Frakkin, she does have a very good rapport with young children, so that's probably how she got in. But for me that is not the only requirement - you have to attend to their care in a very conscientious way if they are to be healthy and happy in the medium term. This means different things to different people, but I would say for the record that I do have four children, have been around the block a bit, and most of what I expect is the kind of mainstream stuff you see being done everywhere. In other words, I am not getting her to starch Christian Dior frilly baby pants, rock the baby for 45 minutes before every nap, or hunt down obscure Eastern tofu derivatives to feed them with. I just want the kids cleaned up now and then, wrapped up warm if they go out, encouraged to do homework and to see their friends, and fed something sensible and traditional when the occasion demands. Seriously, how hard can that be? The other (excellent) nanny from the place we don't mention thought this was an ideal first job for someone, so we were very hopeful. But that nanny was from the NNEB era and perhaps things were different then.
I think my nanny doesn't know how lucky she is. I had a friend who had a Princess Christian nanny for her PFB and she made her do all these peculiar macrobiotic-type foods, and spend half her life taking said PFB to a consultant paediatrician every time she got a sniffle, and got the nanny to supervise PFB like a hawk at every single kids' birthday party in case she ate a Malteser - there is none of that nonsense here.
But I am coming to the conclusion that most people who work in childcare are actually not very interested in it at all.
One sad thing is that I brought loads of really nice demonstration Froebel and Steiner equipment home from work the other day, to show her. I thought she'd really be interested and enjoy looking at them and testing the toys out - I worked as a nursery nurse for a couple of years in my early twenties when I was training as a teacher, and I loved doing all that stuff. However she just looked at it and didn't ask any questions or anything. I found it where I had left it the next day. No interest whatsoever. I think that says it all.
Perhaps one of the factors is that she is simply not very clever.