The curse of Boff. Again.

[BoffinMum]

You are not going to believe this, guys. The lovely temp (and she really is lovely) who came today has had to leave because her mum was rushed into hospital. We don't know if/when she'll be coming back. So we are without childcare again! I am currently in Paris and DH was supposed to be going into work tomorrow because he hasn't been able to get in all week. He has no leave left either. Crikey! Anybody want three lovely children, two with diarrhoea?

Summersoon, um, what do I say? If I had a bit more support and a greater number of options, I wouldn't be in this position. As it explains earlier in the thread. And the related threads.

WRT being charming, after 22 years of biting my tongue in relation to childcare grief, occasionally my halo slips. I am human. I am offering you my moccasins so you can walk a mile in them, as then things might become clearer.

WRT leave, you can't suddenly take unpaid mid-semester leave when you're a lecturer, because we're all specialists and it means the students don't get taught, which isn't permissible.

WRT aunts, I have one who is 73, childless, and lives in Bristol (i.e. ten hour round trip in the car), so that's about as much use as a chocolate teapot, as is my SIL in Istanbul (also childless btw).

Honestly, if I had a quid for every time someone said naively "Why don't you just leave them with a relative?" I'd be a squillionaire. Do people think I am stoopid?

Sorry, Summersoon, you are pressing my buttons a bit.

I thought I would be and I am sorry. I believe that I said that I understand why someone like you can't take unpaid leave. But then again I think that everybody and everything is pressing your buttons at the moment and it is entirely understandable why. I really do understand how fed up you must be but I also think that if the "I am so angry I could blow my top and I have every right to blow my top" feeling becomes too obvious, it may not help you find the childcare you are looking for. Angry people do not make for attractive co-workers or bosses. That's all I meant to convey. I think I should probably leave this discussion if I am not being helpful but good luck with your continuing search anyway.

Sometimes it's appropriate to be angry if one is disempowered and if it helps things to change for the better. I am not the only person at my workplace who feels like this and the emerging groundswell of employee opinion will be very useful in getting something done about the lack of provision and flexibility. Being gushing and frankly attempting to manipulate jobsworths who have absolutely no intention of helping you ever, whatever you say or do, because frankly they get a kick out of being awkward only serves to fuel the beast. That is why public services in this country can let peple down so badly - it starts with small annoyances like this and becomes an institutionalised disease.

"That is why public services in this country can let peple down so badly - it starts with small annoyances like this and becomes an institutionalised disease."

Boff or anyone else, do you think there was a golden age of availability and flexibility of these services, or of qualifications and flexibility of nannies/CMs, which tempted people into work and ambitions that the system then declined and became crap at servicing?

Or has it all been a lie all the time?

I'm not being sarky; I am interested to know whether it ever worked for you or for anyone, meaning that its breakdown/withdrawal (I am including declining childcare work ethic standards, referenced earlier on this thead) has left people stranded. Or whether it was "too ambitious" in the first place to hope for childcare which would support a career. Mind you, I'm not sure what difference it makes which one it is, as the situation remains.

Or could it be that work has become more demanding (more students/worse ratios, less admin support, etc.)?

I do wonder whether I'm ever going to be able to get back to full time work of the sort I "enjoyed" before DS. And this sort of discussion doesn't make me feel any more optimistic! Perhaps I'm just tracing the outline of the prison!

i'm not sure there was ever a golden age. I'm also unconvinced that standards have fallen - as has been observed before people usually only post to let of steam so reading the threads on this board gives a distorted view.

it is possible to get childcare that supports a career - many of us have found it. however, a few observations (not necessarily any of which are applicable in Boff's case so not meant as criticism):

many people want proactive nannies who use their initiative - but also want the nanny to do everything the way the employer would have done it. there is an inherent tension here.

many people want a nanny who is as like them as possible - but actually a nanny like you wouldn't be a nanny but would be forging their own high power career.

many people are used to a hierarchy at work and the giving/receiving of instructions - a nanny relationship requires far more of a lateral communication channel to be successful.

many people want their child to be the nanny's focus but get upset by the emotional attachement that develops - another inherent tension.

i think the key to success (if there is one) is to keep a sense of perspective and remember that even if there is "perfection" out there it doesn't matter if you don't find it - good enough really is good enough.

sorry this is probably quite long and rambling - and you all have my sympathy - i can't pretend i'm not relieved that my days of relying on a nanny are over.

