My Nanny is so superior ...

[jonquil]

I feel as though I am in an impossible situation at the moment. We moved home back in September and found a nanny for our two children who started in October. We thought she was marvellous to begin with .. fully qualified, went to one of the best nanny schools, well educated, full of energy. She is now turning out to be my worst nightmare and not at all like the nanny we had in London.

Our new nanny drives our girls EVERYWHERE clocking up mileage at 40 p per mile .. and taking it upon herself to buy things we "need" at Tesco all the time and presenting us with a nice £40 bill at the end of the week.

I can forgive that as I just need to be stronger on that (even though she makes me feel very mean for telling her to cut it out).

My main concern is that she is just so superior. Everything I say, she has been there, done it, knows better than me on everything. If I tell her my younger daughter has had a bad night, it's "because she has 16 teeth and the molars are trying to push through". My eldest daughter now apparently has IBS and we shouldn't be allowing her to suffer by giving her her current diet (full of fruit and veg and really healthy stuff).

It's driving me insane and I find that instead of telling her I think she's being patronising and superior, I bottle it all up and take it out on husband!

Sorry to ramble, but has anyone else experienced something similar?

oh come on with all this inferior, humble and subservient shite. don;t you find people who act superior irritating? don't you find people who tell you stuff about your own kids annoying? doesn;t mean jonquil wants her to be inferior or humble. perhaps she just wants her to be helpful and easy to get on with...

yes, BOT slaps own hand for same transgression

sycamore - think I just did it too! sits on hands...

too f'in right hatwoman. I agree.

Obviously my lame attempt at diplomacy did not work. See, not everyone has the knack!

No, I could never understand a scenario where someone else looks after my kid.

If that's what being middle-class is all about, then I will happily shove it up my perfect arse.

yes des, and the words 'I' and 'My' are kind of relevent to your last post. is it so hard to see that we are not all the same? and if we were it would be a bit fucking odd?

and at the old class crap thrown in as well, even with a little winky face to make it seem like youre joking

Ignore Desi - she's just been hounded off another post I OP'd for spoiling for a fight. She's a monkey, with an itch to scratch tonight .

PS Colditz, no, you were very diplomatic, but had to post from another perspective! Seemed like you thought Nanny's ought to behave like Matron from Carry On whatever!

Desi [yawn] pulling the old inverted snobbery thing again, I see.

I would assume differently to you, that having to work and use child care is the preserve of the working classes as well as the middle classes. Some people, who you are sneering at, have to work to pay the bills. Hey ho! If it makes you feel better just carry on sneering

Blimey .. didn't think my post would cause such a heated debate. No, I don't want her to be "inferior". I chose this nanny over a whole host of others BECAUSE she was intelligent, capable and energetic. My last nanny was the same but just SO easy to get along with. We clicked and became friends. If I met this nanny at a playgroup I now think I would find her just as irritating as all those competive mothers out there who think they know everything and have no time for anyone else's opinions. Rather like one comment above, I am really easy going and just let things ride over me. However, four months into this relationship, yes, she is making me feel like the child in my own home.

Letting her go is not an option for various reasons, so I will use the very helpful advice offered.

Many thanks

Don't have much advice, just wanted to sympathise. I think a few dismissive comments will get the message across (but in the nicest way) - such as Harriet's suggestion of 'well we like to leave that to her doctor'. My last nanny would have made suggestions at times (she wanted the naughty step, I thought DD was too young). I found that by saying something like 'I see your point, but I really would rather do this' helped.

My MIL was a pediatric dentist, and I have always found that telling people that is a great way of stopping 'helpful' advice & observations about teething. Maybe you could invent a pediatric dentist friend?

Also, does your DH find her as irritating? Is it possible to rearrange your work schedule so that he is doing even one of the daily handovers?

Alternatively, you could try having a handover book, where you jot down any observations, and don't have to get into extended discussions.

Jonquil, I think you need to tighten the rains and take back the control that is righfully yours. Your nanny works for you, and it is indisputable her job to do as you say (within the terms of the contract of course).

