Would you sack nanny over this?

[YourMerryBrickRobin]

AHave name changed as potentially outing.

Nanny has been with us for 6 years, since our joint biological eldest turned 1 (DH has two kids aged 18 and 14, eldest lives with us full time youngest visits in school holidays)

We have never really had any problems although we will admit a boundary has been slightly pushed lately but we let it go- her long term boyfriend was left homeless, so we agree he could TEMPORARILY move on but would be in the caravan outdoors as he wasn’t DBS checked and didn’t want him staying in the house. He seems a nice enough guy and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t harm my children and appreciate a DBS doesn’t stop that, but it was a boundary we put in place.

He started coming into the house around the DC while we weren’t there. Got a bit more annoyed, but chose not to rock the boat as Nanny is a diamond

Anyway today- she left our youngest (9 months) in the care of her boyfriend while she went and collected DS from nursery, which is literally a 5 minute walk away. Reason being- we had DDs car seat in our car. She didn’t attempt to contact either me or DH (we are both self employed and always within 10-15 miles of home) despite noticing this morning when she was going to take her to the park (DH dropped DS off, we have 2 same stage car seats hence why it wasn’t an issue with DS this morning)

Im pissed off if I’m honest. Like I said, nice enough guy but don’t know him well enough to look after my child even if it was for under 10 minutes

AIBU?

I wouldnt get my boyfriend to step in and cover me at my work. I think you are really starting to blur the lines here with them. Her nany insurance wouldnt cover him looking after your children. I would talk to her about the inplications if she cant drae a line between personal and work then I would be letting her go . I wouldnt be letting a random man live in my garden either tbh.

I was a Nanny.
You have trusted this person for 6 years to look after your children.
She tells you herself that she did it once.
Now instead of a friendly chat about how your unhappy to have had this happen, and for it not to happen again, you have gone Boss mode.

Well I hope you lose your Nanny.
I hope the new one is not a patch on this treasure, and you wish you had given yourselfs a shake....

Because I left my job and 5 years later my old bosses still asked me to return as the new one was a nightmare....

Completely irrelevant.

The situation in this thread has nothing to do with how good you were as a nanny.

OP’s nanny has made a serious mistake. You don’t leave your boyfriend in your employers home to cover your job. He should never have been part of her thought process when deciding on what to do. She made the wrong decision and it should have serious consequences.

Yes it does, bare relevance because like when I Nannyed and became like family, this couple have gotten used to trusting their Nanny.
All the children know her.
The baby knows her.
The family will in a million ways get extras from this Nanny relationship, she told you herself that she just didn't think and I bet would never do it again.
So if she leaves your going to leave your children with a stranger, who might have a certificate, but could be a nightmare.

Yes, I mentioned this myself

Sadly, homelessness isn't all that unusual and he may be totally blameless in the situation ... or he may not, and since he's already shown a lack of judgement in being alone with someone else's child in this situation I very much doubt OP would get a full or accurate story even if she asked

I remain increasingly gobsmacked by the replies on here.

People saying ' He's 'probably fine. OP thinks he's a nice guy so its ok. Is that all children deserve? That's parents should trust their children to the sole care of acquaintance men because they are ' probably' decent?

PP saying ' its so awful that you see paedophiles everywhere'. Well no. Its a basic principle of child care that you see them everywhere - its literally your job to be alert for signs of predators and abuse. Anyone working with children should be aware their line of work will attract paedophiles and they need to safeguard their charges against this ever present risk. Its awful that its like this but it has to be. Blame the paedophiles for this, not the people wanting to ensure children are safe.

PP saying ' it may have been okay for the nanny to leave the baby with the boyfriend if she went in an ambulance' NO! Then it would have been the responsibility of the emergency services to take the baby into their care until s/he could be re-united with parents. Absolutely no bloody way should the baby be left with the boyfriend in that situation.

PP saying that the nanny should work in a formal child care setting where the nursey won't care so much about her lack of judgement over her boyfriend. NO! No child care setting would touch an applicant with a reference saying they had done this! Its the most fundamental safeguarding risk imaginable. It just screams that she doesn't understand the most basic principle of her role. Its says clearly that she cannot be trusted to keep children safe.

Its easy to see how groomers manage to groom from this thread. So many posters here have so easily been lulled into a false sense of security about this man, simply from a few lines in a post. Just imagine how easy these posters would be to groom in real life!

