Passing the buck to the Nanny - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Cynthetiq · 09-29-2006, 10:59 AM

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Memo to Nanny: No Juice Boxes
By JODI KANTOR
LINK
IN posting after posting on the new Web site ISawYourNanny.blogspot.com, anonymous whistle-blowers describe alarming baby-sitting behavior they witness at playgrounds or supermarkets: the nanny in the Seattle suburbs who may be drinking on the job; the sitter in Greenwich, Conn., preparing for a date with the children’s father; the one near Atlanta pouring Dr Pepper into the sippy cup of her young charge.

Alcohol abuse. Adultery. Carbonated beverages?

One of these things is not like the others. But in an age of organic everything, rampant childhood obesity and widespread food allergies — not to mention poisonous spinach — the feeding and misfeeding of children has become a tense, awkward point of debate between parents and baby sitters.

Just a few years ago, giving lunch to a 1-year-old was a simple matter of popping open a jar of the Gerber mush du jour. But many parents now feed their children with the precision of chemists and the passion of Alice Waters, and expect sitters to do the same. Fruit juice, once a childhood mainstay, is now considered a sweet slosh of empty calories, and soft drinks are a potential firing offense.

“Twenty years ago you would feed kids anything,” said Marci Thomas, who has been baby-sitting for New York children for that long. “Just feed the child hamburgers, and that was great back then. Now it’s so precise. Don’t give them that at lunch, make sure she eats that at dinner.”

The issue is a trying one even for those gifted in the delicate art of parent-nanny diplomacy. The conflicts are partly a result of the educational and economic divide that leaves many nannies less knowledgeable (or neurotic, take your pick) about nutrition than their employers. But it is also partly a struggle over the emotional issues involved in leaving a child in another person’s care.

The result is a state of affairs in which nannies innocently serve children Yoo-hoo, believing that it is simply chocolate milk, or defy parents by sneaking their charges forbidden candy bars or simply notice that a child’s dinner costs more than their hourly rate.

Many parents, meanwhile, now ask sitters to document their children’s every bite in feeding logs, and fumble over how to tell an otherwise beloved nanny that the pizza bagels and chicken nuggets she has been serving to several generations of children — including her own — are unacceptable.

“It’s not unusual for parents to make a huge list of what is and isn’t allowed,” said Genevieve Thiers, who is the founder and chief executive of Sittercity.com, which matches more than 150,000 baby sitters with parents. Her site receives so many queries about food, she said, that she is preparing to post an online worksheet on which parents can specify diet preferences.

“I’ve seen parents list calorie counts, lists of ingredients in foods that kids are and aren’t allowed to have,” she said. “They’ll name an enzyme or a sugar.”

Nannies, meanwhile, find it demeaning “when parents are overly scrupulous,” said Julia Wrigley, a professor of sociology at the City University of New York Graduate Center, because they are implying that the sitters do not know or care enough to feed children properly. “The deeper emotional issue is how much judgment and authority the caregiver can exercise,” she said.

Sitters can hear a parent’s dietary requests as criticism of her education level, cultural traditions and personal eating habits, and as harbingers of extra work.

“You have to prepare the meal from scratch,” said one older nanny who complained bitterly as she pushed a little boy on a swing set in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and then asked not to be identified for fear of losing her job. “It’s organic organic all the way, but even the YoBaby yogurt has too much sugar,” she said, referring to Stonyfield Farm’s organic line for babies. “You have to get special organic produce and then prepare each meal.” Nannies, she said, must now be personal chefs while also supervising mischievous toddlers, and all without an increase in pay.

Strict parental guidelines may leave a nanny in a difficult position: If a 3-year-old refuses any lunch other than pizza, is the sitter supposed to let the child go hungry? And what’s a nanny to do when even the parents have a hard time getting a child to eat his peas?

Most of the sitters interviewed for this article said they are happy to try to feed children whatever their employers specify. In contrast, parents expressed a great deal of anxiety, saying they feel guilty criticizing their nannies and even guiltier about leaving their child at home eating potato chips.

Melani Cammett is a mother of two, an assistant professor of political science at Brown, and an accomplished Happy Meal thief. Her sitter, Lena Barros Mackie, has friends and relatives who work at fast-food chains and gave her children’s meals to take to work, much to the delight of Ms. Cammett’s children. So Ms. Cammett snatched the boxes, “stealing the candy and editing the contents,” she said, before returning the meals to the unsuspecting children.

