'High fliers' and nannies

[Takver]

I've seen in several places recently (including in threads on here, and for example in this article in last Saturday's Guardian) an assumption that if you are a wealthy and successful family where a nanny provides most of your childcare this is likely to result in your children being less 'stimulated' / likely to become highfliers themselves / otherwise missing out.

Typical quote from the piece linked to: "You assume they'll be intelligent, but you've never wondered how this will come about: when they try to interact with you, you're too busy."

Now maybe I'm overthinking this, but it seems to me that if we go back 40 or 50 years, it would have been the absolute accepted norm in a wealthy family for nannies / other staff to do the vast majority of childcare, and indeed for boys at least to then be sent off to boarding school from age 7 onwards. I can't imagine that anyone would have dreamed that this would in someway disadvantage their children or result in them being less successful themselves when they grew up. Of course back then the women of the family wouldn't have had the option to have top jobs themselves, they would have been occupied with their social functions.

Yet now - when women are able to access high flying jobs - we are told that this pattern of purchased childcare is going to disadvantage the children. And of course the corollary of this assumption is almost invariably that it is the mother - never the father - who is in some way being selfish by devoting their time to work and not childrearing.

I should say that I don't have any direct interest here myself - I am absolutely Ms-hippy-nature-walks-and-crafty-shit-mother but it just seems to me like another cunning way to stick women right back where they belong . . .

Lifestyles of the rich and (mn) famous

I don't know anyone really rich but most people I know do ok and are very successful. I don't know anyone with a spare £30k to spend on a nanny. All the lovely, intelligent, creative mums I've met whilst on mat leave are going back to work as they cannot afford to be at home.

You're so right. In the same way, not breast feeding, or finding breast feeding hard, is portrayed as a modern problem with career women types, but actually many better off women would employ wet nurses historically. Presumably that was ok because at least one (poor) woman was having to suffer! Disclaimer: I breastfed, so I'm not massively pro formula, but it is blinking hard work! Also please note that I am not intending to start a bf vs. Ff debate as they've been done a zillion times and they do get tiresome!

Well bonsoir since your DP manages to be such a good parent and work, what makes you think others can't manage it?

See, I don't believe either of the clichés that you cite, wordfactory - that it is indifferent to DCs if they spend a lot of time with a nanny, and that divorce damages children.

IMVHO, what damages children is lack of attention from involved parents. You can be divorced and highly involved but if you spend hours and hours at work and outsource childcare, it is really hard to be highly engaged with your DCs' lives.

Sorry just now read entire thread and seen it has gone in an entirely different direction! Not sure my previous post is that relevant now!

I don't think others cannot manage it . But my DP can do it because we have made a lot of life decisions as a family to make it possible, including having one SAHP to manage the framework and the strategy as well as day-to-day execution.

DP found it very difficult (impossible) to be the parent he wanted to be with his exW.

My mum worked full time from when I was 3 months old - she was a partner in a solicitors firm. We had a nanny who was with us for 5 years (until my youngest brother was 2). I don't think any of us are particularly anxious or aggressive or anything else - we're all in good relationships with good jobs and we're all very very close to my mum because when she was with us or needed she was completely there.

I have a nanny for my children. She lives locally, we have a few village friends in common and I've known her in passing for 10 plus years. She is also z native Englishh speaker Bonsoir!

She isn't as academically clever as me but she's very good at running around parks and playgrounds and coming up with good craft ideas on wet days so I really don't think my children will be overly damaged by the 25 hours per week they spend with her. I would also expect to hear about any problems when we're snuggled up in our family bed each night. I only tend to hear about what a nice day the DC have had except (the horror) when she gets them to tidy up.

Read some other examples of that Guardian column though to see how misogynistic it can be.

Well Bonsoir you've lost me now.

Your DP doesn't do the bulk of looking after the DC as he is in work (I would imagine it's fairly full on stuff) and he doesn't live with his DC full time. But he is able to be involved.

Yet you think parents can't manage to be invollved who work and live with their DC full time? Why not if your DH can do it?

Yes engagement matters. Many a housewife is there for 10 hours a day, feet up gin bottle open or chocolates or prozac or mobile in hand and hardly makes eye contacted with the neglected children around her feet. Plenty of working and non working parents are pretty bad at engagement.

In general working makes women and men happier to their engagement with children as a result is better. A balanced life of parents is best rather than "my child is God and we all bow down at its feet and do as it says", centre of the universe type of child rearing is pretty bad as is "I am mother God, no one on this planet not even my husband can possibly change a nappy better than I am" - the latter type tend to have so little in their lives and so little success or interests out of home they have to create a fake maternal omnipotence. They almost make being a parent into a job which it never has been and never will. It elevates to a status they otherwise would not have. To parent was never was and never will be a verb. It is a noun. We are parents. We live lives as women, we often lead, we can make a fortune, we can be ambitious and successful and engage in a wide range of hobbies and also bring up children. The latter if part of what we are but if we make it everything we do our children and ourselves a disservice.

