When we had a night nurse come support us after Kaia’s birth for three months, she didn’t feel comfortable going through our cupboards to get a glass or plate on her own, so we always left a glass and a mug out for her to use for tea, water, or anything she wanted to drink. Because of this precedent, we also did the same thing for all the trial nannies who came, as well as our current full-time nanny. Apparently, this really upset our nanny on her first day, as she shared this with me yesterday.

“I was really upset on my first day when I came to work for you,” the nanny said to me yesterday. “You left out a cup and glass for me on the counter and said I could use those to drink.”

I was super confused and was waiting for the point. “Wait, so what was wrong with that?” I asked. I really had no idea where she was going with this.

“Because I felt like you were telling me that I could only use that cup and glass, and that I wasn’t allowed to use any other cup or plate or spoon,” she responded. “It was as though you were saying I wasn’t good enough to use the other cups or bowls you had. But then, I realized I had too quickly made that assumption because the next day, you laid out a different cup and glass, and I felt bad for jumping to that conclusion so quickly about you!”

I told her that was completely ridiculous, that I had explained to her that I left them out for her convenience. I even reminded her I told her to use whatever plates or utensils she wanted when she brought lunch and to use our microwave as she needed. But she apparently just tuned out when I pointed out that cup and glass on the first day, which was completely on her.

“You have to understand… I’ve been through a lot as an immigrant to this country,” she said to me. “People have not always treated me nicely, so that’s why I’m quick to judge and make assumptions. I know that’s not always fair, but I do it to protect myself.”

She and her husband had comfortable white-collar jobs in Jamaica. Before coming to the U.S., she was an accountant at a small firm in Montego Bay. She dressed up for work and wore heels. She spent money comfortably and lived well. She called herself a “princess” when living in Jamaica; she didn’t know what it was like to suffer or be looked down upon. Then, she came to the U.S., and everything changed for her. Nothing translated. Getting her papers took forever and was expensive and challenging. She realized that she was never going to become an accountant here and had to quickly find a plan B, and that plan B ended up being nanny work.

“All my nanny families have treated me relatively well, but there are many times when I have wondered what they really think about me,” she lamented. “They look down on me. They don’t think I’m smart or am educated. They don’t consider what my life was before I came here. I actually had a good career in Jamaica. Sometimes, my husband and I wonder if immigrating here really was better for our family.”

It’s a common immigrant story – people who are highly educated in their countries of origin, but that education doesn’t translate well in the U.S., and so immigrants work as cab drivers, nail technicians, or nannies. I feel for her a lot. But I also told her… I don’t honestly think I’ve done anything to make her feel lesser than or unappreciated. If anything, I’ve tried to do more to make her feel welcome and comfortable here. It would be nice, especially now that she’s been with us over a month, for her not to assume the worst of us. We’re all just trying our best to be good people and do the right thing.

Our nanny told me today that there were a lot of stereotypes based on the race of nanny families that nannies tend to have. As you’d probably guess, the average family these nanny friends have all worked for has been white, so any time they have worked with a non-white family, any good or bad stereotypes are based on usually just a single family or two. A couple of her nanny friends advised her not to take the job with us: “Chinese and Indian families are so demanding! They will expect so much and treat you terribly! They will nitpick you to death!” She said she didn’t get that sense from us during the trial, so she wanted to give us a chance, and so far, she’s glad she did. We’re the first family she’s ever worked for where she finally felt like she could be herself, she told me. “I feel like I can speak my mind and I won’t get punished for it here,” she said to me. “I can say things like ‘White people,’ and not feel like I just offended you!” She said she was particularly touched when she told me that the Trader Joe O’s I got her didn’t taste the same as Cheerios, and the next day, she saw the Joe O’s were replaced by a box of Cheerios. She said she was really surprised… in a good way. She even went home and told her husband how immediately I acted on that feedback.

Well, not all the stereotypes were bad. One nanny friend asked our nanny if we cooked a lot. She told them I did and would often offer her food, but she told me she had to decline occasionally because she was scared she would gain too much weight. This nanny friend told her that the last Chinese-Indian couple she worked for cooked so much that after just a couple months of working for them, she gained over 20 pounds! Our nanny said she did NOT want to repeat that for herself!