Then she would feel awful. Ms. Mackie “is a generous and warm person, and I didn’t want to insult her,” Ms. Cammett said. “I feel uncomfortable about the whole thing of having a nanny and housekeeper as it is, so I was very uncomfortable about the class issues wrapped up around nutrition education. Not everyone can afford to buy organic stuff, especially the meats and the milks.”

When Ms. Cammett put Ms. Mackie on a full-time schedule, she sat her down for a gentle talk, and the fast-food surprises ended.

To up the emotional ante, the current nutritional wisdom says that what children eat may set their tastes in place permanently. In this view, a hot dog is never just a single tube of meat, because it will lead to thousands of salty, processed, who-knows-what-filled lunches to come.

Jennifer Tabet Shea, a mother on Cape Cod who once found a baby sitter giving French fries to her son, then 8 months old, said, “Since he is only a toddler, and we are 100 percent responsible for his food choices, why on earth would we choose food that is terrible for him and will set him up for a preference for ultrasweet, ultrafatty tastes for life?”

Ms. Shea now chooses her baby sitters in part based on their adherence to her rules, which include no high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated oils, and limited refined sugars. This sort of approach is a radical break with a longstanding rule of childhood, namely that sweets are the payment a child receives to compensate for the absence of mom and dad.

Many baby sitters simply assume that rule is still in place. Janet Dracksdorf, an educational publisher in Boston, said that a sitter she employed had been taking her daughter — a toddler at the time — on regular candy runs. Ms. Dracksdorf did not learn about them until “two years later, when my daughter was articulate enough to talk about it,” she said.

“Maybe I should have suspected something when the baby sitter gave my daughter the Candy Land game for a third-birthday present,” Ms. Dracksdorf said. Her current nanny has a degree in nutrition.

What bothered Ms. Dracksdorf more than the sugar and fat was the revelation that her trusted sitter saw nothing wrong with feeding a 2-year-old chocolate and never thought to clear it with her. It was a glimpse into the secret world of what nannies and children do while parents are away, and it underscored the fact that Ms. Dracksdorf works rather than staying home with her child.

“You don’t want the child to eat differently because you’re gone,” said Rima D. Apple, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the author of “Perfect Motherhood: Science and Childrearing in America” (Rutgers University Press, 2006).

Sometimes that is true even for parents who stock their pantry with Count Chocula and Pop-Tarts.

Samantha Treworgy, a nanny in Chicago, just started a job with children who “are allowed to eat chocolate and ice cream for snack, hot dogs for dinner, and then double dessert if they want.” They told their parents that Ms. Treworgy was “starving them” when she put away the ice cream.

“It’s been really awkward,” she said. “I feel like the bad guy.” She buys fruit and vegetables for the house, sometimes at her own expense.

Nicole Perez recently baby-sat for a 4-year-old boy in Boca Raton, Fla., who requested waffles and Oreos for dinner. “Obviously, I did not oblige his requests, despite his tantrums,” she said, explaining that she considered providing a healthy dinner part of her job.

The result? “I was asked not to come back,” Ms. Perez said.

The first paragraph seems to be just a distraction to disorient one from the actual craziness that is to come.

Okay, this is just too much insanity... I'm really having a hard time putting to words just how confuzzled I am here about the parents imparting their insanity onto a nanny or childcaregiver.

In fact, I'm wondering are schools in the future going to be "picked" based on these types of things or will parents just be buying prepared foods stuffs at Whole Foods since they obviously don't have the time to prepare meals from what I gather from this article.

All I see is I've-got-a-kid-but-it's-still-about-me-me-me-me-so-do-as-I-say-and-don't-bother-me-or-make-me-responsible.

kutulu · 09-29-2006, 11:24 AM

Of course that's all you see. You don't have a kid so you have no clue about what the responsibilities are that come with raising one.

In a fantasy world we'd all have one parent that could stay at home and then we could ensure that our kids are raised the way that we want them to be raised. However, life isn't perfect and lots of people have to hire nannies.

Ideally, there would be clear communications with the nanny that give them guidance as to what to feed them and how to take care of them. Why does it sound strange that parents would want to dictate the diets of their kids? If all the parents want the kids to eat are organic foods that is all the nanny should give them. If the parents don't care and give them hot dogs, fine.

It is very important that children are fed properly. As a parent, it is your responsibility to raise a child with a healthy mind and body. Nannies that feed kids whatever to save time undermine the employer-employee relationship and interfere.

Cynthetiq · 09-29-2006, 11:38 AM

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Originally Posted by kutulu

Of course that's all you see. You don't have a kid so you have no clue about what the responsibilities are that come with raising one.

In a fantasy world we'd all have one parent that could stay at home and then we could ensure that our kids are raised the way that we want them to be raised. However, life isn't perfect and lots of people have to hire nannies.