Look, I had a child psychologist in my home to assess my eldest. The session overran a bit and I told him I would have to go in 5 mins to collect my youngest from school around the corner. He was absolutely clear that no way could he be left alone in the house with my son. Because people who work with children understand this as the most basic principle of working with children.

Its possible that this young man was just remarkable ignorant and did not understand why he should be alone with a baby. Its also possible that he targeted a nanny, concocted a story about how he had nowhere to live and nowhere to go to so he could move into her employers, and has been gradually and deliberately been eroding boundaries ever since, till he reached the ultimate goal of all child sex offenders of being trusted enough to be left alone with a child. There's certainly enough red flags there to make one more, not less, suspicious of this man.

And its 100 percent certain the nanny is not responsible enough to work with children.

I think she has breached your trust in a very serious way, so despite the fact she has a good record in other ways, I think you would be right to terminate the employment.

This. You really should not have done this.

Nannied fyi @Bollindger

Every nanny starts out as a stranger..

Dear God,
How do any of you manage to let your child out of your sight, with rants about how every person is a groomer?
According to justonemoresleep the boyfriend is part of a broadchurch plot. Do ITV know, ?

I would not sack her, but I would give her boyfriend two weeks notice to move out and tell her if she ever leaves the DC with anyone else ever again, she will be sacked.

If you can read this situation and think the parents are in the wrong to think of dismissing the nanny, rather than the nanny who has done wrong, it is just as well you are no longer a nanny. You are not someone who should work with children if you think this was a mere ' lapse of judgement'.

Nor does the fact you think parents seeking to protect their children deserve spiteful hopes of revenge speak well of your character or your concern for children.

@Justonemoresleep you are wrong about one thing, the nanny would get a nursery job. They are paid just above minimum wage and struggling to recruit. Someone would take her.

I'm saying its a possibility. How do you think groomers operate? A couple of years ago I read a post from a 'gentle parenting' expert, quite a well known one. She had just found out her child's lovely dentist had just been convicted of child sex abuse. He had groomed a family who were his patients and won their trust and used it to befriend them to the extent that they left him alone with their daughter, whom he then sexually abused.

You can call me names all you like to blind yourself to the reality of this. And as I posted upthread, I know someone in real life who was groomed by a paedophile so he could access her baby. As I also said upthread, I know two child protection social workers who had two male colleagues who were dismissed after being charged and then convicted of child sex offences. One worked in a children's care home. Do you notice the common thread of child sex offenders being attracted to people and situations that bring them into contact with children?This reality of doesn't fit your glib dismissal but there we go, its still real.

Nice hyperbole btw, but no-one is ranting that every person is a groomer. But if you work with children you do have to assume everyone may be. If you had ever worked in a setting with children you would quickly see how policies and procedures are organised around this basic principle.

When I nannied, I was the one who was worried about an older man, whom the parents liked, who acted funnily towards the older of the children, I refused to take my day off, refused to let this man alone with the children, even when he offered to babysit, I said I was sick, they could take him for a meal.
I told them , I was very worried. I was very worried, they ignored me. Thank god I refused to do what my bosses said.
2 months later this man was caught by the police. The parents were in shock.

We all make mistakes, we are human.

This does not mean they were not fit to look after children....

Bollindger, did the parents apologise to you when he was caught?

This is sensible.

I think boundaries have been crossed here, to a worrying degree, but you've been complicit in that by letting the BF stay (appreciate you were doing that with the best of intentions though).

You need to fix that situation first and then be firm.

That may be the case but that is just a sign of how badly our early years system has been let down by chronic lack of prioritisation and funding by the government.

@Justonemoresleep I agree

I'm fairly relaxed as a parent, though am well beyond babies/ young children phase, but this would be an absolute red line for me. I grew up with a family where this had been the set up and it went very very badly wrong. Not worth the risk

Yes, they were so scared.
I had to hold the mums hands and tell her this man had never been alone with the children.
She had invited him to stay for a weekend, it was a big house.

You were a child care professional who stuck firmly to safeguarding principles.

This thread is about an experienced child care professional who threw aside basic safeguarding principles, putting a child at risk.. That is a professional who should not work with children.

Genuine question. Is a nanny who has been with you 6 years covered by employment legislation? Can you sack without go through certain procedures?

@Justonemoresleep Remember though nannies do not need to have any qualifications. So you can get young women who are great with kids but little training who need parents to set clear boundaries.