Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
11:21, it isn't the practice at ANY job for an employee to do light housekeeping, other than domestic employees. I can bring my lunch, have it delivered or go out to restaurant for lunch. Nannies are not free to do this. Comparing nannies to ANY other job is apples and oranges. No matter how you try to justify it, you are still cheap.


This logic is so bizarre to me. Your nanny is confined to your house during her entire shift and is unable to pack a lunch or have something delivered? Really? If this is the case, there is something wrong with one of you (you for forbidding her from leaving the house or her for not being a capable enough adult to plan her meals ahead).

Exactly. I like to think my child's caregiver is smart enough to plan and pay for her own meals like the rest of the adult world.

It has nothing to do with my nanny being capable or smart enough, of course she is!!! I think it is just part of being with my family and common courtesy to have my nanny be at home with my children and provide her food. I would never think twice about it! I think we need to agree to disagree. Among my friends and acquaintances who have nannies, we have talked about it and it is the norm to invite our nannies to help themselves to any food in the house just as a family member would. I completely disagree with your stance and that is ok, but you cannot say your logic is the norm, because I truly do not believe it is and you have no basis to back that statement. I truly believe the norm is providing food for the nanny while she is in your home during meal hours. It's just the nature of that job. I love our nanny like family and it would be very weird any different!!

It's not just the money. It's the upset of the system.

I work a busy job, and I plan our family's meals to save myself some headache during the week. So for instance, if I set out three chicken breasts to defrost in the morning, with the expectation of cooking them for dinner, it would piss me off to find only two of them there in the evening. Likewise, if I've made the mental calculus to make side dishes out of A and B, and it's not there, then I'll have to expend energy thinking about substitutions.

Anonymous wrote:11:21, it isn't the practice at ANY job for an employee to do light housekeeping, other than domestic employees. I can bring my lunch, have it delivered or go out to restaurant for lunch. Nannies are not free to do this. Comparing nannies to ANY other job is apples and oranges. No matter how you try to justify it, you are still cheap.

How are nannies not free to have their lunch delivered? Did someone lock the phone?

Anonymous wrote:
11:21, it isn't the practice at ANY job for an employee to do light housekeeping, other than domestic employees. I can bring my lunch, have it delivered or go out to restaurant for lunch. Nannies are not free to do this. Comparing nannies to ANY other job is apples and oranges. No matter how you try to justify it, you are still cheap.


This logic is so bizarre to me. Your nanny is confined to your house during her entire shift and is unable to pack a lunch or have something delivered? Really? If this is the case, there is something wrong with one of you (you for forbidding her from leaving the house or her for not being a capable enough adult to plan her meals ahead).

Exactly. I like to think my child's caregiver is smart enough to plan and pay for her own meals like the rest of the adult world.

Anonymous wrote:11:21, it isn't the practice at ANY job for an employee to do light housekeeping, other than domestic employees. I can bring my lunch, have it delivered or go out to restaurant for lunch. Nannies are not free to do this. Comparing nannies to ANY other job is apples and oranges. No matter how you try to justify it, you are still cheap.

This logic is so bizarre to me. Your nanny is confined to your house during her entire shift and is unable to pack a lunch or have something delivered? Really? If this is the case, there is something wrong with one of you (you for forbidding her from leaving the house or her for not being a capable enough adult to plan her meals ahead).

11:21, it isn't the practice at ANY job for an employee to do light housekeeping, other than domestic employees. I can bring my lunch, have it delivered or go out to restaurant for lunch. Nannies are not free to do this. Comparing nannies to ANY other job is apples and oranges. No matter how you try to justify it, you are still cheap.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8:47 has an interesting mentality. Most of my fellow parents value the experience of sharing in the family meal, prepared with the children and enjoyed by all at the table. So few children have this opportunity. However, each of you may have different family values.

I'm 8:47, and I don't understand at all what you mean as relates to my post. I didn't address sharing a family meal at all - indeed, we are a family that cooks and eats dinner together literally every night and frequently invite neighbors, friends, family, whoever to join us. Our nanny works only until 5pm, so she's not with us for dinner. I also mentioned that our nanny eats lunch with the kids, sometimes what they are eating and sometimes her own food, her choice. But I didn't address any of that in my post because it wasn't the topic at hand. Can you clarify what you are referring to?

You are now even more confusing. If your sitter leaves at 5pm, why are you complaining about the expense of providing her with three meals a day? What time does she arrive? Even if she came at 6:30am, are a couple of eggs and toast with butter and a lunch time sandwich really that expensive?

I'm responding to the poster who complains about this fictional nanny who works 12 hours day, is "confined" to the house, and isn't allowed to touch anything in the house. I'm not complaining at all - MY nanny and I both worked hard to get to an agreement about her services and compensation and we are happy with our arrangement and that arrangement does not include me giving her a food stipend or her regularly adding food to our grocery list or me having to think about her food at all. It literally has never been an issue in our relationship. She assumed that she would be bringing her lunch, and I assumed she would too, but made sure it was clear that she was welcome to help herself if she needed to. Our particular nanny works 8-hour days and eats only lunch with the kids (which as I've said twice now, she's welcome to join them in, but she doesn't).

I'm also responding to the implication that MBs who don't provide full meals no matter the nannies hours are being cheap and can't afford a nanny. And I'm telling you that yes, it's the money, but it's not because we're being cheap or can't afford it. It is expensive to feed another person full-time and it is in no way a normal or regulated practice at a job, any job. I can imagine I would be pretty frustrated as I leave for work each morning having packed everything I need for the day and literally not even buying coffee out (because I prefer to take a little extra time myself to make sure I have food for the day in order to save what can be a significant amount of money) and then having my nanny tell me she needs $40 so she can buy her own food for the week.