I had a nanny once who believed she knew better than I did. She was about 15 years my senior, and had raise two daughters as a single mum in Estonia. She had grown up under Soviet occupation in Estonia, yet manged to hold three dgrees -- one in veterinary madicine, one in helth/nutrition scicence, and I can't remember the third. She was undoubteldy overqualified for the position of nanny. She wanted more responsibility that I was prepared to delegate. For example, she was once genuinely offended that I did send her to the GP with DD and instead chose to take DD myself. She believed very much in holisitc medicine, and I prefer the tried and tested modern medical world of prescription drugs. She was convinced DD was alergic to polyester and wanted me to replace her wardrobe with only organic cotton clothes. When DD had a fever she suggested "vodka socks" . She refused to give DD eggs for breakfast because she insisted the first meal must be at least 75% carbohydrate. I asked her to feed DD at set meal times. Ater this nmanny left I realised she had done no such thing. This nanny left when I began maternity leave for DS (when DD was 25 months) and DD would refuse everything I put in fron of her and demand toast instead. She would refuse meals and demand bits and pieces of food throughout the day. OOOOOHHHHH WAS I MAD.

I was about to terminate her employment when she handed me her resignation. And it was such a relief.

If you do not take control of the situation you will very likely find yourself where I was.

And, please do not lose sight of the fact that she works for you. You pay her (a substantila sum of?) money, and in return she does what you ask her to do. This is generally how it works when you are someone's employee.

The frist things I would do:

1. Establish a grocery list. She can add things, and you go buy them (or shop online). This way you control the budget, and she gets some say in what food she comes into the house with. Just tell her you need to tighten the reigns on the spending for your own budgetary reasons.

1. Install a nanny diary, where at the very least you ask her to write down all food consumed, nap times, and a quick summary of what they did during the day. Oh, and of course any illness or medicines given.

1. Cap the miles (and other expenses). My nanny gets £30 for her mobile, a greater london bus pass, and £70 every month. She can spend it however she likes, but that all she gets. She does sometimes ask for £10 to go get fresh fruit at the market, which is fine. But, she is defiatle not given free reigh to buy whatever she wants and I'll reimburse her.

I think your nanny thinks she knows better than you do. She perhaps means well. But she is sounds very smug. And that is antittude I would appreciate from any employee. I would definitely remind her who works for whom.

Oh my God. What is Hatwoman going to say about my many many dreadful typos and grammatical error?

^^

errors

Similar to Nannynick's solution on petrol costs, I had a contract which paid up to a certain mileage each week (based on 30 miles a day which covered all the school and playgroup runs plus a trip swimming say). Anything above that we would discuss on an individual basis eg trips to the seaside etc.

The partonising aspect is harder to deal with in someone of this age. I think that you just have to stick to your guns with "This is how we want to parent" comments. Possibly it could be time for a semi-annual review and you could try and tackle it there? "I know that you have lots of vvaluable experience, but sometimes it does feel as if you are being a bit patronising?"

I appreciate that you don't want to part with her, but actually if she is causing you a lot of stress than that isn't great for your home life, and you may wish to rethink. Good luck!

my first nanny was like this and i kept her for 2 1/2 years because i kept rationalising that she meant well, the children are well cared for etc etc. she resigned in the end which saved me from having to terminate her, which was a huge relief. now i have new nanny, i realised you can have a very dependable nanny that is also easy to get on with. No stress life, that is what you should aim for! Embarassingly, since nanny1 left, i have been inundated with stories from neighbours on how patronising she has been with neighbours and their children (oh you shouldn't be doing this, doing that, is he/she potty trained yet etc etc) and one even commented she didn't know whether i was crazy or if i was a saint employing someone like her
i don't know your exact circumstances as you say you cannot terminate her -- but really, to be honest, if her behaviour doesn't change, it is not worth it in the long run.

You need to control her more on the concrete things and ignore her on the child comments.
We have had a few problems over the years and find that we ended up with what people put on here. We did have a stage of the nanny doing the total weekly shop before internet shopping days but I felt we were controlling things less so we changed to she writes things down and I order on line and delivery is when she or the cleaner is home to put it away.

We had a set amount for petrol once we'd taught her to drive and paid for her lessons and test.

Most of our nannies have been fine but occasionally if there was over spending like this we had to take back control of it and alter the system.

It's not just a nanny thing, either; our first childminder made me feel I was her employee looking after her child according to her specifications.
(before comments kick off- yes, I do know CMs aren't employees).

She was quite a bit older than me and had masses of experience and all the certificats anyone could possibly want. But...we were the parents. Tricky one...

eleusis - fear not - I only ever comment on my own errors or those on specifically pedant related threads...

Few....

Cory, I think your story is perfectly relevant. CHildminders do sometimes sit in a place where they straddle the lines of small business and employee. So I think it's fair that you don't want to be told what to do when you are the one paying the bill -- and you are the parent.

Jonquil, I hope you have found this useful. And I hope you haven't been put off asking for advise on employing a nanny. It's not always easy to be an employer. But it does have it's benefits. If it didn't none of us would do it.

Jonquil, how is it going? Have you talked to the nanny?