Ideally, there would be clear communications with the nanny that give them guidance as to what to feed them and how to take care of them. Why does it sound strange that parents would want to dictate the diets of their kids? If all the parents want the kids to eat are organic foods that is all the nanny should give them. If the parents don't care and give them hot dogs, fine.

It is very important that children are fed properly. As a parent, it is your responsibility to raise a child with a healthy mind and body. Nannies that feed kids whatever to save time undermine the employer-employee relationship and interfere.

My sister and I were cared for by a live in nanny. The nanny cooked recipes based on my mother's and that was the only food allowed to be eaten. Snacks were what was purchased and allowed. Cookies, sweet cereals were not in our house.

Quote:

Ms. Shea now chooses her baby sitters in part based on their adherence to her rules, which include no high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated oils, and limited refined sugars.

Would that be in the household? Because if that wasn't allowed for us to eat, it wasn't in the house. Soda wasn't part of what was in the refrigerator because it wasn't allowed as part of the our diet.

In fact, the more I think about this above quote the more it speaks to me that it's about PROCESSED foods versus HOME COOKED meals.

I don't see anywhere in the article that the parents cooked, in fact at the tail end of the article a nanny stated that she provided fruits out of her own pocket.

Now yes, as you stated it would be great that parents had one parent to stay home. But my parents didn't, and I still got home cooked meals.

If am disciplined enough to cook on Sunday, there's home cooked meals all week and both my wife and I work.

In my opinion it's a cop out to say you cannot cook.

sapiens · 09-29-2006, 11:41 AM

Parents often have dietary guidelines that they would like their babysitters/nannies to follow when feeding their children. I don't see a problem here. I don't see what is insane about it.

One of my daughter's daycare teachers started feeding kids sugar cookies in the afternoons right before we picked up our daughter from daycare. Parents asked the teacher to stop and she did. Sugar cookies are not good for her and they interfere with dinner. Was it insane to ask?

The same teacher taught the class a song about fast food restaurants. All of the words of the song were different restaurant names (pizza hut, burger kind, taco bell, etc.). One parent I know asked the teacher not to teach that song. The teacher brushed her off. It wasn't until around half of the parents asked that she stopped. Was it inappropriate to ask her to stop?

Is it unreasonable for parents to expect a certain standard of care from the people they employ to take care of their children? I don't think so. Especially in the cases of nannies or babysitters. As a nanny, if you have a problem with what the parents expect of you, find a new job.

Aside: Logging food consumption does seem a bit obsessive, but your nanny is feeding your kid fast food behind your back, it's not entirely unreasonable.

Edit: Cynthetiq, I finished the post above before reading your second post. It seems like the child-rearing you describe matches the position of many of the parents in the article. Where's the insanity?

Ustwo · 09-29-2006, 11:42 AM

Quote:

In a fantasy world we'd all have one parent that could stay at home and then we could ensure that our kids are raised the way that we want them to be raised. However, life isn't perfect and lots of people have to hire nannies.

If you can afford a nanny you can afford to stay home. My wife stays home, I'd LOVE to have her income back, but we decided it was for the best for the family. Its one thing if its two people with low income potential both having to work, but when you can get a nanny its most likely a professional couple who do not need the money of two incomes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

In my opinion it's a cop out to say you cannot cook.

You can not cook and still eat healthy. Its more lack of any effort if you ask me.

Cynthetiq · 09-29-2006, 11:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sapiens

Parents often have dietary guidelines that they would like their babysitters/nannies to follow when feeding their children. I don't see a problem here. I don't see what is insane about it.

One of my daughter's daycare teachers started feeding kids sugar cookies in the afternoons right before we picked up our daughter from daycare. Parents asked the teacher to stop and she did. Sugar cookies are not good for her and they interfere with dinner. Was it insane to ask?

The same teacher taught the class a song about fast food restaurants. All of the words of the song were different restaurant names (pizza hut, burger kind, taco bell, etc.). One parent I know asked the teacher not to teach that song. The teacher brushed her off. It wasn't until around half of the parents asked that she stopped. Was it inappropriate to ask her to stop?

Is it unreasonable for parents to expect a certain standard of care from the people they employ to take care of their children? I don't think so. Especially in the cases of nannies or babysitters. As a nanny, if you have a problem with what the parents expect of you, find a new job.

Aside: Logging food consumption does seem a bit obsessive, but your nanny is feeding your kid fast food behind your back, it's not entirely unreasonable.

