My nanny got cosmetic surgery and can’t work

[Crispychillifriedbeef]

We live overseas and we have a full time nanny. She also does cleaning, laundry, cooking etc. This is normal for the culture here. Everyone has a housekeeper / nanny / driver. We pay her well and she’s part of the family, she’s been with us 18 months with no problems.

My husband works full time and I’m a writer and a part time student. We have a small child at school and a two year old who is at home but attends an educational setting part time. My husband and I go to lots of events so need evening cover.

Anyway, we have been in our home country for 3 weeks over Christmas and the nanny has had 3 weeks paid leave. She sends me a WhatsApp today saying “I’ve had cosmetic surgery done” with various photos. She is expecting to be off work for 3-4 weeks. We come back to the country tomorrow so we’re expecting to see her tomorrow.

AIBU to be annoyed? This was sprung on me at the last minute.

School isn’t childcare.

I think you live where we used to live OP. Laughing at all the mad comments on paying your salary and judgment for having a nanny etc 😂 it’s what’s done over there , and we didn’t have family who could help - and the people employed doing it loved their job and were well looked after. I used to do that job but in England and it’s not demeaning or anything like that the people on here are making it out to be- that’s offensive- I used to love my job and it’s a career.

But back to the point- yes she’s being really unreasonable. Is she good and worth keeping?

Update: nanny has agreed to come back after one week off. We had a conversation where she said she was happy working for us and didn’t want to leave. There were some tears and I’m not really a teary person so that was awkward.

I explained that I need planned notice for elective (cosmetic) surgery and it won’t be paid time off unless she is using annual leave for it.

I asked out of curiosity if she is planning on any more surgery and she said she is saving for a breast enhancement. My reply was “fine but please give me advance notice!” She is planning to book over the summer when we are back in our home country apparently.

Thanks for the comment.

Yes she is really good and reliable (apart from this) and the children love her. I have friends who have had problems like too much phone usage, being late, stealing etc. She takes the children to soft play, parks and birthday parties etc. She is happy using the taxi app to get round which not everybody is.

She is a trained nurse in this country but gets twice as much being a nanny / housekeeper and has openly said it’s much easier. My friend’s housekeeper previously worked in a five star hotel (a lot of ladies have hotel backgrounds) and she has said working for a (nice) family is much easier than hotel work and pays much more.

The only thing I would say is she is really into Instagram but everybody here is! She would never post photos of the children or our house but she does post photos of our cat.

A lot of men are unemployed at the moment and the wives doing these jobs are the sole income providers for their households. We do pay fairly, with bonuses etc. I like to think we are reasonable employers.

She's played you...

Correction: every expat family here (from whatever country they are from) has some kind of paid nanny / housekeeper / driver or all three.

Most middle class local families have a maid.

I know some local very wealthy families who have multiple nannies and maids.

This is “normal” for life here and I imagine in many other countries.

Tbh I am keeping an eye open for when friends leave to see if I could possibly hire someone else. To some extent it’s better the devil you know.

I can't help but laugh at all the posters who claim that she's slave labour and paid a pittance. Some pittance if she can afford a nose job, an eye lift, and in another six months, a boob job!

I was thinking the same!

OP, there are clearly a lot of people who may have travelled as tourists but have no local knowledge/insight into other countries and cultures - their ignorance shows in their comments.

I used to travel overseas with work and on numerous occasions it was commented upon that I don't have a nanny/house keeper (eg when I said that my husband was looking after the children at home while I was away). This is the custom in many Asian countries for all the reasons you have previously stated.

And with regard to us, the tax payer, funding it, I think this is a ridiculous comment - do we question everything a teacher/ firefighter/ Dr buys with their salary? However, I'm torn over the tax payer paying private school boarding fees for diplomatic and military families, but that's a different argument.

Honestly this thread has been eye opening for me (no pun intended 😂).

Some people have a total lack of imagination about other people’s lives, and other parts of the world. And then the immediate moral judgement made about whether something or someone is good or bad, right or wrong. It’s such a huge part of what’s wrong with our society these days. It actually boils down to people not being interested in the world, or being able to put themselves in someone else’s shoes for one moment. It’s so much easier to go immediately to goodies vs baddies.

