn't have it. My DDs and I were at a large play date (10 plus kids) inside playing dress up and running around. One little girl had lice. Everyone there got it, but my myself and DDs. My girls have very long thick hair that was pulled back. I tend to use product in their hair. I don't know if that's why or not, but I combed through their hair for hours nothing. Even brought them to their hair dresser nothing. So there is a chance she really may not have them.

Anonymous wrote:You gave the nanny lice and you're going to threaten to fire her if she doesn't let someone you hired check her head?

Nope not what I said. If she HAS lice and she refuses to do what is necessary to get rid of it (100% at my expense) then yes I will fire her. Do you have another suggestion since repeatedly reinfecting ourselves isn't an option? And what's the point of blaming me? Should I blame whoever was in my son's class that gave it to him? Or should I blame the person that gave it to the child in my son's class? As I've learned from this whole experience, no one does anything wrong to get lice.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You gave the nanny lice and you're going to threaten to fire her if she doesn't let someone you hired check her head?

No thats not what OP said. OP is saying if she refused to take out her extensions and therefore not get rid of the lice she may have to let her go. Although this situation sucks I kind of agree. I think OP needs to pay for everything regarding the Nannys hair, which she has said she will do. Nanny needs to cooperate though.
OP assuming the Nanny is AA because of having extensions she may well not have lice. AA people can get them in theory but its very very rare.

She is African. That makes me feel better if that's accurate, so maybe she doesn't have it. She's had it before though in Africa which is why she said she knows what it feels like. Part of me is hoping it's really rare with the hair extensions (I don't think she has much of her own hair) but everyone I've spoken to and everything I've read says that shouldn't make a difference.

Anonymous wrote:You gave the nanny lice and you're going to threaten to fire her if she doesn't let someone you hired check her head?

No thats not what OP said. OP is saying if she refused to take out her extensions and therefore not get rid of the lice she may have to let her go. Although this situation sucks I kind of agree. I think OP needs to pay for everything regarding the Nannys hair, which she has said she will do. Nanny needs to cooperate though.
OP assuming the Nanny is AA because of having extensions she may well not have lice. AA people can get them in theory but its very very rare.

You gave the nanny lice and you're going to threaten to fire her if she doesn't let someone you hired check her head?

Anonymous wrote:She'd probably feel it. I wouldn't worry about it. You did the right thing and offered.

That's what I thought at first. It unfortunately I've spoken to a lot of people and they have all said the fact that she doesn't feel isn't accurate enough.

She'd probably feel it. I wouldn't worry about it. You did the right thing and offered.

This whole thing has been really unpleasant for us so please be kind in your responses, we're just trying to do what is best for everyone involved. We have lice. Apparently it was so bad that we probably had it for a while. All 3 of my children, my husband and myself have it as do my mother and grandmother who we spent a 5 day vacation with a week ago. We discovered it the day we came home from vacation. My husband was not with us on the vacation and he still had it. Our nanny wasn't with us on the vacation either but given my husband still had it and she's probably with the children even more than he is it seems pretty likely she has it too. The timing has been bad because she just had extensive elective cosmetic surgery and has been out recovering all week. We found out the day before her surgery and I told her about it then. She said her hair dresser looked at her hair and didn't see anything and she doesn't feel like she has lice. I offered to pay to have someone come to her house this weekend to check her but she said she doesn't want anyone at her house (and she sent me a pretty nasty text about it). She is coming back to work on Monday (at her insistence because she doesn't want to use anymore of her vacation/sick days even though I will have to have someone else here too if she is still on pain meds) so I arranged to have someone check her at my house. Here's the biggest issue. She has hair extensions so they can't do the usual combing of her hair, they can only check visually if she has it. In addition, if they do find that she has it she will need the extensions removed before they can treat her and she will have to leave them out for 2 weeks in order to do the daily combing that's required. I've told her we will of course pay to have her have them removed and then replaced and whatever other expensive she might have related to this but she's all but said she won't remove the extensions. She's saying that based on the fact that she doesn't think she has any lice. It's possible she will totally comply with what she needs to do if she does in fact have lice but I'm concerned that she will refuse. Is it totally unreasonable of me to say we will have to let her go if she doesn't do it? She's been with us 2 years and the children really love her but if she has lice and won't treat it properly we will just keep getting it and that's not something I ever want to happen again.