My Kids Should Fire My Ass

There's this woman I know who is forever bitching about her kids nannies. She bitches about their bathroom breaks, she bitches that they listen to the radio, she bitches that they answer their phones or check their e-mail, she bitches that when she returns home at night her house is not cleaner than she left it, she bitches that even though she told them they could feel free to eat her food for snacks they really should have known that meant only the cheap food and not the nice organic gourmet ice cream she buys for herself at the local farmer's market.

According to her the nannies should spend 100% of their time with the children, and said children should never watch TV, play video games or listen to anything other than classical music. If the nanny checks e-mail or answers her phone, she is not devoting her full attention to the children and this is bad. The nanny must also manage to cook and serve them homemade organic meals, while simultaneously paying 100% attention to them and engaging them in creative education play (see no TV above). She should stimulate them through a variety of sensory tasks and messy play, which should then be cleaned, leaving the house spotless, while still paying 100% attention to the children. I told her this was wildly unrealistic and asked her if this is what she does herself when alone with the children. No, of course not. She checks e-mail and answers her phone and let the kids watch videos, because for goodness sake's she needs to get things done and well, sometimes she just needs a break. But a nanny is a professional, paid to be with the children, and therefore both better at it and presumably more interested in it than Mom. And of course, she spies on her nanny, just to be sure everything is going according to plan.

Since she has the salary to pay a nanny, I'm guessing she works at a job that allows her to decide when she is going to take a bathroom break and how long that break is going to be. I'm guessing she checks private e-mail and makes private phone calls from work. No, wait. I know she does, because she has called and e-mailed me from work. I'm guessing she'd be pissed off if her employer spied on her and chastised her for not putting 100% of her attention into her job every single minute of her day with no breaks.

And I'm guessing she would fire my ass as a nanny. Because there are times when my children are home and awake when I check e-mail or chat or make/take phone calls or sometimes even blog. My kids get to watch TV and play video games and the only thing close to classical music they know is the Star Wars soundtrack. Sometimes I let them eat birthday cake or Halloween candy for breakfast. Sometimes I bribe them with TV and chips and cookies to let me use the bathroom in peace for as long as they can keep themselves entertained that way. Sometimes I let them build forts out of sofa cushions and fill the fort with pipe cleaners and paper cups and just whatever shit they find lying around and want to turn into robots or kittens or whatever they turn it into and then I just leave the living room all fucked up for days. Mom's messy and Mom's not high brow in her food or music or entertainment tastes and Mom's often bored, bored, bored as living hell with kids and Legos and Transformers and Dora the Explorer and Disney fucking Princesses. But I'm hoping they keep me anyway, because I sure love the hell out of them and sometimes I record those conversations they have, hidden in their fort, and listen to it again when they're asleep because they're just that beautiful.