There's so much gray area here. Are you paying an inexperienced sitter $10 a hour? Then maybe it makes sense to provide her meals. Are you paying a professional nanny $18/hour plus overtime? Then she will probably assume that food is on her. Is your nanny working 8-hour days? Or 12-hour days? Do you have an infant? Or elementary-aged kids? There simply is no one right way to do it and calling people cheap because they don't want to feed someone full-time when they are already paying a liveable appropriate age for a service being provided is really unfair.

Anonymous wrote:8:47 has an interesting mentality. Most of my fellow parents value the experience of sharing in the family meal, prepared with the children and enjoyed by all at the table. So few children have this opportunity. However, each of you may have different family values.

I agree this poster just has different values than I do as well. I am a MB who values my nanny as an extended family member. I want her to feel at home. She is another parental, child-raising figure who is very important in my children's life and I would encourage her to eat here. I always ask her to add whatever she wished to the grocery list for the week. If our children are eating on her watch, she should be too! These are the values of our family. I would never want to see the 3rd adult who helps raise our kids as just an employee. I think the nanny profession is different in this way. She is very important to us and like family.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:8:47 has an interesting mentality. Most of my fellow parents value the experience of sharing in the family meal, prepared with the children and enjoyed by all at the table. So few children have this opportunity. However, each of you may have different family values.

I'm 8:47, and I don't understand at all what you mean as relates to my post. I didn't address sharing a family meal at all - indeed, we are a family that cooks and eats dinner together literally every night and frequently invite neighbors, friends, family, whoever to join us. Our nanny works only until 5pm, so she's not with us for dinner. I also mentioned that our nanny eats lunch with the kids, sometimes what they are eating and sometimes her own food, her choice. But I didn't address any of that in my post because it wasn't the topic at hand. Can you clarify what you are referring to?

You are now even more confusing. If your sitter leaves at 5pm, why are you complaining about the expense of providing her with three meals a day? What time does she arrive? Even if she came at 6:30am, are a couple of eggs and toast with butter and a lunch time sandwich really that expensive?

Anonymous wrote:Give her a food stipend if she has to eat on the job.

I told my nanny she was welcome to help herself to anything in the house. We. however, don't normally have a ton of food because we had an infant at the time and have very little storage space, etc. Apparently this was not generous enough because she texted me one day to request a food stipend of $40 per week for "her" food. Um, hello? I don't spend that much on lunch in a week. I brown bag and maybe grab a $5 salad once a week if I am running late and/or don't have anything to pack. This was one of the last of a long list of requests from this entitled nanny, including paying for her car repairs, vet bills, and a new cell phone (she thought hers wasn't good enough, even though she and I had the same phone; in fact, I think hers was newer and nicer than mine).

Anonymous wrote:8:47 has an interesting mentality. Most of my fellow parents value the experience of sharing in the family meal, prepared with the children and enjoyed by all at the table. So few children have this opportunity. However, each of you may have different family values.

I'm 8:47, and I don't understand at all what you mean as relates to my post. I didn't address sharing a family meal at all - indeed, we are a family that cooks and eats dinner together literally every night and frequently invite neighbors, friends, family, whoever to join us. Our nanny works only until 5pm, so she's not with us for dinner. I also mentioned that our nanny eats lunch with the kids, sometimes what they are eating and sometimes her own food, her choice. But I didn't address any of that in my post because it wasn't the topic at hand. Can you clarify what you are referring to?

8:47 has an interesting mentality. Most of my fellow parents value the experience of sharing in the family meal, prepared with the children and enjoyed by all at the table. So few children have this opportunity. However, each of you may have different family values.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can't afford to buy food for the nanny at your house, you can't afford a nanny.

Can we be honest here? So why don't you want her eating your food? Just the money??

Yes, the money. I'm an MB who offers my nanny anything in the house, but I expect that she puts forth her best effort to bring herself enough food (and she does). Sometimes she eats what she feeds the kids, sometimes she has some fruit or makes herself coffee and that is 100% fine and expected. Feeding someone three meals a day, particularly if you are shopping for specifically what they want, is very expensive. We had an au pair at one point too, where room and board is part of their compensation. It added an extra $200 a month to our grocery bill. That is completely fine and I did not begrudge our AP any food she wanted because food is part of the deal. But it's not an accepted or regulated part of the deal with a live-out nanny. Even if it was only costing me $100 a month, if I'm paying my nanny a salary commensurate with her experience, the service I want, and in line with local averages, then there is no reason I should be mandated on top of that to pay an extra $100+ a month for food. Particularly since she is free to bring her own or help herself in an emergency or even step into chipotle when she's out with the kids to grab lunch if she's forgotten to pack something.

Simply because I can "afford" that extra money doesn't mean I am cheap if I choose not to spend it. It doesn't mean I am not treating my nanny well or that I can't afford to have a nanny. It means that I expect my nanny, who is already paid an appropriate amount, to act like the rest of us adults with jobs and ensure that her daily personal needs are met while at her place of employment.

Anonymous wrote:If you can't afford to buy food for the nanny at your house, you can't afford a nanny.

Can we be honest here? So why don't you want her eating your food? Just the money??

OP, whatever you decide, just plainly let the nanny know. As you can see, there is no normal here.
No, you don't have to give her food, but it's a nice gesture, even once in a while.