Just the Nanny
A Longtime Nanny Reflects on Parenting, Motherhood, and Secrets Kept
Parent to Parent
“The Breakdown”
Dad Can Do It
Braiding Hair 101
The Temporary Parent
A Foster Mom Explains Her Insight Into Troubled Teenage Boys
Together We Can
Black Parent Initiative Helps African American Parents Embrace Identity
Build a Better Parent
What Can American Families Learn from Japanese Free-Range Parenting?
Ask the Parent!
“Can I Send My Kid to College?”
Scrotal Recall
Or, I’m a coward and my vasecomy wasn’t all that bad
Weāre at the bookstore where Eleanor, edging on two and dangerously bright, gropes the staff weekly picks like summer fruit. Touching her back, I remind her again to look with her eyes, not her hands.
āThatās great parenting.ā
Itās the cashierāa woman with a short bob and blunt bangs.
āThanks,ā I say, yanked toward the fiction section by a small forceful fist. Eleanor feels about bookstores the way most kids do about toy stores, which I adore.
āMy son was so wild,ā the cashier says. āI always told him what not to do: Donāt touch this, donāt do that. Itās great you tell your daughter what she can do.ā
Eleanorās grabbed The Best American Short Stories off a display, which she wants to read and possibly damage, so Iām only half-listening to Blunt Bangs.
Iāve grown adept at responding to the attention that precocious Eleanor attracts. My system: If the interaction consists of a single exchangeāe.g., āYour daughter is just darling!ā āThanks.āā I keep the mask on. But once it veers into conversation, I take it off. Itās like a compulsion.
āOh, actually, Iām just the nanny.ā (I always say ājust.ā)
Blunt Bangs: āThat makes much more sense! I was looking for a similarity, and didnāt see any.ā
I shrug and smile, but feel injured by her scrutiny, which reveals the unfair assumption that relation and morphology are always linked. There are so many situations in this day and age where a parent and child may not ālook alike,ā but are no less parent and child.
But of course, Iām not the parent.
Eleanor and I return home. I give her lunch, and we collect the necessary accoutrements for a napāfour dolls, a couple of books, the pacifier. As I cycle through the usual repertoire of bedtime songs, Eleanor, a fervent cuddler, knees me in the bladder, elbows me in the throat, and head-butts me in the kidney. Yet amidst her peevish mauling, a hand always finds my breast; a poignant reminder of what I cannot provide.
Eleanor entered my life when I desperately needed her. Fresh out of graduate school, I was unemployed, and wrecked by the dissolution of a relationship. I received the usual advice from friendsāget out, see people, distract yourselfāfor me, this meant a baby.
This might sound insane. But in the chilling despair of no structure, community, or partner, I knew I needed to pour myself into someone; knew that a small warm body against mine would be the only way to heal my heartbreak and realign my sense of purpose. And I was right: Eleanor saved me.
But for all of its healing, nannying has its own heartbreak as well. As a single woman well into my childbearing years, thereās no denying that taking care of other peopleās children triggers my own, very present, maternal instinct. I experience acute moments of grief and longing in caring deeply for children who I say goodbye to each day. In a way, Iām playing houseāfunny, since as a child Iād always choose the roles of ādogā or ārugāāeach day running off when the ābig kidsā get home.
A couple rooms over, Charlotte, Eleanorās mother, is working. Once Eleanor is asleep, we convene. I report the dayās happenings: Eleanor refused blueberries at breakfast, we had a tea party, then read the entire Sandra Boynton shelf at the bookstore. I do not mention the interaction with Blunt Bangs.
We begin to discuss the upcoming transitions in her toddlerās life: upgrading to a toddler bed, potty training, weaning off the beloved pacifier. Charlotte looks exhausted and bewildered by these prospects.
āWhat would you do if you were me?ā
I can tell by the way she waits for a response, eyes focused on mine, that Charlotte is not looking for an answer she could find on a parenting blog.
But Iām not her. I donāt know what itās like to be married, or a mother, or a working woman entangled in the complicated pulls of domesticity.
Iām just the nanny. Which was never the plan.
When I earned my MFA in creative writing last spring, this was the last thing I wanted to do. Before grad school, I had spent years covered in spit-up, glue, and glitter as a nanny, camp counselor, and school aide. I had sought out a masterās degree as a means of career growth, and a renewed commitment to the writing life. As graduation approached, I thought, do anything, anything, but go back to childcare.
A return to nannying felt like a regression. Like it would discount the work I did in graduate school: lesson plans prepared, college classes taught; books pored over, analyzed; the thesis defended. I feared that despite efforts to cultivate a more āadultā life (literally, a life with more adults), I was destined to nurture.
Sure, I have thoughts on potty training and transitioning out of a crib. But looking at Charlotte, slumped in a chair, I know that my stance on three-day potty training is relatively inconsequential compared to her need, as a first-time parent, for my compassion.
āI donāt know what Iād do,ā I say. āThere is no one way.ā
In this moment, weāre not an employer and employee; weāre two women who donāt know whatās next.
Being a nanny grants you intimate access to the life of a family, a powerful position to be in. As such, I take great care with what I disclose to parents. Itās not that I have anything to hide, per seāI love the babies I work with, I love their families. But I am terrified of hurting them.
Which is why I donāt mention Blunt Bangs. And why I say Eleanor ate two pieces of toast, but leave out how she nuzzled her head into my leg, and sighed, āI love you,ā as I buttered the third crustless slice.
How would a mother feel if they saw a stranger mistake me for them? Would it hurt her to hear I donāt always ādisownā their child forthright? That I donāt always pause to explain my employment status? Or is this role-confusion a mark of my competence as a caregiver?
Of course, thereās a certain thrill in āpassing,ā but because I have an almost theistic respect for motherhood, I feel compelled to pay due homage to those who are true practitionersāwhich is to say, not me.
Iām not the one pacing the halls with an inconsolable baby, or hooked up to a breast pump. I donāt get woken up in a barfy bed, or step on Legos in the dark.
I go home. I sleep alone. I eat Girl Scout cookies for dinner and scroll through the dayās pictures of dimpled hands clutching daffodils to a soundtrack of my housemateās shitty shower music.
Or maybe Iām wrong. Maybe Charlotte doesnāt care if strangers think Eleanor is mine. This is all a masquerade Iāve created to protect myself. To hoard these moments as placeholders for a day when Iām not just the nanny.