I wonder if it’s also the ‘done thing’ in this country for relatively wealthy men to use sex workers and if the OP and others would be so blasé about that as they are domestic labour.

I pressed YABU by mistake. Glad you are not being placed in a lengthy absence situation. She was unreasonable. I would expect her to take annual leave for that kind of cosmetic surgery.

What an astonishingly false equivalence. I have no idea why you think that relevant to this thread.

I have a cleaner, here in the UK. Do you honestly think that has any equivalent at all to a local man seeing a sex worker?

Here's an example of how normal is is in some countries, to have domestic staff.

A friend of mine is in a similar situation to OP. She has a housekeeper and a driver/odd job man. Both those staff members have staff of their own! Her housekeeper has a nanny, and her driver has a housekeeper!

It's really not just the upper echelons and diplomats that live this way (and this is in a poor country). It's not remotely unusual, at least in the towns and cities, and without it the poorest would have no income at all.

Just because something is out of the realms of one's experience, doesn't make it wrong or exploitative. If you treat your employees well, then you've provided valuable employment, just as I provide (two hours worth) of employment to my cleaner.

Normal for wealthy people - the majority of the population do not have household help and more comfortable lives.

She's not the devil though tbf.

This sounds like the one and only time there's been an issue.

You've said you're unhappy, she's reducing her time off request to a third.

You've laid out the rules if she wants to have any more surgery so she's now fully aware of what's expected and what's unacceptable.

Wipe the slate clean. She seems good at her job. Up until now you've been very happy with her, your children love her and she's been very reliable.

She doesn't deserve one strike and she's out. If something happens again then fair enough but give her a chance. Noone is perfect. She's made a mistake, you've sorted a solution out so let it go and move on.

Absolutely!

Neither is eating in a restaurant or having your rubbish taken away.

Many people on here really don't get that it works differently in other countries. In India if you are middle class (which is not the same as UK middle class) you are expected to hire one or more domestic maids. If you don't then people will judge you for not supporting locals. It is so common to have a driver and security too if you are of a standard with UK middle class. It isn't luxury, it is seen as a social obligation and it also creates jobs for people. UK is oddly judgy about people paying for help with anything. If you don't do it all yourself and wear yourself down gradually into a joyless stump, you are clearly lazy and spoiled!

I’m genuinely uncomfortable with that comparison.

Employing a nanny is a lawful, contractual care arrangement that exists in every society. Comparing childcare or domestic work to sex work is inappropriate and demeaning to both professions.

We can disagree about personal choices without resorting to analogies that strip people of dignity.

When DS was in the UAE it was expected that you hire people if you were a couple or family. The workers were there on licence , sending money home to family.

@Crispychillifriedbeef I suspected this employee would have more surgery in the pipeline. Do some research on recovery time after breast surgery. She may not be able to lift etc. for some time.

This is a remarkable leap.

She is a paid employee with a contract, autonomy, and the right to make decisions about her own body. Being surprised by the timing of a long absence is not the same as thinking anyone needs my “permission”.

Using childcare does not mean my children are “brought up by someone else”, any more than nurseries, grandparents or after-school clubs mean that for millions of families.

My post was about lack of notice and logistics, not about controlling another adult or not wanting to spend time with my children.

The repeated use of words like “slave” says far more about the assumptions being brought to this thread than about my family.

This is exactly the contradiction I’m struggling with.

On other threads, diplomatic spouses are told very clearly that attendance at evening events is expected and opting out regularly isn’t realistic. Here, I’m being told that going to those same events means I don’t value time with my children and shouldn’t have had them.

Both things can’t be true at once.

My children spend the vast majority of their time with us. Using childcare for evenings doesn’t mean they are “raised by someone else”, and being frustrated by a sudden loss of childcare doesn’t equate to not wanting to parent.

This was about notice and logistics, not a referendum on whether I deserve to be a mother.

I have no idea what you mean.