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with Nataly
Hi, I am Nataly and I am the co-founder of Work It, Mom!
I write the daily Work It, Mom! Blog where I talk about issues affecting working moms, goings on in our Work It, Mom! community, new site features, updates,and contests. I also share my own juggle between work and family and love to see members jump in with comments. Come and visit often!
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We’ve had three nannies for our daughter since she was born and now have a regular babysitter who spends about 10 hours a week with her. I remember the agony with which I left her with her first nanny when I want back to work. She was just three months old and I literally had trouble walking away from the door. Part of me was just so sad to leave her but an even bigger part of me was completely freaking out about leaving her with essentially, a stranger.
Sure, the nanny did work with us for a few weeks before I went back to work and I got to see her with our daughter. And of course we called references, one of whom was a good friend who had recommended the nanny in the first place. But you know that no amount of positive references can make you feel 100% better about leaving your kiddo in another person’s care.
It took a while but after I saw how happy my daughter was with the nanny, I felt a lot more relaxed about it. A few times I’d come home earlier, to check in on what was going on without the nanny expecting me. A few times my husband did the same. We felt good about what we saw. And for us, this became a fairly common practice with all the other nannies: Here and there we’d come home or meet them in the park without first announcing it, as kind of a spot check to make sure all was OK.
I don’t know exactly why, but we never considered getting a nanny cam. There was something weird about trusting this woman with our child and then not trusting her by installing a monitoring device. But the biggest reason, frankly, was that I didn’t want to be ablel to see every single thing she did with our daughter. I am sure she didn’t warm all of her milk as we’d asked or let her eat her dessert first or perhaps there was a little more TV than we would have liked. If I could see all this I’d obsess and drive myself batty and what was the point? If I didn’t trust that the nanny would do the most important things right — keep our daughter safe, take care of her, and be kind to her — then why would I hire her or keep her employed?
But I have friends who have gotten nanny cams and they say it bought them a huge peace of mind. One doesn’t really look at all the footage but does a kind of spot checking my husband and I would do by coming home early. I get that.
So, what’s your feeling about nanny cams? Yes or no?
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I agree with your style. Come home early occassionally, spot check, but not a nanny cam. If you have that bad of a feeling, look for another nanny. Nannies like every other non-union job are employ at will; you can simply decide it isn’t working out.
On the flip side, I have a friend with a nanny cam and it has seriously cut down on his productivity at work because he’s constantly checking up on it. I think the real reason is just to gaze at his child for a while, but still seems it causes more trouble than it is worth.
Mich | August 7th, 2009 at 9:49 am
I did consider a nanny cam when we hired my son’s nanny but didn’t get one. It was definitely a nervous endeavor leaving him with someone that we barely knew but there’s more at issue than that. How would I feel if my company had work cams at every desk, able to watch my every mood. I would’t stand for it. I would feel as though my company did not RESPECT me and I would not work in such a situation. SO even though I was nervous about having someone take care of my son I felt that respect for my employee was as important. Each day I did observe how the nanny cared for my son and how he responded to her. I checked for bruises or strange behavior and as stated in the article, even though I’m sure she watched television and didn’t warm his milk every time, he was a happy and healthy child who didn’t seem to have any problems with his nanny. I’d also come home for lunch (just to have lunch of course) and see how she was handling things. We were also lucky that my wife was at home for about a month with the nanny before going back to work so the nanny had time to adjust to us as well.
Glenn | August 7th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
I agree with your reasoning and if it is someone who worked for a close friend it might be a different story. However, for a child that does not talk even a little and if a nanny is a complete stranger I would not have a peace of mind without a cam - there is absolutely no way for me to know if anything is wrong. But that’s me and I moved across the country for my son to go to his grandmother’s dayhome to keep my “peace of mind”.
Maria | August 7th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
On one hand, I work mostly at home so I don’t have a lot of worry here. Nanny does plenty of things I wouldn’t choose, but when it comes to my kids being safe, I have no worries. The girls are going to preschool (full-time academic day care) next month, but now they are old enough to tell me if anything horrible happens. So I haven’t had experience with leaving a nonverbal child in a situation that I’m not “sure” is safe.
On the other hand, if I’ve learned one thing from working under the same roof as my kids’ daycare, it’s that getting “away” during work hours is ideal (for me). If I have no practical way of getting distracted by my kids, my work day is more productive and focused, which makes it that much nicer to reconnect with the kids outside of work hours. I am really looking forward to putting my kids in a situation that will allow that kind of separation most of the time. If I had a “nannycam,” that would be a distraction because it would be difficult to keep myself from checking in often.
Like someone else said, I don’t want to know all the things the caregiver will do that I would do differently. Right now I get irritated because my nanny teaches my kids to kill bugs just because they are bugs, sneaks them non-organic grapes and doesn’t 100% enforce my rules about cleaning up and not whining. I am sure we would all be happier if I just didn’t know about these kinds of details.
SKL | August 7th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Here’s an added question for those of you who believe nanny cams are okay: Would you tell your nanny that you’ve installed a nanny cam? This was also something I considered doing.
You could say that you’d like for the nanny to stay in the living room mostly because this is the room that’s gated (put up the gates first please) and has the nanny cam for your peace of mind. I still decided against this option but I did consider it.
Glenn | August 7th, 2009 at 5:38 pm