“You know, by the time I stop working with you, I will have become completely Asian!” the nanny joked with me this morning after I handed her a matcha oat milk latte I had just whisked.

Since starting with us just over two weeks ago, she has been introduced to matcha I’ve made. She’s sampled multiple Asian dishes I’ve made. She regularly drinks our Sri Lankan Dilmah tea. She’s enjoyed hand cut and peeled fruit, including Mexican ataulfo mangoes, which she revealed she’d never purchased before because she thought they looked small and wimpy compared to the larger Haitian mangoes she was used to buying in New York during mango season. Since I introduced them to her and she realized how good they were, she has started purchasing them because of me.

She’s also regularly listening to Mandarin Chinese nursery rhymes with Kaia and also trying to learn how to sing them, which I think is the most adorable thing. That’s one area where she’s totally one upped Chris. Her Chinese pronunciation, even though she has no idea what she’s saying, is far better than his.

Even though I wasn’t sure what our dynamic would be like with my working from home and her being in the next room with the baby, so far, it seems to be going pretty well. We talk occasionally and get to know each other, but when I’m working, she respects my space and doesn’t interrupt me. Hopefully, it continues to go well.

Today was the second time we took the baby to Queens. She’s already been on the subway a number of times, and so this is now our new Saturday routine revised. Pre-baby and during the pandemic, Saturday was our neighborhood exploration day to taste and try new foods and restaurants. Now, we’re doing it in a more condensed fashion since baby isn’t as fast moving as we are, not to mention I still have to go home and pump.

“You took the baby on the subway?” the nanny asked me a few days ago in shock. I told her about our usual Saturday outings and how we wanted to integrate her into them now. I told her we didn’t take her on the train until early April, after she had her two-month vaccinations.

She seems to be okay with the train, as long as the train is moving or I am at least standing up. She really hates being in the baby carrier while I am sitting down. The baby is also adjusting to warm weather given that today was the hottest day of her life at over 90 degrees F.

“This child likes to move, just like me!” Chris exclaimed gleefully.

Uh-huh. Right.

I think it’s generally a good rule of thumb to treat people you hire like human beings. That seems like a basic thing to ask, but it apparently isn’t so basic. As the saying goes, “Common sense is not so common.” Common decency isn’t so common, either.

I’ve read nightmarish nanny stories of nannies who were offered food by their employers only if it was expired or unwanted by the families. I’ve heard of nannies who were told they were not allowed to use the family’s microwave because their food smelled and would stink up their house. It’s really sad what some employers do with their nannies — basically treat them as though they are lesser human beings who deserve no kindness or respect.

One of the things our nanny said to me she was looking for when choosing her next family was “respect.” I was a bit caught off guard when she said that during the interview, as I wasn’t expecting to hear that, but it makes sense when I think of all the stupid stories above. A few days a week, I prepare a fruit bowl for her of fruit that I peel and cut up, and she initially had this look of shock on her face when I offered it. I mean.. I was already cutting and prepping fruit for myself, so it’s not much more work for me to do it for her. This morning, I offered to prepare her a cup of tea, and once again, she had this look of surprise on her face that I was doing this one thing for her. Preparing a cup of tea is simple: all I’m doing is putting a bag into a cup and filling it with hot water, but she was just so appreciative and thanked me multiple times when I handed it to her. It made me realize that she probably wasn’t treated that well by some of her past employers, and the thought just made me feel sorry for her.

I am not blind to the fact that we live in a classist society. The US is a country that likes to pretend it has no classes, or that everyone is “middle class,” but that frankly is just not the case. The people with big paychecks pay people with smaller paychecks to do to the work that they don’t want to do, or perhaps cannot do. The paycheck of the CEO of my company is likely at least 6-10 times what I get paid. He may look at my paycheck and think it’s pocket change. But the size of your paycheck is relative: I have a larger paycheck than my nanny, but then otherwise, how would I pay her…? But living in a classist society is not an excuse to treat other people like shit or as though they are lesser than you. Your worth as a human being should not be tied to the employment choice you make or the size of your paycheck.