Edit: Cynthetiq, I finished the post above before reading your second post. It seems like the child-rearing you describe matches the position of many of the parents in the article. Where's the insanity?

right there... and it's not just logging the food...

Quote:

Aside: Logging food consumption does seem a bit obsessive, but your nanny is feeding your kid fast food behind your back, it's not entirely unreasonable.

also the

Quote:

“I’ve seen parents list calorie counts, lists of ingredients in foods that kids are and aren’t allowed to have,” she said. “They’ll name an enzyme or a sugar.”

I understand for allergy sake, but it just seems a bit much when it requires a person who's pay or education level may not be up to the ability to know the 20+ different kinds of sugars and whatever enzyme and their variants...

again, Ustwo's choice seems to be the less insane.

snowy · 09-29-2006, 11:57 AM

I am a nanny. At their house, if it's something they can't eat, it's not in the house. Their parents only buy organic, healthy food. It's really NOT a pain in the butt to put together a snack for them--there are usually plenty of things to choose from, from cheese and crackers to sliced apples to grapes to G's favorite, bananas. They do not have any soda or sugary drinks in the house except for juice, and that was their ONE dietary request--the kids are to have juice that is half juice, half water so as to cut the sugar.

I think some parents do take it overboard, especially regarding perceived food allergies. The fact of the matter is that we do need to be concerned with feeding children healthy foods, but if parents get too neurotic about what their child is eating, they need to take responsibility for it, or pay their employee more to take care of it.

sapiens · 09-29-2006, 12:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

I understand for allergy sake, but it just seems a bit much when it requires a person who's pay or education level may not be up to the ability to know the 20+ different kinds of sugars and whatever enzyme and their variants...

again, Ustwo's choice seems to be the less insane.

I agree that if as a parent, you are going to be that obsessive, you will need to pay more for a more highly educated nanny, or provide the food yourself. (Options both you and onesnowyowl suggested).

Ustwo's choice works too, but I know plenty of women who are unwilling to give up their career and even more men who are unwilling.

Everyone wants it all - high powered careers, perfect home, stable marriage, children, lots of time with and good relationships with those children, etc. This article seems to be a manifestation of those desires. In my limited experience, you can't have it all.

ngdawg · 09-29-2006, 12:07 PM

I......agree with Ustwo....(damn that hurt)

If they can afford a nanny full-time, they can afford to have one parent home. Then they could actually RAISE their own child according to their OWN principles instead of setting up rules for someone else to raise their kids by.
I was a stay-at-home mom for their first 6 years. I fed them canned spaghetti, microwavable mac and cheese, they snacked on teddy grahams. I also chopped up raw spinach and put that in some of their meals, they ate bananas and apples, yogurts, and yes, hotdogs. Guess what? My kids have been so healthy, they have almost perfect attendance in their 10 years of school (my son went two years without a day off). Meanwhile, my fellow mothers who feed their kids so-called 'healthy' foods (read: salads for dinner, chicken and fish, very little fast food) always talk about how sick their kids were/are at any given time.
Those picky not-at-home parents make me just wanna

"OOOOO, my kid will get fat"...OOOOO, how about making them walk that block to school instead of driving them?

kutulu · 09-29-2006, 12:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

Would that be in the household? Because if that wasn't allowed for us to eat, it wasn't in the house. Soda wasn't part of what was in the refrigerator because it wasn't allowed as part of the our diet.

In fact, the more I think about this above quote the more it speaks to me that it's about PROCESSED foods versus HOME COOKED meals.

I don't see anywhere in the article that the parents cooked, in fact at the tail end of the article a nanny stated that she provided fruits out of her own pocket.

Now yes, as you stated it would be great that parents had one parent to stay home. But my parents didn't, and I still got home cooked meals.

If am disciplined enough to cook on Sunday, there's home cooked meals all week and both my wife and I work.

In my opinion it's a cop out to say you cannot cook.

Yes, it could be in the house. Perhaps parents want to have the kids wait till a certain age to eat the crappier foods or they want to regulate their intake of those things. Maybe some nannies are given a set budget that they can spend on getting grocieries for the kids and those are the rules for the budget.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

You can not cook and still eat healthy. Its more lack of any effort if you ask me.

Exactly. Also you can cook all your own meals and eat like shit. It's amazing how much information you can get from READING THE LABEL. Yogurt Brand X advertises itself as a healthy snack but its loaded with sugar, HFCS, and has no live cultures. Brand Y has minimal sugar, live cultures and no HFCS.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

If you can afford a nanny you can afford to stay home.

In many cases, yes, but not necessarily. Maybe half of the second income goes to the nanny but you still need the other half of it if you don't want to move to the shitty part of town.