MrsWobble - that's a good post, to which I would add another point that is particularly relevant to our household right now:

• bringing up children involves multiple skills, some of which are really quite mundane while others are much higher level. It is unrealistic to expect a single nanny to to fill in all the gaps for parents across the spectrum.

Hm, my parents worked full time - very full time - 23 years ago and we had 11 years that I remember of excellent, trustworthy, professional nannies. My most recent FT perm employer, admittedly in France, worked a high level demanding job with lots of responsibility and international travel and has done since her son was born with her partner working in a similar job. I think it really can work but unfortunately parents are at the mercy of the childcarers, which is completely topsy turvy!

i don't think it's quite right to think of employers being "at the mercy of the childcarers" - the nanny's livelihood/income/accomodation is equally at the mercy of the employer.

what's important is that it is a two way relationship and that there is two way communication. I think this is what often goes wrong as in most of our daily life this two way approach isn't needed. if I go to a shop and they don't have what I want or I don't like the way they serve me or for any other reason i don't have to sort it out - I just go elsewhere. You can't take this approach to nannies (and rightly so - they are human beings with feelings and career aspirations etc). When parents are stressed and particularly when the financial burdens of childcare are significant I think this can get forgotten. This is understandable - but it's not the nanny's fault that childcare is expensive and it's certainly not her decision that you choose to use it. Keeping a degree of clarity about the problem can help solve it in most cases.

Another discrepancy in the nanny - parent relationship the whole 'not just a job' question.
It is perfectly possible to love your charges, do your very best by them but it isn't the only thing in your life.
Children are the most important thing in their parents life but for the nanny that is confined to working hours.
Parents have an invested interest in their own children; their love is specific where as I personally can transfer that love to any child anywhere in the world and have done. Parents often fail to understand this one.

The other difficulty I've come across is parents I've worked for don't like the nanny to have any interests outside of their work or ambitions. I study and I find it is really held against me as being 'undedicated' to the children.

I think these are very shrewd observations from all of you, and I appreciated the caveat that they are not aimed at me as I have hair trigger sensitivity at the moment since Nursery-Gate.

FWIW I think public services were always patchy and like any sector, at any time they include some dedicated people and some people who are utterly self-interested, with all the shades of variation in between.

In my work I plough what feels like a lonely research furrow wishing through my publications that it were otherwise. Sometimes I despair, and then I see some successful enduring initiative happen and I feel hopeful again.

I do think that British society only seems to value children as a) fragile fluffy objects to be protected or marketed at, or b) future work drones and taxpayers. We are lacking other constructions of childhood where children are actually people with personalities, preferences, families, and indeed lives outside the institutional or governmental context. Parents have to pick up the pieces of that.

Perhaps we should be nicer to parents in Britain.

Some families don't see their children as people. Merely extensions of themselves to be used for self gratification and to be 'lived through.'
My boss cannot STAND it when the children show any personality. She goes mad because she wants then to be just what she wants them to be and I am not exxagerating.

I think like you said childen are just pawns in a political game a lot of the time. Childhood is of social construct and can be deconstrcuted and reconstructed to suit whatever adults want it to be.

I don't believe the so called golden age my boss harps on about where nannies stayed until given the boot then rotted away in the attic like Nanny Hawkins ever did exist except for a few in the stately homes of Britain. I think it's one of the most dificult working relationships to define and maintain.

