Asked if I'm the nanny a lot

[doadeer]

... Was at baby group with DS 10 months yesterday, I was asked 3 times if I was the nanny. It's happened about 5 times before.

Is this strange?

I'm trying to think why.... I'm 29 but been told I look a bit younger and the average age of mums in my area is late 30s... Also DS is mixed race though he does look very like me.

Would you be offended if people kept asking if you were the nanny?

I’d assume you were in a decent area

As opposed to an indecent area.......?

Why have you only partly quoted the poster? She said "where nannies are the norm". You can't deny that there are "good" areas (posh) and are everything from there down to pretty "rough". At the bottom of the scale, no one would assume you were the nanny, at the top end it's way more likely.

No-one's ever asked me either, I must look suitably wrecked.

Indecent area .

I have been mistaken for the nanny, DD and I both white, I am in my forties. It was a very kind older gentleman who asked. He said he had based it on the fact that I wore very sensible clothes and interacted so much with my DD on the bus we were on (she was about 2 at the time). Apparently I reminded him of his old nanny a long time ago and he so many mums today were too distracted to play with their children.

So many of my friends and I have experienced this but it has never happened to anyone who is the same race as their DCs.

I'm the same race as DD, but from EE with quite an obvious accent and DD is English through and through..name,accent ,looks etc.

The bias is obvious, for anyone that is at the other end of it. No, I didn't take it as a compliment.

I have been asked this a lot since DS started school. It’s not that unusual to have mothers in their early twenties where I am but it doesn’t happen at our school. Children are also mixed race like yours, I’d never wondered whether that was a part of it but not that I think about it my children are often assumed to belong to my husband’s family and rarely attributed to me. I do actually look like them but I guess I’m not brown and people in our area are a bit racist. I’m not offended though, a lot of people do have nannies and very few people where we are are wealthy enough to opt for a much younger wife.

I used to get asked if I was my child's mother (but we are not in an area where nanny's are the norm). I definitely put it down to casual racism - inability for people to believe that a mixed race adult could have a blonde, blue eyed child.

@crazychemist

Of course it's insulting. If people assume something about you based on your race, and no other information, it's racist and it's demeaning.

I've been accused of being the nanny, because DS and I are different colours. (A popular attraction in London assumed that I as the nanny was fraudulently using DS's mum's membership card. I was not amused, as it was my card.)

There's no excuse for it. Mixed-race and blended families have been the norm for a long, long time.

My DM use to get asked this about me all the time, but she was 19 when she had me and my grandparents paid for me to got a naice school where everyone had a nanny so I suppose it’s not surprising.

Take it as a compliment - you look young!

Well it wouldn't be the norm in my very working class area no nobody I know has a nanny , I think it's very rude to make assumptions .

🙄

Cross post, I was responding to Lady

@FenenellaMaxwell there is a mum whose son was in my son's class who was about 15 years younger than the rest of us, old and worn out. We thought originally she might be the nanny as she was so young and pretty and there are a fair few nannies around! She became a good friend. Don't assume it is something negative.

@Grandmi Ermm cannot really work out the context of this post!! Why should you be offended?
Try reading the thread?

I’m mixed raced and my DH white. My DD has none of my complexion. When I am out with friends people always talk to my friends about “their” daughter and just assume I am the one holding (and feeding and changing!) her. I’m not offended either I find it funny.

Turn it around and ask them the same question. Smile and say 'No, I'm their mother. How about you, are you a Nanny?' They will be stuck for words trying to figure out how to justify themselves without mentioning skin colour

@Boxticker, apologies if I’ve offended. It was a genuine question, I just meant it’s more likely that you’ll look physically different from your child. Obviously it’s insulting if what they’re assuming has a negative connotation, but I didn’t think it would be demeaning to make an incorrect assumption if there would be nothing bad if your assumption was the case.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realise that it's insulting when someone denies the possibility that a mixed race couple could even exist!!

I used to get this. I am mixed-race and look generically like a south-Asian woman who is a bit paler than the average S-Asian woman. I also look young for my age and had my kids aged 24/25 in an area where most mums were considered young if they were a good ten years older than me. When my son was a toddler he had beautiful caramel-coloured hair and fair skin and it was a semi-regular occurrence at toddlers' groups to be asked if I was the nanny / babysitter or some kind of "delicate" pussyfooting around the question. I did think he looked like me, but his colouring was different.

My kids are older now and look more like me (both have gotten darker as they've got older, although my daughter still has beautiful green eyes) and within five minutes they'll probably have whined "but MUMMMMMM-EEEEEE" so no-one mistakes me for the nanny any more

If anyone ever asks a personal question I always say 'why do you want to know?'
The questioner is then made to think about the reasons for their prying.

crazychemist You're right - most people would assume someone with a child was their parent. So for people to make a different assumption means they are using racial bias. So they are treating someone differently on account of their race/ethnicity. Which is pretty much the definition of racism.

**QueenoftheBiscuitTin

What sort of person goes around asking questions like this? **

Exactly what I was thinking, why would you immediately think that, let alone ask ?

Some people eh

Yep, happens a lot. I am mixed race, my kids are very fair and one has blue eyes. I tend to just roll my eyes now. It's so ignorant to not even consider that someone might actually be in a mixed race relationship and have fair children.
You'll get the casual racism deniers which is classic mumsnet unfortunately.

LOL! My sister was a nanny and when she introduced herself to a (dotty) old lady as such the reply was 'grandchildren are such a joy aren't they?' - she was 24!!!!!