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Working Moms
*sparky*
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Nanny search - Am I too paranoid?
*sparky*
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in Working Moms
Still trying to resolve my childcare situation and I am talking to a few nannies, although we may not ultimately go that route. There is a woman I spoke to the other day who is on paper very qualified - she has done a lot of foster care and also nannied for several families, including a couple that have infants. But the last child she and her ex-DH fostered was an infant who she raised for two years with the intent of adopting. At the last minute, the birth dad came forward and wanted the little girl back. There was a long court battle and birth dad was given custody. Nanny said this ultimately led to the demise of her marriage, was extremely difficult, and she has never had kids of her own. So now I am contemplating leaving her alone with my infant daughter and can't help thinking along the lines of "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" (anyone remember that movie other than me?), and wonder if this may end up being a bad situation. Or am I just crazy paranoid?
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Re: Nanny search - Am I too paranoid?
That is a good point. I am talking to her again, so I will hopefully get a better feeling once we talk a second time.
Thanks. To the other posters, I admitted I thought I might be a little crazy here, but she volunteered all of the information above in the first 15 minutes of me speaking to her for the first time.
I am not saying she is necessarily a baby-crazed lunatic and maybe the movie reference was not a good one, but she really wanted this baby, she was taken from her, her marriage fell apart, etc. I am sure all of this was a verry painful experience and while she may have gotten over it, the fact that she told me all of that right away makes me think it may still be pretty fresh.
Again, I am going to talk to her again but this point is kind of stuck in my head. Just wondering if others would have a similar reaction in my situation. It sounds like most would not so, maybe I am reaching a bit.
I have special kind of insight into this woman's life. I have not suffered a failed adoption, but I am childfree-not-by-choice and I work with small children. I started my childcare business just as we were deciding to stop treatments and move on.
So, these are things I feel I can safely assume about this woman:
1. She is grieving big time. The child she lost was, to her, *her* child. She was raising that child with the expectation that he/she would be with them forever and then poof, everything changed! It was no different an experience than it would have been if she had raised a biological child for two years that then the child died. Imagine the feelings you would have if that happened to you... you'd need to talk about it, but you probably wouldn't want to steal a stranger's baby! You'd want your baby back! Then her marriage ended. Her whole future changed and there isn't a thing she can do about it.
2. After a certain age It feels VERY STRANGE to be a childless caregiver to children. I actually feared that people would "wonder" about me and question if I was going to go crazy and try to take their baby. I actually had the exact conversation you had with the mother of the first infant I cared for in my business. I sat there and wondered why I was giving her all that information, but for some reason I felt the need to explain myself.
As a matter of fact, I think I've had that conversation with nearly every family I've taken on. Really, if you didn't know that part of her personal history wouldn't you wonder WHY a childless woman would want to work so closely with children but not want to have her own? She's in an odd place.
For the record, I'm not crazy and have never gone down the path of a horror movie. :P If she has a past work history of being a nanny then I would guess that her interest in this position comes from a place of sincerity... if all of that happened to her and then SUDDENLY she decided that she was going to become a nanny... well, that would be a red flag!
I hope you find a solution that works for you... but please don't make the decision based on that conversation alone!
@sillygirlio - thank you for your insight. There are other childless caregivers that I am considering - one woman has been a nanny for 20 years but has never had children of her own - and I don't give a second thought to that whatsoever. Your first point is the one that is making me wonder if this would be too raw of a situation for her, as I can imagine that she is grieving and if this had happened to me I would be grieving for a long time. They had the child from birth - age 2 and then suddenly lost her. That would tear anyone's heart out.
And she did not start nannying until after her divorce, after she had to give up this little girl. Prior to that she was in a different line of work.
Oh. She's only been a nanny since that happened? How long ago was that? Do you know what she did prior? Was it related at all?
Honestly, I doubt she's crazy... but if I were in your position, knowing the new information, I'd probably take my nanny search in a different direction!
Poor lady. I hope she'll be ok.
I am not sure how long ago - I was going to try to find out more information when I speak to her again - not prying on the details of this incident, just how long she has lived here, been nannying, etc. She did foster many children prior to the last one, so that is somewhat relevant experience, but was not her job.
Prior to nannying she worked with animals - completely different field.
It is a completely different field, but one that requires a lot of nurturing.
I agree with PrivacyWanted... if you get more information and still don't feel right, I'd move on. Do you have any references for her? Are you able to contact families she's worked for in the past? That might shed some light on the subject... but if you're uneasy, then you're uneasy.
Now I'm wondering if I made that first Mom uneasy? :P HA! Oh well. Good luck!
I am still going to meet with her and hopefully get a better feeling in person. If so, I will get references, etc. Again, I have no issues with her never having children - it is just this story, which sounds heartbreaking to me, that makes me wonder.
Anyway, will update later after I talk to her. Maybe I am a little paranoid so I will keep an open mind.
It's actually making me think of an employee I had working under me who sat in my office and cried about an argument with her adult son about a week into starting to work for me. I felt sorry for her at the time, but in the long run it turned out she was a bit of basket case. It's that story, rather than the "hand that rocks the cradle movie", that is resonating for me here. Even this may not be quite her situation, but I can tell you that the employee I mentioned did not work out in the end.