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’ve got asked for my youngest (who looks nothing like me), but not for my oldest (who looks a lot like me). i’m early 40. we are all white, but youngest is chubby, blond extrovert, oldest and i are petite with brown hair.

My experience though, suggests that not all of these responses are necessarily racist. Sorry that at least some of them must be, though

That was my earlier opinion. This thread has been quite sad to read. I’ve revised my opinion to the opposite proportions:

My experience though, suggests that not all of these responses are necessarily racist. Sorry that the majority seem to be, though.

I think it’s rude. Especially if your son clearly looks like you. I’m a black woman who lives in a very white dominated neighbourhood and I also have a mixed race daughter (fair skin with blue eyes, yet looks just like me)...I often get the weird looks but have never been asked if I’m her nanny. It’s rude, but from my personal opinion I think they felt more “comfortable” to ask you that but would be more careful if it was a person of colour. It’s hard for others to understand how offensive the question comes across if you aren’t the mother of a mixed race child.

I get asked if my middle son is mine, or if my children have the same dad a lot and it is offensive. My eldest son takes after me, dark skin, dark hair but my middle son has skin the colour of snow and blonde hair. My husband is pale but I am half Pakistani.

I’ve only had it happen once to me, my husband is Indian and I’m white British, my kids have paler skin but dark hair and eyes so don’t look like me or him! I was at a local playgroup with a group of other mums of a similar age with my youngest son and was the only parent asked by a visitor to the group promoting the local children and family centre if I was my sons childminder. Of all the people who should understand mixed race families! 🤦‍♀️

I get asked if I’m my sons enabler regularly (he is disabled). It upsets me, though I have no idea why really.

When my 2 children were about 8 and 10 we went abroad for a holiday .. Just the 3 of us as hubby had left to be with someone else.. Mmm
Anyway this couple from London were staying in the same hotel. I didnt know them. They had 3 small children say 2, 5 and 8? They would leave the children without money every day so they tagged on to us and I fed and looked out for them. Everyone commented. They thought I was a nanny or children's nurse
The parents were steaming drunk the whole holiday
Poor children
They just laughed when I tried to talk to them about it
I just did what I could

"a decent area"

A DECENT area? Seriously?

I do think it is odd that you were asked if you were the nanny. Even when I was the nanny, I was never asked ( I must have looked really old at 22!)

I think there is possibly some ignorance and unconscious bias going on - I think people genuinely do go White child, White adult - Bingo - must be the parent. I'm not one of those people but I am sure it happens but not in a sinister or malicious way - ignorance is no defence, though.

I always assume an adult with a child is a relative. That's pretty usual and race/ethnicity does not come into that process.

I think I must have a fearsome resting bitch face as I have never been asked if my DC are adopted (they are), if they have different fathers (yes, different mothers too) or if I'm the nanny, despite the fact that I'm white and one DC is half white/half DH's ethnicity and the other is a quarter white/half DH's ethnicity/quarter something entirely different.

I have been assumed to be their grandmother quite a bit, but I had them fairly late in life so am old enough to be their grandmother (just) and have grey hair.

The funniest thing was I had a good friend who lived nearby when I just had one child, she has a child the same age as mine and she is my DH's ethnicity and married to a white man and when we were out together people were forever asking if our DCs were twins. We always wondered afterwards which one of us they thought was the mother but never though to ask at the time. To be fair, they probably thought I was the grandmother.

My DD is mixed race and looks nothing like me. People do often ask me if she’s mixed, or where her Dad is from, but they’ve never assumed I am the nanny. Maybe it’s because I look too old and haggard- clearly a new mum, not a hot young nanny .

Yes happens to me a lot. My kids are mixed race, that will be why!

I think it's a racial thing, I was going to say oh my mum had been asked what having such a big age gap between me and my "sister" (actually my daughter) is like when we were out together but they said nanny, not mentioning your age. Most nannies are in their 20s. My friend is white and her baby is half Pakistani and she has been assumed to be a non-family member before. Perhaps not typical nasty racism, but nonetheless it's racial

I used to get that alot with my middle one (my DH and I are both white so not a racism thing for us).
I think it was to do with the fact we were in quite an affluent area and there were a fair few nannies, but also a lot of sahm’s.
Middle DC was an awful sleeper-at least 8 times a night until about 15m, so it couldn’t have have been the fact that that I was youthful and radiant.
He still looks like a clone of his dad, don’t know where my 50% is hiding. So I think it was more that aspect. Still felt miffed though. Also had to find provide paperwork linking the two of us at UK passport control coming (I hadn’t yet changed my passport from my maiden name). That’s never happened with DC1 despite the fact that we have never shared a surname.