Quote:

Originally Posted by onesnowyowl

The fact of the matter is that we do need to be concerned with feeding children healthy foods, but if parents get too neurotic about what their child is eating, they need to take responsibility for it, or pay their employee more to take care of it.

Thats the employee/employer relationship. Parents need to make their desires clear and the nanny needs to decide if those are reasonable requests.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ngdawg

I fed them canned spaghetti, microwavable mac and cheese, they snacked on teddy grahams. I also chopped up raw spinach and put that in some of their meals, they ate bananas and apples, yogurts, and yes, hotdogs. Guess what? My kids have been so healthy, they have almost perfect attendance in their 10 years of school (my son went two years without a day off). Meanwhile, my fellow mothers who feed their kids so-called 'healthy' foods (read: salads for dinner, chicken and fish, very little fast food) always talk about how sick their kids were/are at any given time.

Yes, your experiences should apply to everyone because 'you and your friends' are a representative sample size. We should all feed our kids processes crap and there is no correlation between increased consumption of processed foods and obesity rates.

Gilda · 09-29-2006, 02:23 PM

Two career families are not always about income. It can be a matter of both parties wanting a career because that's fulfilling to them in and of itself.

I don't understand why parents wanting their nannies to feed their children certain foods but not others is even an issue. The nanny is the parents' employee, her job is to care for the children in the manner the parents desire so long as that doesn't entail harm to the children or require doing something immoral or unethical. If the nanny can't or won't do that, it's a bad employer/employee match, and they're going to be better off parting ways.

I'm also not seeing the problem with differing education levels. No soft drinks is pretty clear and unambiguous. No hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup likewise isn't all that difficult to understand or determine. The ingredients are listed on the label of every food item.

Maybe it's just my meticulous nature, but a list of acceptible and prohibited items makes perfect sense to me if the nanny is preparing food. How else is she going to know what is and is not appropriate if the parents don't make this clear?

That said, even with a two career family, parents preparing meals is well within reason. I work a full time job and still manage to make supper four to five times a week and breakfast nearly every day.

I'm reminded of the first episode of wife swap. One of the families was a wealthy Manhattan family lifing in a luxury penthouse. Three children, three nannies, mom did not work, spending her days shopping and maintaining the proper image for her husbands career. I don't understand it, but that's how it went. Mom and dad ate out literally every night, most days seeing their children only early in the morning and just before going out to dinner, also, apparently a necessity for hubby's career and the family image. The three kids routinely ate all three meals with their nannies.

It was really sad, how these kids wanted contact with their parents, but dad actively opposed staying home after work to be with them in place of eating out every night.

When we reach time to have a little one, I'm not sure if we'll be going the nanny route. Money isn't the biggest issue; we could live on either of our salaries and investment income. The biggest issue is whether we want to stall our careers to be a SAHM. I'd be the one to do that if it comes to that, but we're really not sure at this stage. At this point we're thinkign we'd likely take advantage of the University's excellent day care system so that our child would be close to both of us.

Gilda

kutulu · 09-29-2006, 02:41 PM

For most people, raising a kid is the single most important thing they will do in their lives. It's sad when people that don't need the extra income choose to have someone else raise their kids. That's what it basically is, especially in the early years. I have a two year old and I see her for a half hour in the morning and about two hours at night. Luckily I have the weekends but it isn't the amount of time that she deserves.

I'm really lucky that despite having to work, I was able to see most of her accomplishments when they first happened.

ngdawg · 09-29-2006, 09:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kutulu

Yes, your experiences should apply to everyone because 'you and your friends' are a representative sample size. We should all feed our kids processes crap and there is no correlation between increased consumption of processed foods and obesity rates.

Sarcasm? Bad kid day?
My point is, there's a lot more to a kid's health than making sure the yogurt doesn't have sugar or going ballistic over a french fry. Feeding kids crap then plopping them in front of a tv or computer, don't complain if they're overweight. But a Happy Meal for lunch and a nice afternoon in a playground isn't going to hurt them and will do them more good than that obsessive food-nazi business. I can just see Jr now: "Mommy says I can't have that because the triglycerides may interfere with my cardio-pulmonary development"

All they're doing is raising phobics by being so adamant. There's balance and that ain't it.
For the record, my son had a behavior allergy to sodium nitrate. He understood no hotdogs, no lunchmeat, etc.
I have a nephew who, at 17, is about 6'1" and 350 lbs. His parents thought he had a 'healthy appetite'; instead he has Type 2 diabetes, diagnosed when he was just 15. Do they stop the sodas, the junk food, etc? Nope...Like I said, balance.
And, when you're surrounded by parents with kids the same age as your own on a daily basis, you tend to compare notes, so, yes...that is a basic representative sampling.

