I got a comment a while back that stuck with me for a while. I was recounting my days in my Week of Money Spending Diary posts, and someone wrote something along the lines of:
“Where is the nanny in all of this?”
My immediate reaction was:
Nanny?
What nanny?
If I had a nanny do you think I’d be so busy with all of this stuff?!? I would not be cleaning jack squat and I would sit around in perfectly tailored, manicured nails, playing with my son while she does everything.
Unfortunately, that is not the case.
I think we have been so inundated with the latest and greatest “reveals” of how working mothers and fathers do it all and have it all owing all to the fact that they have a nanny.
This makes sense to some extent — if you have a lot of money, or make a lot of it, you should hire outside help to keep the peace at home and do the things you can’t get done during the day.
As much as I want to ignore that I am indeed in that super high upper crust tax bracket, it is clearly evident to me that basically every mother in my neighbourhood (even the ones who don’t work and are stay at home mothers), HAVE NANNIES.
They. All. Have. Nannies.
I know a woman who doesn’t work, and has two kids, and has not only a nanny but full-time daycare for both kids.
The nanny does the pickup, drop-off, and is at home doing the cleaning, cooking, laundry, etc.
She basically doesn’t lift a finger for anything, but this comes at a price.
Daycare + Nanny = twice the price.
And granted, it would be safe to assume that yes, since I make all this money, I WOULD have a nanny…. but please give me some credit in that if I had one, I would MOST CERTAINLY TELL YOU that I paid for help and how much I am paying for it.
I do not hold back on what it costs to live my life, so I was a little puzzled that someone would think I would deliberately hide the fact that I have hired someone… when in fact I don’t have anyone hired for anything.
I would be the last person to hide having a nanny and pretend I’m some sort of Super Mom because I am not. I’m drowning on the worst of days, and feeling proud and floaty in the best of them.
It is even worse for me I think, because I don’t even have any in-laws or my family around to help. It is literally the three of us for better or for worse.
And yet, I am the only one who doesn’t seem to have any outside help. NONE AT ALL. Not even cleaning help.
The closest thing I have to a “nanny” is the preschool that he goes to while I am at work, but the drop off and pick up is all me, and he is at home with me full time.
Or that I drop my clothes off for dry cleaning if they need it (but wince each time).
WHY!?
I guess I’m a sucker (or martyr) for punishment….
I wrote a couple of thoughts on this under – First World Guilt: Why won’t we pay for help, and when someone asked me again why I wouldn’t pay for help.
I thought about it even more, and it is just two main things:
A) I do not like strangers in my home
I do not like people I do not “know” as family or friends, in my house, doing things that I feel like I am physically capable of doing.
I like being able to just wear whatever I want and walk around half naked if I want.
I feel strange seeing other people do things for me.
This is not how I was raised and I have a serious mental block in paying for this help and letting them do these things when I AM FINE and CAPABLE of doing them.
Note — my parents also do not have any household help but recently as they are getting on in years, I am asking them to hire some cleaning help as my mother cannot do it all (my father is lazy and useless, he is very patriarchal and thinks that he is above all this household work).
B) Nannies are expensive
I also do not want to pay for them. How much do they cost? At least $2000 a month? I know in preschool for just the day I already pay about $900… and that is SUBSIDIZED daycare.
If I had to pay the real amount, it would be for certain at least $2000 or more for their help. This is a real job, folks.
Full-time help for your child, where they care for them, feed them, clean the house.. this is insanity to expect someone to earn less than minimum wage to achieve all of that.
So… that’s about it.
