Letting go nanny of 20 years....

[dolphin56]

This weekend my youngest daughter got her drivers license, so she is now able to take herself places, and dissolving the role of our nanny. We have had our nanny for 20 years (since my oldest was 3 months old), so my youngest has known her for her whole life. She has picked my daughter up from school every day, taken her to sports/activities, organized around the house, started dinner, and cleaned the house (every Fri for additional $). Both my daughter and our nanny has known this day to be coming for a while, but I can tell my daughter is very upset and sad as she has been with our nanny for hours each day and still remembers adventures they went on from preschool. Our nanny has had a very tough life, having lived in Brazil and having her husband shot and killed right in front of her and her 4 children. She had to leave her kids and come to America (where we took her in to work for us) and send $ back to her family in Brazil. Even though she doesn't speak English very well, my daughter understand her the best because they are around each other the most (and she is taking Spanish). Obviously I am emotional as this woman has spent a third of her life (she is 60 now) looking after my 2 daughters. We would all love for her to stay, but nothing is forever and my daughter clearly doesn't need someone watching her approaching her senior year of high school. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Odd that she's managed to learn Spanish fine. But not English, despite living in an English speaking country, in an English speaking workplace, for 20 years.

I expect we will never get an explanation for this, or the many other inconsistencies since I doubt the op will be back.

Wow - If the OP has chosen to employ a nanny until her youngest child is 16 then that's her own business.

I think if you are treating your employee of 20 years fairly and providing her with redundancy and have contributed to a pension plan over the past 20 years then that will ease the transition for you all as she will be financially secure for some time.
You can also provide excellent references and recommendations to family and friends who may be looking for additional support and in the UK in redundancy situations it is common for an employer to provide a pot of money for retraining.

If on the other hand you have been employing her illegally, paying her in cash and have not contributed anything towards her retirement or redundancy then quite frankly I hope you all find it hard to live with yourselves.

'The Help' all over...

I find it sad that youre concerned at your daughter being sad about the nanny leaving (well, not leaving, youre getting rid of her) while her own children havent had her for 20 years as she has been raising yours.