Nannying = farming out your child - big mistake?

My dd described something to me a couple of years ago that can only relate to an experience she had when she was 9 months old.

This is utter bollocks. No one remembers when they were 9 months FFS.

Your dd for sure saw your reaction, and now she repeatedly presses it like a toddler with a buzzer, to get attention/make you feel bad/create drama.

You should alert someone because that goes against all current understanding of memory.

You may have manufactured memories, or memories of memories, or pieced together thoughts. The chances of you having actual memories are very small.

If you're ND it's very slightly more likely but not much since you're talking about a whole year earlier than anyone believes possible.

Op this is totally a made up guilt trip.

I stayed at home with all of mine, and they tell me it still wasn't good enough, I could have done x,y and z. I just say that is totally fine when you become a mother you can do exactly how you please - hee hee I will try really very very hard not to remind them of these conversations when they are a frazzled shell of their former selves!!

Oh, I knew someone would pick up on that! I was very clearly not suggesting it's ideal, I was drawing a comparison between the millions of functional adults who go into nursery age 6 weeks, and the daughter of the OP who had consistent one-to-one care for a few years, then the undivided attention of her mother.

She has a button that she can press- and does so.

She happen to havechosen a thing that you can do nothing about now, its gone, its passed, but she knows that!

This.

I was barely away from my mum before starting reception and can’t remember any of it.

My dd described something to me a couple of years ago that can only relate to an experience she had when she was 9 months old. She described it like it was a snapshot in her mind. Not traumatic, just different from what she was used to. We hadn't ever spoken about it and she hadn't ever seen any pictures (we don't have any). I was dumbfounded but can think of no explanation other than that the image was somehow seared into her memory.

She also has quite distinct memories of her 2nd birthday! And I remember some quite distinct things about my old house and my friend's house that date back to when I was only just 3. Especially the carpets!

Does she spend a lot of time on tik tok mental health problems and trauma seem to be the in thing at the minute, this is not trauma, I'd be surprised if she even remembers being this age and she is well and truly playing you and wasting mental health services that others genuinely need. Don't play into her fantasy it will make it worse

(Slightly off topic, but I do remember things in great detail from about 18 months, as does my brother, as do my children. DH doesn’t though, nor does his sister. Clearly it varies).

dc get mental health issues or become awkward teens who have only been cared for by their loving parent - There are some (expletive deleted) psychologists who will blame the mother in that case as being too protective (& read up on autism for mother blaming - take it from me you cannot win)
I would also wonder what she has been reading. I have a very good recollection of my childhood - but not as a two and half year old (unless there was some major trauma & the child won't remember the details, they would be seriously affected) I suspect your young lady is playing on your guilt
Motherhood is always a major guilt trip - you either do to much or not enough.

It's actually other kids mums who said her early years sound 'messed up' and 'not the way to bring a child up'

Get these people out of your life and your daughter’s life.

Get your daughter a new therapist.

There is no way she was traumatised by the nanny unless there is a huge drip feed (you didn’t see her for weeks on end, the nanny was abusive …)

She has simply picked up on this idea for the “other kids mums”. Absolutely toxic.

Good post!

1. I can remember when I was 2 years 2 months old. And 2 years 8 months. Both times were traumatic (the second one I was in a car hanging off the edge of a cliff with the sea underneath!).

1. The research shows that a stable caregiver (ie nanny) is just as good for attachment as a parent. Kids have attachments to more than one person and having a nanny around for years likely actually gave her more attachment benefit, not less! It could be argued that nanny leaving was traumatic, but unless you actually weren't around at all until she was 4, then she wouldn't have been psychologically harmed according to actual attachment research (rather than the pop research that appears online).

1. I hope if you haven't you ask her why she's not directing this at her father. If she's got sexist views about women's work then that needs to be addressed.

1. The woman who said all this to her is just talking bollocks!

1. Get her involved in some volunteer work, no more therapy about this. I'm involved in that field do know it has huge benefits, but I also know there are therapists quite willing to take money to discuss things when not focusing on it for an hour a week (minimum because maybe she got homework too) and having it validated by a professional can be beneficial too. Being self-centred is part of growing up but it does no harm to pack boxes at a local food bank for example, or for refugees - or something else - to help put their lives in some perspective. That may sound harsh but it's time for other ideas and people to be in her head alongside this one about you.

actually I have memories from younger than that....not coherent ones but definitely memories.

5 years of damaging children? Seems unethical.

I've left jobs because of ethical issues. Clearly you don't.

Sounds like a lovely secure attachment!

I do remember my dd occasionally crying when I came home from work because she was enjoying her game with the nanny's daughter and didn't want her to go home! Thankfully, nanny was very generous with her time and would usually sit and chat to me while they finished off their game!

I worked in playgroup which i think is an excellent setting for children, in the late 90s our setting choose to move into full daycare for babies aged 6 weeks+ 5 years later i left.

Christ I almost wish my DD cried for me at nursery - she’s off like a shot enjoying herself and then it’s all “daddy daddy” when we are at home! Mummy doesn’t get a look in and I doubt she’d notice if i disappeared as long as she had someone else to supply her with snacks 🤣

im a SAHM btw before anyone comments that I clearly haven’t bonded with her as I’ve been too busy at work 😉

I have two friends who have worked extensively in multiple nurseries. Both have said that the kids who cry when their parents leave them generally stop within seconds of the parents going out of the door. They have both used nursery care for their own kids, and haven't had any qualms about this. Though they have had opinions on which nurseries are better than others, inevitably.

No vested interests here as we didn't need to use nursery for our dd.

Judging the parents that have to work, want to work, need to work and use childcare, stating that children cry all day for their mummies and no one can handle the truth that nursery is a horrible desolate environment- having chosen childcare as your career- is unprofessional.

Focusing in on what the OP has actually said, it's clear that some other parent has told the dd that she had a "messed up" early childhood. The OP's dd appears to have bought into this and is now using it as a convenient peg on which to hang all of her insecurities. This is compounded by the guilt that her mum inexplicably seems to feel about having used a nanny when dd was small, despite observing that the child seemed perfectly happy at the time.

The problem with this approach is that it's a distraction from whatever the real issues are that are making the dd unhappy. Unless she can identify and address the real problem, she won't be able to work through what she is feeling to an extent that she can actually be happy.

Well I don’t think I had a nanny. Though I’m sure I was in childcare or some sort as my mum worked. The point is, no one remembers very much at all (if anything) about what they were doing when they were 2….

@IncognitoAF · Today 18:06
Women in the US often go back to work after six weeks, and there are not millions of traumatised people wailing about it.

There are a great many children with problems and depressed teenagers. Who knows why but maybe mothers going back to work at six weeks isn’t great.

@Skinnermarink · Today 16:57
I also hope I would never come across you as a childcare worker, @LowlandLucky as you sound deeply unprofessional.

There didn’t seem to be anything whatsoever @LowlandLucky said that was unprofessional.

She simply reported a fact that she had, in the course of her work at a nursery, seen many instances of small children being extremely upset without their mummy.