Is definitely the race thing. That's the first people will notice. The facial similarities takes longer to notice

I get asked if I'm a child minder all the time. I have 4 children very close in age and they assume that I can't have possibly birthed them all 😂 "no they are all mine" is a sentence i say almost daily. I wouldn't mind but they are almost clones of each other so they clearly have come from the same place 😂

Sometimes I pretend I'm the cleaner when I answer the door, if I don't want to talk to people.

I was asked this constantly with my first as we have polar opposite colouring. She looks like her Dad. But Boone has asked me with my youngest as she is a mini me. It has never bothered me being asked. I just took it as meaning I looked like I knew what I was doing!

This thread has given me a lot to think about. As a former nanny working in a very nanny-heavy area, I'd always ask if they were nanny or mum/dad in playgroup etc to pass the time, as any other question, it was 7 out of 10 times they were a nanny or occasionally childminder. My own experiences were if I met someone and had a chat, if there were in fact the parent as soon as they found out I was just a nanny they'd be off. It's hard to have conversations with people knowing they may look down on me as just 'the help' which sadly happened more often than it should. And I've been asked just as many times if I was nanny or mum, regardless of the child/ren I was with. I've been with a mixed-race white/middle eastern family, a black family, and several white families, caring for children who could look related to me or not at all, but if asked nanny or mum? I'd assume they'd genuinely want to know based on the likelihood I was a nanny.

I made quite a few friends in that area, some of whom I still talk to (I had to move far away now) some to say hello to, some friendly enough to go on playdates or invite over. And all of them were nannies like me, most late 20s to 40s, most career nannies. I found it never ever progressed to more than a quick chat with a parent, once they found out I was a nanny. But that's just my limited experience, from a very nanny heavy area.

I would be more offended if I was classed as older, I would think you lived in an area a bit like mine where they have doctors etc and some have nannies

I get this an awful lot. All my DC are the spit of their dad, and look nothing like me. I’m young too so people assume I couldn’t have had 4 children. It doesn’t bother me really.

I wouldn't be offended! As a black woman with 2 black kids i'm always asked if i'm either their childminder, nanny or older sister. And the most recent, i was asked if my 16yr old son is my husband - he is 6ft6 broad like an american NFL player hahaha and i'm 5ft5 slime and petite so we do look like a couple sometimes even if not dressed up for a party lol. I've even had a girl from his school when he was in year 7 or year 8 that liked him and everytime i'd pick him up after school will give me dirty looks only to find out later that she thought i was his girlfriend. I'm 35 but still get mistaken for 18 or 25 which is nice at times but now he has started college and wont let me go with him for anything that requires a parent to attend so my dad goes instead as even a few teachers there also thinks i'm his sister and its starting to annoy him. I really wouldn't let it upset you OP

Better than being mistaken for the grandma.

I’ve had the same quite a lot. I’m white (blonde) and my husband is Indian, and even though our kidś complexions fall in the middle they are still clearly not white. Strangers would always comment they look like my husband but actually their features are like mine. I would also get the nanny question but as pp often from other nannies who just wanted to find friends I assume.

Worse was a pre-kids experience when we went out with friends who also were a mixed couple but the man was white and the woman Indian. They had a little girl at the time and she was very fair - not obvious mixed-race. Everyone from the taxi driver to the waiter at the restaurant told ME „what a gorgeous little girl you have“, even while she was being held by her mother! It was so bizarre and mortifying all around!

I used to get asked the same thing all the time. It was nothing to do with race in my case though, my children are the same ethnicity as me. It was to do with perceived age.

My children went to a private school where the average parental age was older than me, plus I looked younger than my years (not any more!), so it was assumed that I was the ‘help’ rather than the parent. I’ll be honest, it was funny the first couple of times it happened but after that it just got on my nerves.