Those mother Gods are quite amusing to observe but tend ultimately not to be very happy.

What studies show is children want contented parents. Few housewives are happy and they get little thanks for taking on dull domestic work and cleaning and doing childcare for no pay. It is the lowest of the low and unpaid or else if they were a cleaner paid at the very lowest rates so if they make it their all they tend to resent it. However many could never really have managed to get much of a job anyway so it may be the best they can have.

Honestly and truthfully,wordfactory, he sees and talks to them more than any other father I know who sleeps in the same house as his DCs every night. You might find that hard to comprehend (you obviously do), but it is so. But I suspect your life is very traditional in many ways and that urban lives escape you.

bonsior - i live an urban life and am very untraditional, and do wonder how it can be possible...just for your family.

from the outside it looks like one standard for men and another for women. i guess that is just how the world is ATM.

It's not just my family. Why do you think that?

How you communicate. Dp sees more of dcs than any other father and its possible cause of how you run the home. That's pretty specific.

And your dp does sound like a male xenia to me. Successful and child focussed. Can you see that similarity?

I'm a happy housewife (or have been)

But due to wanting more for my children I have set up a child minding business.
Won't make me millions but it will be a satisfying and worthwhile job. But it is funny how doing the same job but getting paid for it earns you more respect.

If you do staying at home with your children well it should be of no detriment to them.

Bonsoir if you can accept that your DH is so very engaged with his children despite not being a full time SAHP, why do you find it hard to believe that WOHMs may also be very engaged with their children?

Many a housewife is there for 10 hours a day, feet up gin bottle open or chocolates or prozac or mobile in hand and hardly makes eye contacted with the neglected children around her feet

Just who the hell are these housewives of which you speak so knowledgeably?

Xenia, you are really quite peculiar. You are like a carthorse with it's blinkers on who marches down the street ignoring everything in its path but the nosebag on the end of its nose.

Do you like being so rude and unpleasant to people? Do you see it as feminist, assertive and direct? I'd very much like to know.

minipie that was my point.

If it's fesible for Bonsoir's partner, then why so very impossible for others?

I cannot believe that only one model of family life can work. And that model just so happens to be Bonsoirs or xenias. The fact that they are both so rigid in their refusal to see postives in other set ups is astonishing to me.

I see great families everywhere, living all different kinds of lives.

Frankly as a professional nanny myself i find this thread a tad insulting.

Some of you seem to think i get up at an ungodly hour and return home when its dark, just to doss around all day and drag the children in my care vaguely up!

I am a highly qualified British nanny, who spends 60+ hours min a week with the children in my care. Between myself and their parents we see ourselves as three mature adults striving to bring them up in the best way possible. There is no 'im better than you' attitude, each adult is there when they are there, and do they best they can in that time.

The children are bright individuals, they have a strong attachment to all 3 of us, but also to grandparents/ cousins/ family friends.

As far as young children/babies go, they are bright, caring, meeting all milestones and a pleasure to spend time with

Being a nanny is my job, yes, but all parties involved deserve respect and the adults involved need to be collaborative together for me to stay with my employee. I always work in long term positions and have only moved on when the family no longer needs a nanny, every child/family i had cared/worked for is still in regular contact.

If SAHMing involved putting your feet up with the gin bottle all day I'd do it like a shot (as long as it's tanqueray, none of that Gordons muck). but it doesn't. It's hard work and I'm much better at it if I don't do it all the time. Also I have more money and can afford things like private education, which is also advantageous to some children, certainly mine.
What always bemuses me about people on these threads is the total bone-headed refusal to see that what works so well for you may not for others because, newsflash, WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT.

Forever, my nannies/childminders when I was a child were great. I think they contributed to the whole of my life. they contributed something unique because they were in addition to my parents.

Very interesting to hear from the two people (I think - apologies if I've missed anyone) who had a nanny when they were small - both pretty positive, I'd say.

Maybe it would be worth starting another thread in chat or somewhere more frequented to try and canvas some more opinions from those on the other side of the fence?

Also good to have your view as a nanny, forevergreek. I've not had much contact with nannies, but as above my experiences with childminders have all been very positive - I can't imagine any child spending time with the minders I've known wouldn't have gained from the experience.

Takver, I've always thought it would be interesting to have a thread about how peoples early years care have affected their childcare choices as parents.

Well, I've just started a thread over in chat, will see if anyone answers it . . .