It’s been an interesting week with our new nanny. Of course, it was rough the first two days when our baby was still getting acquainted with and used to her. It was brutal for me to sit in the second bedroom with my headphones on, just one wall separating me from my crying, screaming baby with a new nanny just trying to do her job and calm her down. Regardless of what call or what recording I was listening to, I could always hear her screaming, and it really broke my heart and made me feel like a terrible mom. I would occasionally come out of the room to try to comfort her, and while it would work, I didn’t want to get into the habit of doing it too much because I didn’t want to undermine the nanny or make the nanny think I didn’t trust her. These things just take time, as the fourth and fifth days have been going really well so far.

Our nanny certainly has opinions, though, and ways of doing things with other families that we just don’t want to do. For example, I will have Kaia wear the same onesie to sleep and the same outfit two days in a row assuming that they aren’t dirty or wet. Kaia is a baby, so she doesn’t have body odor the way adults do, so why bother changing the clothes if they aren’t dirty?

The nanny noticed I laid out the same pants for the baby to wear that she undressed her from the previous day, and she asked, “Aren’t these the same pants she wore yesterday?” I said they were, and there was no point in washing them if they were still clean.

“They aren’t clean, though; she wore them yesterday,” the nanny insisted.

“Did you have her roll around in dirt or grass at the park yesterday?” I asked her. “The pants look and smell clean. She doesn’t get body odor like adults do, so she’s fine.”

“She’s a baby, though! Babies are dirty!”

I told her that unless the baby was all over the playground or in mud, she wasn’t dirty, and adults were far dirtier because we actually smell and sweat. “Okayyyyyy, you’re the mom!” the nanny said, shrugging her shoulders in an exaggerated manner and putting the pants on the baby.

At the end of the first day with us, she asked if I wanted to have her empty the diaper pail every day. I told her that whenever it looked full, she could empty it.

“Most moms I’ve worked with ask that the diaper pail be emptied daily,” she said, looking confused.

I told her I didn’t think that was necessary given the whole point of having a diaper pail was to contain the smell of poop/pee, and if we emptied the pail every single day, that would create far more waste of garbage bags and be worse for the environment than necessary. And none of us would really benefit from that given what I said originally about smell.

She also wanted to have the baby use a new bib for each feeding. At that rate of use, we’d have to cycle through all her bibs every 2-3 days, which seemed ridiculous. If the bib only had a little spit up or could just be rung out, I wanted her to reuse the bibs. She gave me this look as though I just smeared baby poop all over her face.

Fridays are baby laundry days now, so when I told the nanny not to put the washed clothes in the dryer and instead to lay them out around the dining room table (yes, we’re hobos), she asked why we didn’t have a drying rack to hang the clothes on. I told her it just felt like unnecessary additional clutter, and given she was only going to be a baby for a finite amount of time, we’d just air dry the clothes up until the point we would add them to the dryer once she got bigger. She gave me some side eye and complied.

She is probably going home to her husband and telling him that her new nanny family is cheap and dirty. Well, that’s all right by me. We’re still getting used to each other. Things are going well given it’s now day 5, so we just need to get through the initial 2-week hump, and then we’ll be acclimated to one another.

On Monday when the nanny started, she seemed a bit warmer than she was when she did the trial. During the trial day, she seemed a bit formal and stiff, almost on edge probably given she knew I was evaluating her and watching closely. She hadn’t really given us any information in regards to what snacks she’d like to have in the apartment, so I told her we had lots of mangoes, and I heard (from one of her reference families) that she enjoyed mangoes. She smiled and said she noticed all the mangoes in our fruit bowls and was wondering where we got them from.

“But I have to tell you something…. you don’t know how to pick mangoes,” she said, with a somewhat mischievous, cheeky smile on her face.

Did she seriously just insult me and accuse me of not understanding mangoes… ON HER FIRST DAY? What does she know about how I choose the mangoes? She didn’t even look at them up close!

She explained that she grew up in Jamaica, so she always had many varieties of mangoes growing up, especially fresh ones picked super ripe off the tree. She said here, it didn’t matter if they were red, green, or yellow, that she knew how to choose the ones that were picked ripe vs. not ripe, and the ones picked ripe were always the best.

