September 16, 2006

See Something? Say Blog Something!

And so we come full circle in the whorl of surveillance-media-consumer-parenting society.

I Saw Your Nanny [isawyournanny.blogspot.com] wants you to send in your sightings of inappropriate nanny behavior, and "if you are able to capture a photograph of the nanny or something that identifies the nanny," send that, too.

They'll post them in just-barely-anonymized form so that the parents can find out about these situations, of course, and put a stop to it. And if, in the mean time, other folks have a good read off of it, well, that's just fine, too.

See if you can unpack the various subtexts of this sighting on Leroy Street in Tribeca, dated Sept. 6:

Leroy Street Nanny, NYC
If your nanny is often walking your child (boy between 9-12 months), I see her all of the time. She walks to Starbucks often with your child. I have seen her in Starbucks. When your child starts crying, she says "oh, stop crying, stop crying". The nanny is focused on getting her coffee but the child never has a bottle, crackers or even a toy to amuse himself. I don't like the tone in which she speaks to your child. Isn't it her job to take care of the child? Because she behaves as if the child is interfering with her coffee obtaining and newspaper reading. She pushes your child in an orange Valco Runabout stroller. If this sounds like you, I hope you get a nanny camera. I don't know how to describe your nanny. She has a perpetually annoyed look on her face and is a very dark complected AA who obviously takes great pride in her figure (tight jeans, etc). If she smiled, she would probably be attractive.
I Saw Your Nanny: The Blog [via dt reader sadie]
And in totally unrelated news, after working so hard with the stylists, Carmen Electra complains to the NY Times about being photographed going to buy milk in her sweats.

14 Comments

Wow! What an . . . interesting site. "Nanny seen for 30 seconds, she was not showing your 3 month old reading flash cards, I am worried your child will not be reading by 2!" I hope people give me a bit more slack when they see me out with my kids. You can't be parent/nanny of the year all the time.

Woah....I sure hope these people called the authorities! Imagine a child bored at Starbucks! And that poor girl who couldn't see the animals at the zoo! These kinds of 'crimes' should be reported!
Seriously are these real problems? What a weird site....

[my absolute favorite comment so far: "I don't like the tone in which she speaks to your child." I mean, "I...she...your"? has that sentence ever even been uttered before? -ed.]

What would be absolutely heelarious would be if that "nanny" were in fact "mommy"... because really now, if this is worthy of a nanny cam then we need to arrest and charge with neglect a huge majority of moms that ever venture into starbucks.

And if these kind of offenses get posted heaven forbid they ever see me. Not only do I occasionally tell the 9 month old to "Seriously CHILL, you will live for two seconds while I fix your brother and sisters lunch!" I also take him for walks with NO toys in the stroller!

Apparently I'm horrible... I need to work on this!

Loved the article. I checked out the site and have to say I love it. Seems to me they are being to careful about revealing actual identity, because it just leaves me hungry for more. And more details! I have the same stroller. The orange is this year's model and there cannot be that many of them. This makes me laugh!

As a single father, I have to say when I interviewed nannies for the first time; they all seemed perfect. The more I read- the more I know what to look for. It would bother me to have the kind of nanny who went to Starbucks and didnt get or bring the children anything. I don't know that it would bother me if the nanny took a run with my child and the child was crying in the stroller. (I had one daughter who's crying was inconsolable for months!).

I am a nanny & I like the site and I will tell you why. I am a nanny and a good nanny. I have friends who are great nannies. Sometimes when they go for job interviews, people balk at their salary requirements. Why? Because of the imagery of these kind of nannies. I'll admit I am a rat when it comes to bad nannies and the person I tell it all to is my boss. I know she knows I am a good nanny, I know she appreciates dirt on other nannies but I also realize her hearing the idiotic things other nannies do makes her value me all the more!

"sureveillance-media-consumer-parenting"
Such imagery with your words. I think the nanny cam thing is scary and the narking on bad nannies is sketchy, but I bookmarked the site. Dirty laundry. As long as it aint mine, I love it!

I thought greg seemed very, very defensive. Wonder what that's all about? Anyway, childcare providers, not just nannies, have long gotten away with mistreating their charges and I applaud any effort that will at least make one of them think twice.

[as if. The only thing I AM "very, very" is skeptical about the site's objectives and effectiveness, that's all. The post I quoted was overflowing with racist, judgmental bitchiness, and frankly if that poster tried to talk to me on the playground like that, I'd probably brand her a nosy psycho, whatever the merits of her advice. The blog's blogroll is full of gossip sites, the cotton candy of the web. To really bust bad nannies, why not use craigslist or urbanbaby or something with highly focused local traffic instead? Otherwise, let's admit it, it's just entertainment. -ed.]

Hi,
Thanks for mentioning our blog on your site!
Urban Baby censors and deletes everything these days. This blog was started because we had witnessed things that seemed out of line and didn't know what to do with what we had seen. The feedback has been tremendously positive from parents and negative from nannies. (We have since began soliciting stories of amazing nannies and hope to be able to feauture a nanny of the week). As for the links on the right hand side, they are only our favorites. Cotton candy, they may be- we just wanted to make the site friendly to users. We're not all professional bloggers. :)
Thanks & Best wishes.

[I still think that locally focused sites like craigslist are far more effective for addressing specific instances of bad behavior, for which the intended audience is presumably the parents/employers, not the titillated, uninvolved public. -ed.]

I'm a nanny, and a very good one, and am fully aware of all that's happening out there.
I constantly come across all these websites which address bad nannies, but I haven't come across the ones which address the horrible ways which some of us are being treated.
I get the impression that everyone believes that all employers and prospective employers are wonderful, innocent, good and kind.

I've had a few nightmares myself, and have decided that when I go on an interview, I will also be interviewing the prospective employer as well, and will only accept the position if I feel 100% comfortable. I come highly recommended, and don't have a problem finding a high paying job.
I'm just tired of the nanny bashing, when I know how mean and insensitive some of you parents are...let's get real.

[dude, why in the world would you believe that? -ed.]

Maybe you need re-read my first posting,

Check out

www.strollerwatch.com

Avoids being too generic...

I think most of us have had similar "bad nanny sightings". What makes matters worse is that people don't know who the parents are so they are unable to report the behavior. They are left to posting and praying as I like to call it. Now there is a better way. Last week on Donny Deutsch's The Big Idea, they talked about a new service called www.HowsMyNanny.com. They have a small license plate to attach to your stroller with a number on it so people can get a message to the parents via a registered email address. Hopefully this will put an end to all of these bad nanny sightings and bring attention to the warm, caring nannies out there that go above and beyond the call of duty.

Some households employ the best security cameras there is, and yet they don't bother to look at the recordings. I guess instances of nanny abuses can be much more prevented if there's also constant monitoring of surveillances.

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