Gosh, Tavvy, it sounds as if your boss is more Victorian than the Victorians in her attitude to domestic staff and children. How can you bear it?

Parents are at the mercy of childcarers though- no childcare, no work. That of course doesn't mean that a single nanny has all the power over their employers but IME a nanny upping and offing is much more detrimental to the family left in the lurch than the nanny who loses the reference, especially if said nanny has lined up another 'better' job.

Thinking about what you wrote, Tavvy, I have had several occasions to be shocked at attitudes to nannies here in Paris. Just recently I was chatting to the grandmother and the mother of a schoolfriend of DD's, and the grandmother (who cannot be over 60) was reminiscing about the past when nannies were "part of the furniture" and "belonged" to families for their whole lives . And another mother of a little girl at DD's school got rid of her nanny because she had a boyfriend and a life outside work and wasn't sufficiently interested in the children...

Boff, sorry that I disappeared in a puff of internet smoke after Friday. Serves me right because I've missed a very interesting discussion.

FWIW WRT nannies and the working relationship I think it is one of the most difficult relationships one can experience, for a number of reasons:

a) it crosses the boundary between domestic and business dealings, and neither model of communication is specifically appropriate in that situation
b) nannying as a career is not built around a traditional career path so many of the conventional motivators - increases in responsibility, salary etc - are not present. I find this conflicts with my awareness that it is a hard job and that even I occasionally find my children wearing: sometimes I look at my nanny and think 'but what's in it for you?'
c) the fact that for most nannies the working relationship is not just with Mumboss but also with Dadboss, who is inevitably going to have his own agendas
d) and as everyone has said: the uniquely powerful position that childcarers hold presents many opportunities for paranoia to build extremely rapidly.

Interesting point about there being little public discussion of children as individuals and their personalities, rather than as tokens of success, or potential demand. I suspect that on one level that is inevitable - in all honesty, how much public discussion is there about any individual's personality? It seems so much easier for the media to deal in generalities.

However, I am very ashamed to admit that it is only in the past few weeks that I have started really paying attention to what makes DS1 tick, rather than tending to see him as a bundle of behaviours that need to be managed. Ach, writing that down seems like a bit of an exaggeration and has made me a bit sad, but I think it's truthful.

"I do think that British society only seems to value children as a) fragile fluffy objects to be protected or marketed at, or b) future work drones and taxpayers. We are lacking other constructions of childhood where children are actually people with personalities, preferences, families, and indeed lives outside the institutional or governmental context. Parents have to pick up the pieces of that."

Boff, I'm not sure that this isn't right in that I do think parents have the primary responsibility for their children and thus do have to "pick up the pieces".

I fully understand that it would be a lot nicer if life was made easier rather than more difficult by the constructs of the state (eg being able to get a child's dental checkup outside school hours to pick on my current bugbear) but I guess this is a bye product of the state needing to make arrangements for millions - it can't be personalised in the way that we would each individually like for our own families.

I also fully understand that warm thoughts about it being for the good of society are or absolutely no help when you are in the midst of a nanny crisis. I do hope you get that sorted soon.

Hello People!

Boff has just rung the agency and offered a nanny the job!

Best of luck Boff.
I really hope this one works out for you. You deserve a good nanny.

I was reassured that one of the referees spent as much time checking me out as an employer to see if I was good enough!

yah - just replied to your email as well boffy x

hope E works out - sounds good on paper and you said her refs check out well so heres hoping she will stay with you till F goes to school!!!

Oh, good news!

Don't stop with the discussion, though, people. This business about the tension within parents' own and a nanny's own expectations is really interesting, and should probably be read by more people (altho' that bit about the Naughty Nanny in the middle could be a bit of a problem if it were propagated further ). No doubt it applies to teachers, too.

Good news, I hope she accepts. One of her referees checking you out is def a good sign in my view.

Fingers tightly crossed for you!

Easily dealt with - new thread here