Okay, that’s a bit ridiculous and presumptuous for a couple reasons: 1) mangoes don’t grow in the U.S. other than in Florida, and I don’t really care for Florida mangoes. 2) the majority of mangoes in the U.S. are imported from Mexico, and when you are crossing borders with fruit, especially fruit as delicate as mangoes, it’s pretty much impossible to pick the fruit ripe and transport them long distances without destroying them or having them go rotten. As a result of this, mangoes need to be picked green and unripe and then ripen off the tree. That’s sad, but it’s just a fact of living here and eating them. 3) There is just no way in hell she is getting mangoes picked ripe off any tree anywhere in the northeast of the United States no matter what she tries to tell me. She may have grown up in the tropics with mango trees galore, but I understand food transport and what is real vs. fantasy.

“You do realize that the majority of mangoes in the U.S. come from Mexico, right?” I asked her pointedly. I told her that the yellow Ataulfo mangoes were generally the safest bet here. She disagreed, but hey, we’re all entitled to our own opinions.

We’re still getting into a groove. She tends to get a little defensive when I give suggestions or try to correct her, but well, this was always going to happen regardless of how good she was because I’m working from home and will see her interacting with my child, and well, I AM this child’s mother, so I know how she behaves generally and what she likes and doesn’t like. Overall, she seems a bit timid and like she is still coming out of a shell, but her opinionated side comes out at odd times like it did with the mango scenario. Hopefully she’s just quirky and things will smooth themselves out over time… Because I really do not want to have to search for another nanny.

Tonight, Chris and I went to a wedding of a former colleague friend of mine. When I originally got the invitation late last year, I wasn’t 100% sure that I wanted to go. This colleague was a good friend of mine while I was at my former company. But ever since I had left this company, we really hadn’t spoken much at all other than a few texts here and there. I saw her just once last October. So I was actually surprised to have gotten an invitation. But Chris just said that we should go for the food and drink. We hadn’t been to a wedding since before the pandemic, so why not go? After ensuring that a friend that I actually still keep in contact with from this company was going as well, I reluctantly decided to RSVP yes. That friend ended up bailing out last minute because she tested positive for COVID the day before. Ugh, just great.

Well, we went to the wedding tonight, and it reminded me of all of the things that I hated about my last company. Don’t get me wrong: the wedding was beautiful. It was really well done. I enjoyed the fact that both the bride and groom wrote their own vows. I thought that the best man speech was really heartfelt and sweet. The food was amazing, particularly at cocktail hour when there were multiple food stations and endless hors d’oeuvres being served. There was an open bar, which of course made Chris happy. But I was reminded of things like… The bro culture with a number of white guys in the New York office. And some of the prissy, gossipy, dramatic women who used to be in that office who unfortunately were also in attendance. And some of the HR bullshit that I had to deal with while I was there… Like the one person who tried to report me to HR because I told her that she needed to lower her voice while on a call in the middle of the floor because the rest of us were on our own calls, and her voice was carrying. She actually was invited to this wedding to my disgust. Back then, she apparently got really upset and told HR that my tone of voice was very rude and unprofessional. And if you can believe it or not, HR told my manager and asked my manager to talk to me about it. Yes, that’s the kind of ridiculous bullshit that is a high school like that I had to deal with at my last company. And you can bet that I absolutely did not speak with this person at the wedding or even make eye contact with her. This is definitely the last time I ever go to a wedding where I know that there’s going to be a lot of ex-colleagues who are going to be there. 

And what made this even worse is that the babysitter that we hired was a complete moron. And I think that our baby got the sense that she was terrible because she was crying and screaming nonstop when we left. I should’ve taken that to mean something. This babysitter put our baby to sleep in her bassinet without her swaddled as I requested, and she even left a bib on her. You never, ever leave a bib on a baby when she goes to sleep. That is considered unsafe sleep because the baby could potentially get strangled! Plus, the swaddle blanket was just hanging on the bassinet above her! The babysitter apparently told us that pretty much all of the time when she was not eating and awake, she was crying. My baby hated this person. And this person left a bunch of her trash on my kitchen counter and a bunch of her food bits all over my sink. She also left food stains on our dining table. When we got home, our baby was in her bassinet sleeping, and the babysitter was on her phone on our couch. She didn’t even bother cleaning her trash before she left.

This is why people prefer to have trusted family and friends babysit. Because you wouldn’t have to deal with shit like this. Or, they just don’t go out at all once they have a baby.