Olga Dmitrieva, a writer, columnist and author of a book on domestic staff, has learned from her own experience that parents are obliged to supervise the work of a nanny.
Not a single child will study if he does not have to pass exams, and not a single adult will work if his salary does not depend, at least indirectly, on the result of his work. Babysitting is no exception. Having once hired a reliable employee, you should not delude yourself that he will carry out his work conscientiously without any control from the employer.
Let me give you an example that stuck in my memory. Once I needed to find a sports complex outside the Moscow Ring Road. It is much more difficult to find something at the address outside the city than on the streets of a metropolis, so I often had to stop the car, turn my head and ask for directions. The search led me to the territory of a closed cottage village, where I noticed a stranger with a little girl. They walked next to the playground. The baby shyly asked the woman about something, to which she answered every other time, with irritation, and looked at the girl with cold eyes, almost with hatred.
“Surely this is a nanny, not a mother or a relative,” I thought, and began to watch her. “How can you hate your job so much?”
Suddenly the woman’s phone rang. In mid-sentence, she stopped the dialogue with the baby, took out her mobile and answered. Chatting merrily, she moved along the path, and the girl remained standing in the same place, kicking the melted spring snowdrift with her boot. The woman turned around, looked at the girl, waved to her, but she did not react, carried away by her occupation. Then the nanny came back with a brisk step, jerked the baby’s hand and dragged the three-year-old child along the road like a sack, without interrupting the telephone conversation! I shook my head and drove on.
Chatting on the phone, the nanny moved on, and the girl remained standing on the road, kicking a snowdrift
About forty minutes later I had to go back the same way, and I noticed them again. Just at that moment a beautiful sports car was driving into the village, so that I had to step aside, letting the car pass. At the wheel of the sports car was a blonde, seeing which the nanny changed in her face … Buddha himself would have envied such rapid enlightenment! She smiled at the girl, began to twist her head and show her something in the direction of the forest, squatted down, straightened her hat, then picked up the child in her arms and sang a song about a bear cub. Probably, she would have started dancing, but at that moment the blonde drove right up to them and lowered the driver’s window. The nanny pretended that only now she noticed her mistress and squealed to the whole village: “Oh! And this is mommy arrived! ” – and mumbled how they had a good time on the walk.
I stood spellbound, unable to tear myself away from the contemplation of the miracle of spiritual transformation, but then a security guard turned to me with a request not to create a traffic jam. And I left, which I still regret. It was necessary, of course, to show parental solidarity and tell the blonde how her child is treated while she does not see. I don’t know how the girl’s mother would react, but in her place I would only thank the caring passers-by.
Perhaps there is no such employee who, in the presence of a boss, would behave in the same way as in loneliness. But for some nannies, the difference in behavior is so great that even I, an experienced person in this matter, feel uncomfortable. Therefore, it is very important to keep an eye on the babysitter’s work. There are many ways of unobtrusive control. It can be a personal check of the results of the day’s work, and the video surveillance system installed in the apartment, and spontaneous visits to places where “Mary Poppins” does not expect to see parents. The main thing is that you should not watch the nanny where she herself easily understands that she is being watched and plays a role for the public.
There is another important point about control – watch how the nanny observes the daily routine. Please note that not all employees are able to properly organize their working hours. Even with a small number of obligations entrusted to the nanny, you can return home in the evening and see a completely exhausted woman who has not completed even half of the planned tasks. Better to take the planning process into your own hands: create a children’s schedule and post it in a prominent place. I did just that. And when I saw our nanny running around the house, grabbing at everything and leaving half of the unresolved cases, I made a schedule for her too. The result was not long in coming: the woman began to spend much less energy, and her “efficiency” immediately increased.
Drawing up such a plan will not take much time, but you will get rid of the headache and understand how your requirements for a nanny are adequate. For example, all of a sudden you, without realizing it, expect her to cook soup in 15 minutes or have time to take two children to classes that start at the same time, but are at different addresses. Conversely, complaints from a nanny that she ironed three children’s T-shirts for an hour and is very tired will no longer cause your sympathy.
Summing up, I would like to advise parents to be sure to keep the nannies’ work under control, because they are dealing with the most valuable thing that we have – our children.