My nanny got cosmetic surgery and can’t work

All the ex pats talking about their help , we had to live overseas as a family with 3 small children ( husband’s work ) for a few years .
Possibly because of the country we were sent to , we had no help whatsoever and even had to find our own rental property while stuck in a very small temporary apartment .
Eventually after a few months we found a couple to come and help with a bit of cleaning once every 2 weeks by asking around the local mums , the pair of them came for 2 hours to help in a large house .
We had to use a babysitting agency , we asked around and no one was about to give us their babysitter details.
So we rarely went out in the evening, only when we needed to for a work function.
No childcare , found the youngest a one day per week nursery school placement after a few months once she turned 3 , then they had another day free ( short days same as school)

This sounds like either guilt or you don’t value what pre school
education used to be.

It wasn’t child care.

It's amazing how diplomats are seen as harsh slave drivers paying a pittance and being served by minions as if they were royalty. Unless you've done it, you can't imagine. I did it for 25 years in 9 different countries. Even my own family presumed it was all sequins and caviar !

As OP has said, it is totally normal for a diplomatic family to employ local house staff. It's not a perk of the job, it's something expected. The whole system is unheard of in Europe these days. It's more like Downton Abbey but actually with less staff! We adults dressed ourselves!

Thanks to nannies, I brought up 4 kids from ages 3 months through 18yrs in Africa and Asia. When I started, my first son was 3 months old. He had a live-in daytime nanny Mon/ Saturday and a night nanny. They knew more about babies than I ever did. I also had a housekeeper, a cook and kitchen boy, a sweeper, a laundry lady, a seamstress, 2 gardeners, 2 drivers and 3 armed security guards. After I had son No. 2, I had an extra 3rd nanny who shared the daytime work. They usually all got on well but in case of friction, came to ask for help. Similarly, though I was only 30 they came to me to help with all kinds of things particularly the women with family problems.

It all sounds like the life of Riley but it was a bit more complex. The largest staff we ever had was 18 people and I could and did cover all their wages with my pay as a half time English teacher. There was a trickle down effect too. My staff had their own staff at home who also had their staff at home. Obviously on a much smaller scale but their salaries were sufficient for them to do that. It was like that in every country we worked in. We once did some calculations with them and established that their salaries were in fact looking after almost a hundred people, young and old. Over and above salaries, we paid all medical expenses and contributed to the cost of weddings, funerals and celebrations.

I apologise for being so long-winded but I just want to add a bit of context.

I could be accused of not being 'there' for my kids as much as I could have been but when you aren't the one cooking, cleaning, doing laundry and all the normal housewifey things, you have much more time on your hands to be Mum.

We had evening events in Embassies and such every couple of weeks but it was usually only an hour or 2 hours so when the kids were little they were asleep and when they were teens, they were delighted to have us out of the way!

It is completely irrelevant what her job role is or whether or not you think her job is essential or not. There are thousands of “non essential jobs”. The point is she is employed and has a contract with the OP and she has failed to fulfil her end of the deal.

I was an expat child, my father was in the diplomatic service and I moved country every 3 years. What the OP describes is very much the norm across the diplomatic corps from all the countries I've encountered.

A diplomat's wife is expected to represent her country at various functions, to build relationships with people from other countries represented at events as well as the host nation. These relationships frequently improve the diplomat's profile, which aids in sparking the first steps to create (business) opportunities between countries (which is what most diplomats spend most of their time doing). This is just one aspect of how a diplomat's spouse works informally for their home country when serving abroad. I expect most if not all the people who are swiping at the OP have just never encountered this sort of working life. OP, I hope you're not taking the aggressive responses to heart, it's borne of ignorance.

It's still childcare if they're 3, and you still used childcare enough though you didn't need to. You're no different to anyone else using nursery.

But they were being baby sat weren't they? They didn't care for themselves.
Regardless of whether you needed childcare or not you still used it.

Definitely not Dubai, a national wouldn't be working as a nanny for expats in a million years.
I'd guess somewhere like Thailand.

No she didn’t and our children were there for early years education a couple of mornings or afternoons a week - not to be baby sat.

They don't

so he presumably was the one working days and you were working evenings, so he got a good night's sleep each night and basically had the kids when they were asleep, and you had them all day on a few hours sleep? sounds like you got the rough end of the deal and honestly I'd question the safety of care on years of that level of poor sleep.

you cannot seriously think prostitutes and child care workers are basically the same

They also didn’t go until the term after their 3rd birthday,

They didn’t go there though because we were working, and we needed someone to look after them!

If you sent your children to preschool or nursery then you did in fact use childcare, along with 95% of the rest of us.

Education!!! 🤦🏻‍♀️

What do you think preschool is?

You haven't explained how. If you're shift workers working opposing shifts, fine, but most jobs are not shift work type jobs and even if they are, many can't pick and choose their shifts.

So once she knew she wouldn’t be paid :had to use her holiday allowance she decided she could actually work after a week

i think she had played you slightly but as you said better the devil you know and if usually good with kids and they love her , that’s a huge bonus

Children were cared for by either myself or my husband!
My husband was a builder and I was a carer

Thank you.

It wasn’t a thing when my adult children were young, in-fact apart from when they started preschool at 3, children stayed home with their parent

What did you both do for jobs and where did you do those jobs? And what happened to the children while you worked?

Very uncommon though, something like 95% of children in England use their early years funding.