SugahBritches · 09-30-2006, 05:52 AM

Heh. This is interesting. I'll have to agree with NG on alot of her words in her posts.

I like give them a happy meal and off to the playground! I still like to go to a playground and hear the kids play. It's very relaxing.

Well, in the State of Florida we have now mandated that all frying bins be eliminated from the cafeterias. I'm sure it's reached other states and in a lot of ways, that is good. I, for one, seldom fry foods anymore. However, I did a good bit when my kids were little. But, we were also an active family. We went swimming, played ball, did dance, cheerleading....etc. AND I was a working mom with a spouse that worked out of town 3 weeks out of the month. It CAN be done, and we did the daycare.

And one of the reasons for getting into the school system WAS for my children. I was off when they were except on teacher workdays. I think there are some parents that can swing both careers. Although, I wouldn't recommend it to just anybody. Heck, I want more for my children than what we have. But, what "good parent" doesn't? I also know that if you ingrade some form of responsibility in your children without going "overboard" you will have normal active and even sensible children that can learn to make their own decisions. As NG said, there has to be a balance there somewhere. And blaming it all on society, doesn't cut it with me. It starts with YOU and what you feel is right for your child(ren) without making it into some big event that outweighs something so simple like moderation instead of overindulgence.

Sultana · 09-30-2006, 07:56 AM

I think the key here is that these parents with the food lists and all don't want to pay more for the higher level of work.

Quote:

Nannies, she said, must now be personal chefs while also supervising mischievous toddlers, and all without an increase in pay.

I used to watch kids for a college job for a while. Once, the father had to talk to me about feeding the 3 kids after school. They practically wanted a full meal as a "snack" when they got home from school, and I'd give them fruit and a bit of cheese instead. Well, the kids complained to the dad that they were hungry and that I wouldn't give them enough food. Father talked to me and told me to give them what they wanted. I felt so bad, that the kids were "going hungry"...but when I was a kid, I wasn't allowed to have an entire can of soup as a snack.
I know it was just a difference in opinion as to what was acceptable, but I still feel bad that something they were accustomed to and allowed to have (whether or not I agreed with it), I was denying them. And I was horribly embarrassed that the father had to talk to me about it. He was nice about it though.

warrrreagl · 10-01-2006, 04:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynthetiq

All I see is I've-got-a-kid-but-it's-still-about-me-me-me-me-so-do-as-I-say-and-don't-bother-me-or-make-me-responsible.

*warrrreagl looks upward, whistles, and slides smoothly to the left to avoid being hit by the incoming debris from the Parent Militia Group*

Been nice knowin' ya, Cyn. You have committed 21st century heresy. Your biggest mistake was trying to mix "discussion" with "parents."

SugahBritches · 10-01-2006, 05:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by warrrreagl

*warrrreagl looks upward, whistles, and slides smoothly to the left to avoid being hit by the incoming debris from the Parent Militia Group*

Been nice knowin' ya, Cyn. You have committed 21st century heresy. Your biggest mistake was trying to mix "discussion" with "parents."

Too Cute Auburn.

MichaelFarker · 10-01-2006, 10:00 AM

That was a fascinating article.

Parents must take responsibility for their children, and that seemed to be the main point.

I started thinking about it. You know, some medical studies show that high fructose corn syrup is physically addictive. A lot of studies show that a high fat diet as an adult shortens your lifespan. And studies show clear links between children having high sugar diets and being fat or even diabetic. As a survivor of husky jeans I can testify that fat kids don't enjoy life as much. And overcoming food addictions was harder for me than overcoming a drug addiction.

When I was a child, desert was a reward for good behavior. In fact, it was a sign of being loved. If you didn't eat all the meat and pasta on your plate you were punished. There's something unhealthy there.

On the other hand, you cannot expect a babysitter to prepare a meal from scratch while paying full attention to your children. There's nothing wrong with frozen food and boxed dinners. And it doesn't hurt to take the weekend to prepare something good for a babysitter (or yourself) to microwave when things are hectic.

There's no reason to eliminate all sweets. Then again my having a package of donuts, 1/4 of a gallon of ice cream, and 5-6 sodas every day messed up my health as a child.

Everyone needs moderation. This goes double for parents who are instilling life-long habits in children. Kids immitate what you do more than they follow what you say.

09-29-2006, 11:41 AM	#4 (permalink)
sapiens Junkie Location: Some place windy	Parents often have dietary guidelines that they would like their babysitters/nannies to follow when feeding their children. I don't see a problem here. I don't see what is insane about it. One of my daughter's daycare teachers started feeding kids sugar cookies in the afternoons right before we picked up our daughter from daycare. Parents asked the teacher to stop and she did. Sugar cookies are not good for her and they interfere with dinner. Was it insane to ask? The same teacher taught the class a song about fast food restaurants. All of the words of the song were different restaurant names (pizza hut, burger kind, taco bell, etc.). One parent I know asked the teacher not to teach that song. The teacher brushed her off. It wasn't until around half of the parents asked that she stopped. Was it inappropriate to ask her to stop? Is it unreasonable for parents to expect a certain standard of care from the people they employ to take care of their children? I don't think so. Especially in the cases of nannies or babysitters. As a nanny, if you have a problem with what the parents expect of you, find a new job. Aside: Logging food consumption does seem a bit obsessive, but your nanny is feeding your kid fast food behind your back, it's not entirely unreasonable. Edit: Cynthetiq, I finished the post above before reading your second post. It seems like the child-rearing you describe matches the position of many of the parents in the article. Where's the insanity? Last edited by sapiens; 09-29-2006 at 11:44 AM..

09-29-2006, 11:57 AM	#7 (permalink)
snowy Kick Ass Kunoichi Location: Oregon	I am a nanny. At their house, if it's something they can't eat, it's not in the house. Their parents only buy organic, healthy food. It's really NOT a pain in the butt to put together a snack for them--there are usually plenty of things to choose from, from cheese and crackers to sliced apples to grapes to G's favorite, bananas. They do not have any soda or sugary drinks in the house except for juice, and that was their ONE dietary request--the kids are to have juice that is half juice, half water so as to cut the sugar. I think some parents do take it overboard, especially regarding perceived food allergies. The fact of the matter is that we do need to be concerned with feeding children healthy foods, but if parents get too neurotic about what their child is eating, they need to take responsibility for it, or pay their employee more to take care of it. __________________ If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

09-29-2006, 12:07 PM	#9 (permalink)
ngdawg peekaboo Location: on the back, bitch	I......agree with Ustwo....(damn that hurt) If they can afford a nanny full-time, they can afford to have one parent home. Then they could actually RAISE their own child according to their OWN principles instead of setting up rules for someone else to raise their kids by. I was a stay-at-home mom for their first 6 years. I fed them canned spaghetti, microwavable mac and cheese, they snacked on teddy grahams. I also chopped up raw spinach and put that in some of their meals, they ate bananas and apples, yogurts, and yes, hotdogs. Guess what? My kids have been so healthy, they have almost perfect attendance in their 10 years of school (my son went two years without a day off). Meanwhile, my fellow mothers who feed their kids so-called 'healthy' foods (read: salads for dinner, chicken and fish, very little fast food) always talk about how sick their kids were/are at any given time. Those picky not-at-home parents make me just wanna "OOOOO, my kid will get fat"...OOOOO, how about making them walk that block to school instead of driving them? __________________ Don't blame me. I didn't vote for either of'em.

09-29-2006, 02:23 PM	#11 (permalink)
Gilda 32 flavors and then some Location: Out on a wire.	Two career families are not always about income. It can be a matter of both parties wanting a career because that's fulfilling to them in and of itself. I don't understand why parents wanting their nannies to feed their children certain foods but not others is even an issue. The nanny is the parents' employee, her job is to care for the children in the manner the parents desire so long as that doesn't entail harm to the children or require doing something immoral or unethical. If the nanny can't or won't do that, it's a bad employer/employee match, and they're going to be better off parting ways. I'm also not seeing the problem with differing education levels. No soft drinks is pretty clear and unambiguous. No hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup likewise isn't all that difficult to understand or determine. The ingredients are listed on the label of every food item. Maybe it's just my meticulous nature, but a list of acceptible and prohibited items makes perfect sense to me if the nanny is preparing food. How else is she going to know what is and is not appropriate if the parents don't make this clear? That said, even with a two career family, parents preparing meals is well within reason. I work a full time job and still manage to make supper four to five times a week and breakfast nearly every day. I'm reminded of the first episode of wife swap. One of the families was a wealthy Manhattan family lifing in a luxury penthouse. Three children, three nannies, mom did not work, spending her days shopping and maintaining the proper image for her husbands career. I don't understand it, but that's how it went. Mom and dad ate out literally every night, most days seeing their children only early in the morning and just before going out to dinner, also, apparently a necessity for hubby's career and the family image. The three kids routinely ate all three meals with their nannies. It was really sad, how these kids wanted contact with their parents, but dad actively opposed staying home after work to be with them in place of eating out every night. When we reach time to have a little one, I'm not sure if we'll be going the nanny route. Money isn't the biggest issue; we could live on either of our salaries and investment income. The biggest issue is whether we want to stall our careers to be a SAHM. I'd be the one to do that if it comes to that, but we're really not sure at this stage. At this point we're thinkign we'd likely take advantage of the University's excellent day care system so that our child would be close to both of us. Gilda __________________ I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that. ~Steven Colbert Last edited by Gilda; 09-29-2006 at 02:46 PM..

10-01-2006, 10:00 AM	#18 (permalink)
MichaelFarker 2+2=5? Not again! Location: Dallas, Texas	That was a fascinating article. Parents must take responsibility for their children, and that seemed to be the main point. I started thinking about it. You know, some medical studies show that high fructose corn syrup is physically addictive. A lot of studies show that a high fat diet as an adult shortens your lifespan. And studies show clear links between children having high sugar diets and being fat or even diabetic. As a survivor of husky jeans I can testify that fat kids don't enjoy life as much. And overcoming food addictions was harder for me than overcoming a drug addiction. When I was a child, desert was a reward for good behavior. In fact, it was a sign of being loved. If you didn't eat all the meat and pasta on your plate you were punished. There's something unhealthy there. On the other hand, you cannot expect a babysitter to prepare a meal from scratch while paying full attention to your children. There's nothing wrong with frozen food and boxed dinners. And it doesn't hurt to take the weekend to prepare something good for a babysitter (or yourself) to microwave when things are hectic. There's no reason to eliminate all sweets. Then again my having a package of donuts, 1/4 of a gallon of ice cream, and 5-6 sodas every day messed up my health as a child. Everyone needs moderation. This goes double for parents who are instilling life-long habits in children. Kids immitate what you do more than they follow what you say. Last edited by MichaelFarker; 10-01-2006 at 10:07 AM..

09-29-2006, 11:24 AM	#2 (permalink)
kutulu Junkie	Of course that's all you see. You don't have a kid so you have no clue about what the responsibilities are that come with raising one. In a fantasy world we'd all have one parent that could stay at home and then we could ensure that our kids are raised the way that we want them to be raised. However, life isn't perfect and lots of people have to hire nannies. Ideally, there would be clear communications with the nanny that give them guidance as to what to feed them and how to take care of them. Why does it sound strange that parents would want to dictate the diets of their kids? If all the parents want the kids to eat are organic foods that is all the nanny should give them. If the parents don't care and give them hot dogs, fine. It is very important that children are fed properly. As a parent, it is your responsibility to raise a child with a healthy mind and body. Nannies that feed kids whatever to save time undermine the employer-employee relationship and interfere.

09-29-2006, 02:41 PM	#12 (permalink)
kutulu Junkie	For most people, raising a kid is the single most important thing they will do in their lives. It's sad when people that don't need the extra income choose to have someone else raise their kids. That's what it basically is, especially in the early years. I have a two year old and I see her for a half hour in the morning and about two hours at night. Luckily I have the weekends but it isn't the amount of time that she deserves. I'm really lucky that despite having to work, I was able to see most of her accomplishments when they first happened.

09-30-2006, 05:52 AM	#14 (permalink)
SugahBritches Insane	Heh. This is interesting. I'll have to agree with NG on alot of her words in her posts. I like give them a happy meal and off to the playground! I still like to go to a playground and hear the kids play. It's very relaxing. Well, in the State of Florida we have now mandated that all frying bins be eliminated from the cafeterias. I'm sure it's reached other states and in a lot of ways, that is good. I, for one, seldom fry foods anymore. However, I did a good bit when my kids were little. But, we were also an active family. We went swimming, played ball, did dance, cheerleading....etc. AND I was a working mom with a spouse that worked out of town 3 weeks out of the month. It CAN be done, and we did the daycare. And one of the reasons for getting into the school system WAS for my children. I was off when they were except on teacher workdays. I think there are some parents that can swing both careers. Although, I wouldn't recommend it to just anybody. Heck, I want more for my children than what we have. But, what "good parent" doesn't? I also know that if you ingrade some form of responsibility in your children without going "overboard" you will have normal active and even sensible children that can learn to make their own decisions. As NG said, there has to be a balance there somewhere. And blaming it all on society, doesn't cut it with me. It starts with YOU and what you feel is right for your child(ren) without making it into some big event that outweighs something so simple like moderation instead of overindulgence.